10 Ways to Jumpstart Vista Sales
Memo to Steve Ballmer: It’s time for Microsoft to rethink its Windows Vista marketing plan. Sure, Vista has sold 20 million licenses. But everyone from Wall Street to Main Street U.S.A. knows Vista isn’t living up to its hype. Here are 10 logical steps Microsoft should take to jumpstart the Vista sales engine.
1. Keep It Simple: Microsoft currently offers too many versions of Vista: Ultimate, Home Premium, Home Basic, Business, Enterprise. You’ve stalled the decision process by forcing customers to think about which Vista they need. Stop the nonsense. Apple offers one simple version of Mac OS X Tiger. Microsoft should follow suit. Stop artificially segmenting the market in a lame attempt to charge more for high-end Vista versions. Offer one reasonably priced Vista for all of us.
2. Raise Your Hardware Requirements: There’s nothing worse than using Vista on an underpowered PC. Admit that Vista has hefty hardware requirements and celebrate its performance on high-end PCs. Don’t allow Vista to be installed or sold on PCs with less than one gigabyte of RAM.
3. Reconnect With Security Software Makers: During the Vista development process, Microsoft alienated Symantec, McAfee and other security vendors. Yes, Microsoft should attempt to safeguard Vista. But Vista should also play nice with third-party security software. That way, your partners actually work with you to promote Vista.
4. Find Three Applications To Promote: Microsoft currently promotes three Vista features — security, desktop search and the 3D user interface. That’s like an auto dealer foolishly promoting the door locks and nifty dashboard on a car. Although the 3D interface is slick, the rest of your promotional messages are a yawn. Reach out to your three best software partners and give them co-marketing dollars to promote three killer applications for Vista.
5. Protect Your Retail Brand: Microsoft relies too heavily on retailers like CompUSA to promote its software. Few retail employees can describe Vista’s power and benefits. Meanwhile, Apple Stores are filled with smart evangelists who know every detail about Apple hardware and software. Rethink your retail relationships, Microsoft. Stick with retail partners that understand quality (Best Buy) rather than retailers that specialize in store closings and layoffs. So, where can you find experts to promote Vista in retail stores? The answer presents itself in my suggestion number 6.
6. Engage Your Evangelists: Train regional Windows User Group members to promote Vista. Give all User Group presidents discounted notebooks and PCs running Vista, so that they can describe the operating system’s merits to friends, neighbors and local businesses.
7. Go Back to College: Reach out to Dell, HP and other PC makers now. Plan simple, high-profile Vista promotions for college kids who plan to buy PCs before heading back to school this coming fall. Again, keep things simple: Apple’s notebook line includes the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. Inspire your mobile partners to offer only a few, clearly positioned Vista models.
8. Don’t Forget K-12 Schools: Rally PC makers in the K-12 market. Get kids using Vista, and they’ll ask their parents for Vista PCs at home.
9. Polish Your Server Pitch: Tell CIOs and corporate customers how Vista will connect to Windows Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server and your other enterprise applications. And actually find ways to integrate Vista with Linux servers. Don’t try to “lock” businesses into an all-Windows world. Those days are gone.
10. Don’t Attack Apple: You’ll be tempted to attack Apple in the months ahead. Do not directly respond to Apple’s hip TV ads. Instead, describe Vista’s merits and killer applications.
With any luck, these steps will get Vista sales going long before the holiday upgrade season.
That’s all for now, Mr. Ballmer. It’s time for The VAR Guy to sign off. His MacBook Pro needs a recharge.
Make sure your product is actually ready before releasing it. I just bought a Thinkpad with Vista in Hong Kong and within a week had had it downgraded to Win XP. There have been so many complaints here about Vista that a number of dealers have got permission from Microsoft to downgrade to Win XP, and then they give you Vista recovery disks so that you can try upgrading back to Vista at some point in the future when its ready.
Don’t make annoying, seemingly pointless changes just so it looks different from XP – such as renaming common tasks in the Control Panel and changing the file directory structure. This means that it takes your users much longer to get used to Vista.
As you would expect with a complicated problem, there are going to be myriad and varying suggestions for how to deal with it. I disagree with most of the approach suggested above, but it’s important that we’re at least starting to see acknowledgement by the professionals that Vista has created serious problems that require immediate attention.
In brief, where I most disagree with the above is:
1.) Accepting the complexity–Microsoft needs to trim away some of the bloat, not issue higher hardware requirements.
2.) Simplifying product line–not essential, since in light of 1.) you would guess that I believe versions with different feature levels is okay;
3.) Getting away from Windows-only environment–wrong, institutional users are perfectly happy with the simplicity of a unified environment so long as it works, can be maintained easily, and doesn’t cost too much. Never give up monopoly power when you have it. Fix the software quickly and you don’t have to give up control of the most lucrative monopoly on the face of the planet. I don’t believe in this from a user’s viewpoint, but from the point of view of the company it wouldn’t do to look at it any other way.
