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Microsoft Brand In Sharp Decline
Amy Bennett writes "A recent poll of about 12,000 US business decision-makers by market researcher CoreBrand found that Microsoft's brand power has taken a dive over the past four years. According to the study, Microsoft dropped from number 12 in the ranking of the most powerful US company brands in 2004 to number 59 last year. In 1996, the company ranked number 1 in brand power among 1,200 top companies in about 50 industries. The CEO of CoreBrand said: 'When you see something decline with increasing velocity, it's a concern.' To add some historical context, IBM suffered a much faster and more severe decline in brand power in the early 1990s and it took them 10 years to rebuild the brand's reputation."
Mike who???
No, I can't RTFA. After all, this is /.
You mean, they put out a new version of their main product, it was widely ridiculed, and their brand suffered as a result? Who would have guessed!?
So after the computer boom the brand starts to decline as the initial need and novelty wears off? Well what a surprise.
Today's forecast calls for light showers with a high chance of flying chairs. Seriously, though, I used to doubt the power of "branding," but the more I learn about the average consumer (disappointing as it may be), the more I understand why companies care about this kind of thing.
Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
It's amazing what happens when people realize they have a choice.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
I have a friend who got a Macbook the other day. She said it was really awesome. I was trying to figure out why she liked it so much, but when I asked her she said, "everything is so easy to use!"
That seemed a little strange to me, since it usually takes a little while to get used to a new interface. Then she said, "My boss and coworkers are so jealous."
That's how you know Apple has turned the corner. When suddenly random people can become cool for owning a Mac. Compare that to a few years ago, my brother mentioned in his university classes he was the only one who had a Mac, and people gave him strange looks. You had to actively go against the flow to get an Apple in those days. Now the flow is starting to head in that direction.
(Heads off to buy more Apple stock).
Qxe4
Can someone explain what "brand power" is, and how you can possibly measure it? I know that "branding" is important, but ranking companies by "brand power" seems like useless information being created by "CoreBrand". I'm guessing CoreBrand didn't make it very high on the list themselves...
Clovis
^ Clovis, look! It's that guy you are!
corebrand? never heard of em'
In my opinion they need to stop trying to take over the internet and look internally to focus and improve their core product lines. The release of vista and its lack of acceptance in the business sector was a huge blow to their reputation. I personally am aware of several VERY large companies that were considering Vista a year ago and have completely turned 180 degrees towards open source. I dont know how far MS thinks they are going to get by forcing Vista down the corporate throat.
Im not a microsoft hater, in fact I depend on MS products to make a living, but I know Im not alone on this sentiment.
Microsfot has forgotten, like many other corporations, is that all one needs to focus on is making a quality product. If you do that, all other things, quartely earnings, shareholder returns, marketing, ect, will take care of themselves natually.
Microsoft may be down quite a bit, but Apple is not even on that list at all.
IBM is at spot #18, which is quite surprising really - as far as I noticed there are no other software companies that high on the list at all. Most of the top 25 seems to be car companies, food/drinks/restaurant franchises and the like.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
They still haven't jumped into war profiteering or suing their customers so the drop in brand name value is probably due to incompetence not malice.
Nothing like discussing abstract features of companies to start a discussion. Other than to say "Ha ha, Starbucks is better than Microsoft!"
Ah well. Given Vista, Windows security issues, and Apple's consistent attempts to sell their computers to the high-school and college-age markets, I wouldn't be surprised if this was just a reflection of more and more Macheads entering the workforce and staying loyal to Apple, or Windows users expressing their disgust at Microsoft. Many (most?) middle-aged people think that you can't do anything about your computer or OS, but the younger generation believes otherwise.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
I'm sure unfavorable reception to Vista doesn't help, but it's not like MS hasn't weathered that before. (ME anyone?) I would suspect brand dilution is more to blame, as they branch out more and more. At one point, people might just have thought of their software, but now there's a whole slew of different products that may bring their reputation down. Users who prefer the iPod to the Zune, or the Wii to the Xbox 360, or now see Google as the big cheese in the online world may all have a less favorable impression of MS as a whole.
hot foreign sheep.
Are these guys still around? I remember using a BASIC interpreter of theirs in the early 1980s.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
IBM suffered a much faster and more severe decline in brand power in the early 1990s and it took them 10 years to rebuild the brand's reputation.
So, Microsoft ought to be selling a decent version of Windows by 2018?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Microsoft comments on their branding decline in Sharp Consumer Electronic products.
Saying " our Products sales are doing so well that we can drop Sharp Consumer Electronics from our certified MS OEM's list.
"When you see something decline with increasing velocity, it's a concern". Especially when it's a chair making its way down from office building above you.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
"Oh, everyone likes their own brand, don't they?" --Fat Bastard
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
(Heads off to buy more Apple stock).
