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Microsoft Spending $120M To Look Smaller
Ant writes "Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that Microsoft Corp. will spend $120 million a year on an advertising campaign to fight its image as "a huge American company." That sound you heard while reading the article is my head exploding.
Obviously it's time for the obligatory Belinda joke ...
....
Wedding night
"Oh, so that's why they call it Microsoft".
Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
"Cats like plain crisps"
So I can go to my IT manager and say: We can't rely on Microsoft being here long-term, they're such a small company...
Oh wait, it's just for OUTSIDE the US.
What do they think? That the foreigners are easy to fool?
In any case, anything Microsoft does to burn its cash uselessly has got to be good, somehow.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Why don't they just spend $48 Billion and make it true!
:q! Oh crap, not again...
Doesn't sound much different from what Wal-Mart has been trying to do in recent years. And Microsoft actually looks small compared to them.
US announces to world that it wishes to be seen a small Eastern Bloc country from now on, and will so give the impression of financial hardship and military weakness from now on.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
damn slashdot... What is "Microsoft"... Please provide some background in the article summary!
Only an American company would spend this much to not look American.
This is a company with more employees than most cities have citizens, and they're trying to make people believe they're small. I wonder whose brilliant idea that was, and how long they'll remain employed at their current post...
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Pardon me, but anyone or anything who spends $120-million a year on something does not come accross as a "mom and pop" operation.
Was that really loud splashing sound made by all of America's PR firms wetting themselves at once?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Microsoft is smaller than Dell, about half the size of HP or IBM, and about a tenth of the size of WalMart.
Steve Jobs only purpose on earth is to draw attention from Bill Gate's own stupendous reality distortion field.
Hopfully they will live up to their ads
Microsoft, that large Canadian company :)
James P. Barrett
It's not like they've got 110,000 employees or anything...
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
Microsoft is always at the end of every computer joke or bad comment. They need to do something.
So MS got the Temp to dream up another PR campaign to burn up some money for them? I mean, I don't see who they are going to convince with this, nor what they have to gain by doing it. Personally I either want my computing needs served either by guys like me doing it for the sheer fun and love of it, or by some large corp that needs customers (y'know, for profits...). And even at that, I'd take the like-minded community any day.
Still, I guess a little disinformation^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H marketing never hurt anyone. Oh, 'cept those guys that tattooed company logos on their foreheads...
If all you have is a grenade, pretty soon every problem looks like a foxhole -- MightyYar
...and end up looking about $120 million smaller.
This too, will end.
They are spending over a $100 million to make themselves look smaller. Would that be like putting a tent over an elephant to make it look smaller? I mean really using a large amount of money to appear to be smaller. . .
The campaign, using subway posters, blogs, and airplane banners, will portray Ballmer engaging in everday, blue collar activities like drinking with his buddies, bowling, playing softball, and doing the laundry. Pleasantville actor William H. Macy has been hired to portray Steve Ballmer's best friend.
"A lot of people see me as some kind of rage-filled bully. And I'm not like that," Ballmer said while emphatically pounding his desk.
"I took the job because Steve said he would 'fucking kill' me if I didn't. I knew he meant business when he threw a chair at me," said Macy in an interview.
In one ad, Ballmer bowls a strike, then turns around and high-fives Macy. He then proceeds to scream and and dance himself into a sweaty frenzy with blood vessels popping out of his reddened forehead, finally calming down enough to hoarsely shout, "I love bowling! Yeah!"
Reactions to the ads have been mixed. Many have commented that Macy seems in danger of being crushed by Ballmer, and that Ballmer's jokes come off as threatening and unfunny. The ads have been showing in select US markets, and are expected to go national in time for Windows Vista, the next version of Microsoft Windows, to ship.
Unknown host pong.
if you have "educational and development projects in 32 countries", doesn't that pretty much prove you're big?
D
The article title is misleading in focusing on the word "huge" instead of "American."
From the original news story:
The campaign, using television, print and the Internet, highlights Microsoft's education and economic development projects in 32 countries, including France and Taiwan, according to group advertising manager Mike Lucero.
"We are often perceived as a huge American company," Lucero said Friday in an interview.
"We wanted to be very specific about what we are doing in each country in education, innovation, economic opportunity and security," he said.