4.) outreach and evangelism–not going to work, and going to sound phony. The product must be likeable enough and user-friendly enough to sell itself.
[…] 10 Ways to Jumpstart Vista Sales (Though I disagree with #3, since they#8217;ve gotten to invasive. I#8217;d rather people go without than run Mcaffee or Norton these days.) […]
Killer app for Vista? Uhhh, what was that again?
You say “Don’t Attack Apple”, forgetting to mention the very vicious attacks on GNU/Linux. SCO and Novell for litigation, anti-Linux Web sites, shilling journalists, and lies (backed by paid-for ads like Get the Facts crusade) are just among the many examples.
ONLY 2 versions Home version AND Business version THAT is OK?
Make am operating system that protects the user, not one that protects every industry you want to profit from!!
If your operating system does not like something I have installed or the music I listen too, at least tell me you are going to delete it before I find empty folders.
FIX THE BUGS!!
Constant crashes all still there..
The start bar still forgets the notification icons you told it to hide!
The copy/move commands are still annoying and a single corrupt file among the 100’s your copying will stop the whole process (haven’t they heard of ignore/skip)..
A single non Aero capable app, brings the whole system (not just that app) out of the nice new Aero Ui causing a nice screen flash every time it happens, Wow! Who thought to add that feature..
It took 5 years to destroy the only feature that worked in Windows the ‘Start Menu’ now its extremely difficult to drag/organise items around, forcing you to have to use your keyboard to search for items, where previously a mouse is all it took.. talk about a giant step back..
[…] knows Vista isn#8217;t living up to its hype. Here are 10 logical steps Microsoft should take to JUMPSTART VISTA […]
[…] knows Vista isn#8217;t living up to its hype. Here are 10 logical steps Microsoft should take to JUMPSTART VISTA […]
[…] knows Vista isn#8217;t living up to its hype. Here are 10 logical steps Microsoft should take to JUMPSTART VISTA […]
Break Warcraft on anything but Vista. That would make me upgrade.
[…] everyone from Wall Street to Main Street U.S.A. Here are 10 logical steps Microsoft should take to JUMPSTART VISTA […]
I have Vista Business for some two weeks now and I must admit that I like it. However there is one really big problem for ma and that is the missing backward compatibility with some applications and Games. I just can’t use all my favourite programs from XP.
Zom Bot: What do you like about Vista? What are its three greatest features/functions? We could use some balance in this debate…
great debate but i’m going to play it safe and stick with xp until service pack 1 for vista or perhaps even longer.
Take a look at the latest PC world magazine. They depend on vista ads but even they are saying vista isn’t worth the trouble until service pack 1.
Did everybody else see microsoft’s financial results? it’s almost as if microsoft charges a fee for every complaint the get about vista
You forgot the “11th” Way… Dump Microsoft for producing such a frustrating product without intensive test first. If we built a car like this, lives would have been lost, and the automobile producer would have had lawsuits to deal with. I own a Sony Vaio, and what I learned from my “Sony-Vaio-Vista” experience is this… NEVER EVER BUY FROM ANY OF THEM AGAIN!
I’ve been using Vista at home and work with hardly any problems. I’m an IT professional so maybe the average idiot won’t have the same success as I did but there’s nothing magical that I’m doing. If you have old hardware maybe you should read what Microsoft has to say BEFORE you upgrade, or run the compatibility or upgrade advisor. And use some common sense, every software maker low balls the “minimum system requirements”. Yes Vista has it’s bugs but obviously those who are throwing a fit about them never used ME or XP when they first came out. Vista is better than XP was at SP1 and better than ME ever could be. You could switch to a Mac but Mac’s are expensive and incompatible with most games and business software and don’t play well unless you only have one or two (think domains). Oh, and if you think that Vista has a lot of problems, you should take a look at OS 10.5, or Leapord. Apple has already released two major service packs for it in only a few months.
So, in summary… be more like Apple!
I think what I like about Linux software (I haven’t had too much exposure to apple software) is that the software and operating system feel like they’ve been written by programmers that care about what they are doing, while windows feels as if the programmers were just trying to present something “Windows” would be happy with, and then Windows is presented as a whole unit.
I am wondering if Windows and Microsoft would be better if, rather than putting together the work of many programmers into one final product, they presented the operating system in different parts, each planned and put together by autonomous teams (or subcontracted companies? I don’t think that’s likely), This is TO LET THE PROGRAMMERS TAKE MORE PRIDE IN THEIR WORK.
I was thinking of this looking at IE and Firefox. Why is it that it seems like IE is just not capable of what firefox is? Why is it that you just can’t seem to expect the same quality of work? I think it is because the programmers of IE are just trying to please their ‘superiors’ (find solutions, make things work), while firefox programmers do their own dreaming and planning, and in the end can take pride in their work.
Of course, I don’t work for Microsoft, so I don’t have any idea if my assumptions are true.
I am probably wrong about all of this… Any comments from people who know more?