While I acknowledge others' pervious predictions of rough sailing ahead for Apple have generally not come to reality (since the return of Jobs), your tale leads me in the opposite direction.
It reminds of the story of Joe Kennedy knowing it was time to get out of the stock market when he was getting stock tips from the shoe shine boy. Part of Apple's appeal was its status as an outsider. Random people can't become cool for owning a Mac; the point of being cool is you're not just another random person.
With apologies to Yogi, are we reaching a point where no one will buy an Apple because everyone's buying Apple?
Couldn't have happened to a nicer power-hungry, scheming, ruthlessly amoral company devoted to tearing down anything that it doesn't own.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
This is just further evidence of Microsoft's imminent defeat at the hands of open source software. Microsoft is terrified of Linux, and it has been the primary cause of many of their recent screw ups which are driving people to Linux in droves.
Just the other night I was installing Ubuntu onto the computer of a freind's daughter, and I explained to her the benefits of open source software, and how it is inherently superior to closed source software.
Please forgive me for going a little OT here, but, at one point she suggested that Photoshop was better then GIMP. I tried to hold in the laughter, but my mouth was full of cheetos, and I spluttered some soggy crumbs over her keyboard. I used my Ubuntu t-shirt to wipe most of them off, and when I looked up, she was staring at me, and making eye contact. Does this mean she likes me?
[from the mid 1990's] it took [IBM] years to rebuild the brand's reputation
So, Microsoft's decline started around 2004...so, they'll be back in the top five by 2014. I'll be installing "Windows Server 2010" by 2014, and testing "SQL Server 2013" to replace my "SQL Server 2008" which I'd been running since 2010.
As for them being rated for Computer Software? They're number 1!
Also, Apple failed to make the list -at all! Same with ever other name-brand PC manufacturer I could think of while searching.
Plus this is solely for businesses. A similar survey with solely consumers would see Microsoft in a much higher position, I'd think.
Company which was number 1? Coca-Cola. Apparently after your daily dose of caffiene and high fructose corn syrup... you move onto Johnson & Johnson's baby wipes (for the nanny), then eat some Hershey's milk chocolate with riding aimlessly on your brand-new Harley Davidson!
Even Visa is 36! And it's everywhere I want to be.
Enlightenment is the elimination of that which is unnecessary.
If the rankings from 12 to 59 are tightly packed, a slight improvement in MS's reputation could catapult them back up.
I doubt the survey gathered this information.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
A large part of IBM's decline was because their sales of mainframes to other countries slowed down as smaller, more powerful computers came around.
Bark less. Wag more.
I have a hard time telling here whether you're serious or not, but really, more people hate Microsoft than love any alternative. Most casual computer users I have met (therefore I very carefully make no broad sweeping statements about "all" of any population of people), gripe constantly about Windows but use it anyway.
I'm an educator and work with kids (and some university students) all day. Ask anyone aged 10-25 what Microsoft is known for and they'll say Xbox (or Xbox 360). Sit kids in front of a Mac and they'll start messing with it; sit kids in front of a Windows box and they'll start messing with that. They don't "see" the operating system or the cognitive dissonance of the Office ribbon... They're still platform agnostic. And Microsoft is counting on that.
We associate Microsoft with "Computers, Peripherals and Computer Software", we hate their stuff, and we take glee in the decline of the Evil Empire that brought us Windows, IE, and OOXML. If I were to be associated with the Vista debacle and ActiveX exploits forever, I'd want my brand to die, too!
Don't be fooled by the article however, Microsoft still has the mindshare of future consumers - they're the cool company that brought us the Xbox, Xbox Live, and the Halo franchise... In another 20 years, wouldn't you want to buy technology from the guys who brought you all the great memories from your childhood??
Apple went from a declining "Computers, Peripherals and Computer Software" company to a hot mainstream company, and used the iPod halo effect to come back into their old, failed "Computers, Peripherals and Computer Software" market, hotter than ever. Microsoft is simply stealing a page from Apple and guaranteeing its survival for the next 20 years, when the Xbox gamers of today take their turn at being CIOs and CTOs.
I wonder if this is less a matter of Microsoft Vs. Apple, or the lack of quality in Vista, but more a matter of MSN Vs. Google
I don't believe you, I'm here for a seat on the secret spaceship.
Don't forget that part of IBM's brand recovery was a fundamental shift in their core business to focus a lot more on services and software solutions rather than hardware, and they've still never managed to recover their former ubiquity.
Hmmm, brand declining while marketshare and profit rise ... sounds like they are becoming GE (not in the top 10 at all), not IBM ... maybe its not that the brand sucks so much it's that its so darn ubiquitous without needing to have Coke style ad caompaigns.
