Hello,
You know, these opinions really roast my yoyomas.
Actually the joke is IBM, sushi, and "cold, raw fish", but that is another
story.
Micros~1 does NOT have the best marketing in the world, despite what
everyone thinks. And Apple does not have the worst marketing. And I hate
always hearing how Micros~1 products suck, but because of their
marketing....
Well, the Newton died because the first released sucked and was
overpriced. Badly on both counts. The MP2k finally gave a glimpse of what
the Newton could do, but it was still overpriced and Apple was bleeding
money at an unGodly rate. Steve killed the Newton because 'Focus is about
saying No'. And Apple sorely needed focus. And sure everyone in the world
has anecdotes about how Australia was going to buy 10,000 of them, and
France had orders in for thousands more. But somehow I doubt that. Steve
had full access to all the financials, which I may add, no one here did.
And I really doubt (even with Steve killing because it was Sculley's pet
project) that if it was all of a sudden going to become a cash cow Jobs
would of killed it. Apple needed either IMMEDIATE income or IMMEDIATELY
needed to cut of projects that were losing money. If Apple had orders for
at least 10,000 and the average profit margin of @ 30% then that is @ $3M
of pre-sold Newtons right now. I doubt even Jobs would turn his back on a
definite, immediate $3M.
And now about Micros~1 having the best marketing, they don't. Micros~1
has DOS and only until recently Windows. And that is it. As a general
rule, Micros~1's products suck until around v3, then they are somewhat
usable. Well, do you know what allows Micros~1 the ability to continue
revising their products until they get to v3? DOS. It is that simple.
Let's look at the products.
Windows 95 is the only OS that people have bought to upgrade their
machines. Every other MS OS including Win2k and XP have very few purchased
upgrades. Because MS had DOS, they had a constant revenue stream. This
stream allowed them to fail with Windows 1,2 & 3. Until they finally got it
a little right with Windows 3.1. Then they came out with windows 95/98/Me
(basically the same OS). They could afford to fail constantly because of
the income from DOS.
Palm is losing money. PocketPC is losing money. PocketPC is losing SO
much money that some licensees have discontinued producing PocketPC
handhelds. But because MS has revenues from OEM OS deals, they have deeper
pockets. And what do people think when they always read how Palm is losing
money but MS is constantly making money?
Office. I remember when a database cost $600 (Ashton-Tate dBase). I
remember when an application cost @ $300 per. I remember when the best word
processor was WordPerfect (I always likes Ami Pro myself). The best
spreadsheet was Lotus 123, and the best presentation software was Harvard
Graphics. And Access was a terminal/communications program by Micros~1 that
failed miserably. How do you think Office got the domineering marketshare
it has now? Because only MS could afford to bundle all the software
together for $450. And how could they afford to do that? DOS.
Exchange. Exchange sucks. And it failed miserably went it was first
introduced. Care to guess how it is the #1 email software now? MS is
giving it away. When I worked in Richmond, VA Micros~1 almost GAVE the
large company I worked for Exchange. Why? Because we were running cc:Mail
and were going to switch to Notes. And MS wanted to use the company as
propaganda showing another company that converted from cc:Mail to Exchange.
And when you are talking about dozens of servers and tens of thousands of
licenses, the CEO doesn't look for the best solution. He decides between
'Free, and maybe some magazine interviews' and regular price. And how can
MS afford to do this? DOS/Windows.
Licensing agreements. HP sells a WONDERFUL email program called OpenMail,
arguably the best in the world. And HP COULD NOT try to sell us OpenMail,
HP could only put in a bid of them implementing Exchange. If we gave them a
signed agreement that we would NOT implement Exchange, then they could put
in a bid for OpenMail. Another way MS twisted their OEM OS licensing to
force out a competitor's product.
Web browsers. Micros~1 bought IE. I fellow I used to work with had a
retail box from the first company that released it. MS bought it and gave
it away. And I have read in more than one place that MS has invested over
$1.5B in IE. Yet they could afford to give it away, unlike other companies.
And how could they afford to give away @ $1.5B? DOS.
Webserver market. Anyone remember when the best commercially available
webserver was from O'Reilly & Associates? Yup, the technical book people.
MS killed the ENTIRE webserver market with a simple licensing rewrite.
People were setting up webservers and there were quite a few available. And
there were plenty of I386 machines around. And newly released NT
workstation/server was a version of windows that finally stable. So people
poked and prodded and they found out that Server was essentially the same
thing as Workstation, except NT WS was @ $300 cheaper. So people and
companies deployed their webservers on NT WS. Well, MS didn't like this so
they rewrote the NT WS license agreement that said that there couldn't be
anymore than 10 simultaneous TCP connections to NT WS, while NT server was
unlimited. Well, IIS while crappy, came with NT Server. And most people
weren't gonna spend another $400 to purchase a webserver after they spent
$650 on Server. So overnight, the I386 webserver market died. Thank God
for Apache now. But how could MS afford to strong-arm the new market?
Because of the position they were in because of DOS/Windows.
Look at all of the other markets MS is throwing money into.
Xbox - supposed to lose money for at least the next 2 years.
MSNBC - Laying of people right now.
WebTV - Lost so much money I think they have already canceled it or rolled
it into another business unit.
MSN - Still losing money.
Microsoft doesn't have the best marketing. They make so much money from
(illegal I may add) OEM OS deals and now from Office that they can afford to
burn in as many markets as they like. Along with their competitors.
And don't forget new technologies that MS rolls into the OS, like MSN, IE,
Passport, and MSN Messenger. For us to get competitors software, we have to
go there, download it, and install it. MS forces it into the OS. So if 40
million people purchase a new PC, then 40 million immediately have access to
the new stuff. And as people upgrade their PeeCees, they get the new MS
stuff also. In other words, MS will ALWAYS get their technologies deployed
to almost 100% by simply people upgrading their Peecees over a 4 year
period. They don't have to do anything else.
The problem is that when the competitors lose money, they go out of
business. When MS starts to lose money they either release and "upgrade" or
change the licensing on their commercial licensees.
Microsoft has deeper pockets than everyone else. That is why they
succeed. Not to mention, MS can throw more money & people at a side
business that their direct competitors (in their core business) in that
market.
So when a manger makes a business decision, they KNOW MS is not going out
of business, unlike Lotus (merged), Ashton-Tate (merged), Corel (almost
dead), Borland (barely succeeding as a development company after almost
going out of business challenging MS), WordPerfect (merged), and many, many
more that are barely hanging on.
Later I may send out an email about their other tactics:
Deliberately coding error messages to display when a competitor's fully
compatible product is used. (DR-DOS)
Deliberately disabling a competitors product with 'print drivers'. (OS/2)
Killing a new market by announcing a product that did not exist and was
never to exist. (Pegasus)
Giving away software to ISPes with bogus conditions. (IIS)
Pre-announcing a killer groupware program that turned out the be a crappy
email program just to take mindshare from Notes. (Exchange)
Announcing new technologies that don't exist and then saying that the
technologies were really only code words (NT/Cairo)
I hope the DoJ gets it right.
David
>
> Apple and Xerox Marketing. There was the joke that if Xerox ever bought
> Kentucky Fried Chicken, they'd market it as "Hot, Dead Chicken".
>
> :P
>
> Gary
>
>> Maybe not my day, but sometimes I feel that Apple will always be the
>> loser.
>> The greatest ideas, the dumbest marketing and direction...
>>
>> -Laurent.
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