Showing the same thing in different countries is "getting local"? Eh?
*head explodes*
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
suckers
Isn't that what Kirstie Alley is spending to look smaller too???
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
Probably they hired a good PR experts that find out (after spending few hundrets K bugs) that people tend te be scared by extra large companies.
Who wants to buy a candy from Beelzebub?
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
Microsoft Corp. will spend $120 million a year on an advertising campaign to fight its image as "a huge American company."
:)
Because they aren't just an American company. They are a huge company in every country they are in.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
The Bad News: There's no way we can compete with smaller and nimbler companies.
The Good News: At the rate we're going, we're going to smaller than any of them!
They try to look as extra large and stable company for investors - huge investment harbour that cannot be shaked...
:-) Sweet friend's garage company from my neighborhood...
:-)
On the other hand they want to looks like a symphatic small, flexible and progressive company that has an unlimited possibilities for growth...
I hope they spent their millions on the AdSense advertisement... I think that Google is able to serve "We Are Big" ads to investors and "We Are Small and Sweet" to potential Windows users...
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
Either that or you guys just can't read. Clearly what the article says is just that Microsoft will advertise in other countries with the objective of seeming more like an international company...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Kudos to those who have posted similar replies. Hopefully people will read these enough to get the message. Or perhaps this just proves that most of the /. community would rather read what they want than what is on the page.
Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
The first thing they could change would be to offer free tech support to their customers. They could 'act' like a small company. Of course the article said 'look' like a small company, not act, so never mind.
Now Steve Ballmer just needs to get his temper under control
Register the editry.
That's not hard to achieve when you buy or copy most of your basic technology from outside sources, then omit staffing for adequate QA and security reviews in product development, then leverage your familiar dominant cash cows to force success new markets with mediocre products.
Suuuuuuuure. For all I know, YOU are one of the new "small microsoft" agents-for-hire.
=D
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
I guess everyone missed the news a month ago:
Redmond WA (AP) Microsoft announced that it would drop its current overseas advertising slogan "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." after a successful trademark infringement suit filed by The Borg, who claimed that Microsoft's use of their trademarked phrase was ruining their brand, and subjecting them to ridicule by interstellar civilizations.
What a load of horse manure. How can they not be seen as the huge American company when they do things like asking US Government and DoJ to intervene on their behalf in EU investigations? http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1887714,00.as p
...does this operating system make my ass look big?
MS can look like a small American company FOR FREE. Just cut 50,000 jobs. I just saved them hundreds of millions with this advice! /to what address do I send my bill?
And mostly no in any practical sense. MS as a company who hands a direct paycheck to someone, yep, your figures are correct. MS as a company who have co opted any number of governmental agencies and private business to use their crapware and MS certified bugware technicians is a much larger number, which is much closer to being a practical figure when you look at the macro-economic aspects of it.. They keep MS going, they are the ones "recommending" this perpetual cash cow beta busywork stuff, and they get a check. There's very little money in stuff that works, but there's a HELLA LOT of money in keeping perpetual betaware out there that needs constant "fixing" and expensive "upgrades" and that keeps people only using MS inc stuff.
Technically, you are correct in the raw numbers,but for most practical purposes all those others should also be counted as MS employees, because it is money out of someones pocket, out of the economy, that goes to keep MS in power and dominant, that keeps their stock prices up, either one step or at most two steps away. As far as I am concerned, anyone who paid for their cert and operates under it is an employee if they charge money for that work. Not in todays legal sense but they sure should be considered that if the laws reflected reality better. They are a sort of stealth mercenary force. Now add in such vendors as Dell who also contribute to keeping MS in the cash. They aren't "just some customer", all they offer for desktops is MS stuff, as such, and the DOJ should deal with this, they are operating as a defacto division of MS inc. They are collaborators in maintaining a status quo of a monopoly operating system. Microsoft isn't "just" a software company now, it's a racket, a computing cartel, made up of numerous other companies and individuals all collaborating to stifle competition on a global scale. The bad news is, they appear to have won their status quo existence inside the US, despite all the evidence of serious wrong doing. The good news is, overseas many nations are now fed up with this situation, because it's beyond obvious, and realise the only way out is to just show them the door. It is both an economic and national security issue for those people.