Is brand power & losing sleep over whether your corporate executive idol is the master of the universe as important in other countries as it is in US?
Actually, the fluctuation in MS brand power (whatever that is exactly) is probably normal for any company that has been in business for a long time. MS used to do more mainstream advertising. I remember lots of ads for XP, but none for Vista (that I can remember).
In the minds of most people (not us folks here on software and hardware boards etc), MS, as an OS, is a mature product and as a result only something really new like the 360 garners much attention. The joe-sixpack crowd isn't moving to vista because they hate it, they aren't moving to it because they are still using that 4 year old machine to browse and e-mail.
A lot of brands fluctuate up and down. I wouldn't take this rating as anything more than a snapshot. Reading anything else into it is iffy.
this news article calls for something that is usually deemed as trolling, however considering the circumstances I am willing to use it. If you score me accordingly so be it "ORLY?" There I said it and it felt good.
which is totally what she said
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, one thing I remember about ME in comparison to Vista, is that it didn't last all that long (even MS dropped it somewhat like a hot rock), and that the previous options (win98) were still supported, followed not too long after by a somewhat worthy successor (win2k and, eventually, winXP). I know only a few people who had machines come with ME, and when those machines screwed up, 98 still worked.
Vista is different, as there is a lack of choice in the MS realm. If you want to run software that runs on a Microsoft OS, you need to keep your old PC up and going for as long as possible, or switch to Vista. With the limited exception of some business-class machines, a lot of newer machines simply *do not* work properly in XP: There are no drivers, or limited functionality (no cardreader drivers, media buttons don't work), or many other hurdles to using the legacy OS. People are forced to try Vista, and because of that many have the choice of either "love it or hate is." As it is, with a mediocre reception in the business arena, and a less-than-warm reception in the home arena, this has turned a lot of people off the MS brand, moreso than previous issues.
"Peripherals and Computer Software, Microsoft is second to IBM in brand power, with Toshiba a close third, Gregory said. If Microsoft's downward trend continues, Toshiba could pass it in brand power next year, he said." I somehow doubt that Toshiba's brand will be worth more then MS's.
iPod is definitely being "genericised" (is that a word?) just like Xerox and Kleenex. At least among my kids friends, any mp3 player is an iPod. Not that their peer group doesn't sport a lot of Apple iPods, but they also have Creative iPods, Sandisk iPods and the ever popular $59 no-name Chinese iPod.
Now I'm snickering at the mental image of a stereotypical apple fanboy screaming red faced at a 10 year old - "Stop calling it an iPod dammit! Thats not an iPod! Only Apple makes iPods!"
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
hasn't moved in the same direction recently
The problem with Microsoft isn't Vista or Clippy or XBOX360; those less-than-good products are just the result of the arrogance that runs through everything they do. They've turned out a few good products, too.
If you need to point a finger at them, how about pointing at - well, how about their anti-trust conviction? Did you notice how they changed their ways after this conviction? No? That's what's wrong with Microsoft. It's the anti-competitive way they insure that every new computer has Windows installed. It's the anti-competitive way they bundle other products. It's all the companies who were crushed by Microsoft - but not before Microsoft "liberated" the intellectual property from those doomed companies.
How about their shrink-wrap license agreements that they use to bind you - but if you disagree and try to use the remedy they've provided (return product for refund) you'll find that's virtually impossible to do? How about the way they're currently trying to subvert the ISO standardization process?
Remember when XP went out the door with a list of 50,000 bugs still unresolved? They're still sticking band-aids on it - but rather than complete that product they're off to yet another (arguably less functional) product which was also rushed out long before it was ready.
For those who want to defend this miserable excuse for a software company, here's a question for you: name 10 technologies that Microsoft has shipped that were invented in-house by Microsoft.
It seems like just yesterday, he was #1. My, how times have changed.
I'd like to point out that this study is pretty much worthless. I like to hate Ms as much as the next guy but this study shows a slippage against other brands *IN OTHER INDUSTRIES*. This is comparing Microsoft and Coke? WTF. Maybe some of these other brands surged in popularity. Or maybe computer industry in general is viewed less favorably. This would be much more useful if it was focused a specific industry.
The 2007 Brandz Rankings, based on survey conducted by Millward Brown, presents a different story http://www.brandz.com/z3_top_51.html . Methodologies are different, but for the average person, which list makes more sense? Here's the top 10:
1. Google
2. GE (General Electric)
3. Microsoft
4. Coca Cola
5. China Mobile
6. Marlboro
7. Wal-Mart
8. Citi
9. IBM
10. Toyota
Ya, you know the rest.
You think people pay their neighborhood extortionist because the sound of his name gives them the warm fuzzies?
