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Microsoft Spending $120M To Look Smaller

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the someone-alert-alanis dept.

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.

6 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Small? by chris_mahan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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."

    1. Re:Small? by ScriptedReplay · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Oh wait, it's just for OUTSIDE the US.

      What do they think? That the foreigners are easy to fool?

      Judging from TFA, the title was misleading. They want to change the "huge American company" image, but with a "huge global company" - hence those whose perception has to be ... umm ... improved are outside the US. It's hard to see how showing off international programs would peg MS as a smaller company.

  2. Incredible by Verteiron · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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...

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    1. Re:Incredible by Elminst · · Score: 2, Interesting

      According to the US Census list of the top 100 largest cities; #100 is Arlington CDP, VA, with a population of 170,936. http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation /twps0027.html

      According to a September BusinessWeek Article, MS has ~60000 employees.
      This company is 1/3 the size of the 100th largest city in the country.
      Microsoft also has more people than 70% of the counties in the US. The average county population is ~90000, microsoft is 2/3 of that.

      According to Forbes, MS is the 47th largest company in the WORLD.

      They're frickin BIG. No amount of money they spend is going to change that. In fact, the more they spend, the more it PROVES how big they are.

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  3. hypocrisy by semiotec · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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

  4. Re:Incorrect Title, RTFA please by meringuoid · · Score: 2, Interesting
    1/3 of its business comes from outside the US

    Just one third? That's the EU, Japan, Canada... What's going on? Do American businesses upgrade more frequently? Do European servers all run that commie OS from Finland?

    If the Rest of the World only adds up to half of what Microsoft makes from Americans, then surely their monopoly in most places isn't worth a hill of beans. That's not what I'm seeing.

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