[Pastoral-sounding music fades up in the background, as the picture opens on a small farm tractor plowing a field]
Welcome to our little world. Translucent window borders. Virtual desktops. Sophisticated security settings. All created by hand. By people, for people.
Windows Vista. Made by folksy folks.
And I'll make it a true statement that Microsoft is no longer a "huge" American company.
They'll be a LOT smaller when I get through with them.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
The next ad campaign will try to get you to believe that Bill Gates is poor. There will be an address to which you can send donations. I, for one, will not be donating, however.
"Honey, does this monopoly make me look fat?"
Ceci n'est pas un post.
Not that MS is going to give a shit about Softvault, except to stomp them. But the bad press from the suit is something it appears to want to avoid.
Face it. MS is a movement, not a technology company.
I think there are several ways this can be achived by microsoft really, without spending all that money on commercials that everyone loathes anyway. I think that what I would do if I were in change would be to buy up a tiny company, give them the windows source code, then have the tiny company release a windows compatible OS, that way everyone who loathes microsoft would buy their OS from that company. And since it's a tiny company, they wouldn't have to worry that much about doing everythings right, just like microsoft. The tiny man who loathes microsoft would be satisfied and companies would still be able to pump money into the huge corporation, microsoft.
Another way would be just to change the name to nanosoft, since nano is smaller than micro.
Yet another way is just to change the name to something completely different. Then wait 2 weeks for the general public to forget about it all. And then continue releasing bad software.
Just try being a bit smarter and make sure you only ever ask once what country people are in - and take note from there. In short, start assuming the US is just one other country, and there is certainly nothing special about it. Save yourself the marketing budget for something useful.
Microsoft can see that Google's image of a "goo" company helps it put out features and products that, if came out of Microsoft would be instantly cried against and banned.
If you've ever been in Microsoft's HQ you'll see it's a company like any else, with one exception: people really believe that their work will change the world, for the better or worse.
This inspires, but it's also a lot of stress. Some support from the "public" is never a bad thing, neither for the employees or the business, so this initiative is all for the better.
I feel that the title of this article is misleading, after reading it, I felt Microsoft rather than wanting to appear smaller (Impossible and ridiculous), but they infact want to be known more as a multinational company.
Both companies have market capitalizations of about $250 billion. Walmart, Microsoft. The microsoft article also shows that IBM has a market capitalization of about $60 billion. Realize, however, that market capitalization is only a measure of estimated company earning power not actual worth. People have insane expectations for Microsoft's continued earning power in a competitive market that contains zero cost competitors, so their small propaganda might work out soon.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It will be replaced by, "You are our passion, Let us help you reach your potential," which means the same thing but the Borg forgot to trademark it.
An impressed human Borg lawyer said, "Microsoft lawyers have taken trade mark, copyright and patent law to the next level. We can't wait to add them to the collective. In trademark they claim entire concepts and individual preexisting words. In patents, they claim whole ideas instead of implementations which vastly simplifies everything. Their copyrights are forever though they discard they make subtle changes to their code which breaks old versions every two years or so."
The same lawyer, in the form of an IMP, continued, "We are also very impressed by their small is beautiful work and will seriously consider deception as an alternative to honestly portraying ourselves to potential clients."
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
More on this? Sure, look here (Irish unit lets Microsoft cut taxes in U.S., Europe) or here (Microsoft Corp.'s Round Island One unit is Ireland's most profitable company). Or do like I did to get $insert_favourite_search_engine to produce these results: search on 'Microsoft ireland eu tax'...
--frank[at]unternet.org
I mean, have you seen Janet Jackson lately !
s /janet-jackson/janet-jackson-fat-as-ever-000847
http://www.egotastic.com/entertainment/celebritie
Microshaft spending $120M to look smaller.
/ducks
Why would Microshaft want to look smaller?
We are often perceived as a huge American company.
What? Microsoft isn't a huge American company?
We wanted to be very specific about what we are doing in each country in education, innovation, economic opportunity and security.
What??? Microsoft is doing something about education? They're innovating? I didn't know they innovated! Security? I didn't know that Microsoft was doing anything about security!
I did know that Microsoft wants to create a lot of economic opportunity for themselves, though.