Seriously, the Redmond gang needs brand power like a fish needs an umbrella.
Q: When did you think this had happened?
how Microsoft refuses to play well with others. That is my biggest beef with them on a corporate level. We are currently trying to integrate a few windows machines into our all mac/linux network, and it is painful. There are all sorts of "security policies" that need to be fiddled with because they aren't the same, XP gets upset if you have more than one domain controller on different domains it seems, and it doesn't even support NFS....NFS a protocol that will be celebrating its 20th birthday next year, isn't supported by Windows XP. Can you name me one other major PC operating system that doesn't support NFS out of the box? Any Mac box can be an NFS server or client, ditto for Linux, BSD, Solaris etc. But since it wasn't invented at Microsoft Microsoft doesn't consider it to be important, esp. since they could use their lack of NFS support to get you to buy a Microsoft server product that does the same thing but isn't nearly as secure.
SSH, LDAP, etc. the list of technologies that almost every other OS on the planet supports but XP doesn't(I don't know about Vista, but it's not like XP is that old). Microsoft's client OSs seem to have features that try to force you into buying Microsoft server OSs. Samba is great, and I certainly don't want to denigrate the brilliant people who write the stuff, but it shouldn't be necessary. Maybe back in 1996, when most business networks outside the megacorps consisted of a dumb hub with very little centralized management Windows wasn't all that bad, but the problem for Redmond is that the rest of the world moved on and they didn't. They still seem to think its a Microsoft only world, but the rest of the world thinks differently.
Monstar L
florescent lighting.
Enlightenment is the elimination of that which is unnecessary.
So last quarter RH's income was 22m while MS's was 6B+.
WTF! We've all had UPS destroy, lose, or steal our property. Why are they included on this list?
Actually, I have. Sad as that may sound.
E.g., when some people I knew switched the whole company from WordPerfect to MS Word, much against my zealotry at the time. The fact is, the first attempts at WP For Windows sucked hairy donkey balls. Word might not have been a shiny gold nugget, but compared to WP it was at least like polished lead compared to a turd.
E.g., Windows itself gained a lot of market share fast back in the day, because the 386 version was pretty much the only thing that combined (A) preemptive multitasking, at least for legacy apps, (B) a GUI, unpolished as that might have been, and (C) compatibility with those legacy apps. And maybe (D) a price you can actually afford, as opposed to buying an ultra-expensive, and just as proprietary, Unix for that PC. There have been other attempts at one of the three, but they typically missed the other two.
Yes, I know, _nowadays_ Linux exists which fits all the bills and is a viable choice and all. But back then the competition actually had worse products than MS, sad as that may sound. Who was better than Windows? GEM with its max 4 windows and no support for using memory over 640k? The text-mode-only task-switching of DesqView? (Even DesqView/X was too little, too late. Way too late.) OS/2? Heh. Trust me, I used all those, I even was an OS/2 fanboy at one point, but looking back, I can see how Windows won on its own merits back then.
The last genuine competitor to Windows was IBM's OS/2, and even that was a sad story. For a start it was a story of corporate schizophrenia, where half of IBM didn't want to use or sell the OS that the other half created and/or endorsed. But it was also a story of IBM ignoring the users' grievances. Year after year people complained that a single mis-behaved or crashed application can lock up the common event queue, and thus the whole computer. And year after year IBM stuck to its guns that that's the right way to do things, and generally STFU you bloody user. It was a story of such fuck-ups as IBM launching a version of OS/2 with much fanfare, and then discovering that if you were upgrading from a previous version, it would fuck up the config so badly that your newly installed OS wouldn't boot. (Or not make it to the desktop.) It was a story of IBM developer suport being non-existent. Much as we laugh at "Uncle Fester" Balmer's developers dance on the stage, it was a whole other message than IBM's. IBM at felt a lot more like "fuck off and stop trying to steal the market for our own apps for OS/2." Etc. And IBM lost. Why? Because, bloody sad as it sounds, their stuff was actually worse than MS's.
E.g., I remember being one of the last Netscape fanboys in a world which was quickly going IE, and Netscape's Mozilla team had gone in dada land for years reinventing skinned widget libraries instead of making a browser. The fact that everyone kept pointing out was that IE was head and shoulders above the buggy (and rapidly getting outdated) mess that was Nescape 4.x. Both being free, people preferred the MS one as (subjectively) better.
Etc.
I can even tell you the mistake you're making. You're seeing just the years after they became a monopoly, and when they actually could push people to buy just for compatibility sake. But you forget their years of actually fighting uphill in those markets. Before you could have people telling each other "get Word already because we all have it", you first have to convince enough people to ditch WordStar and WordPerfect, _in_ _spite_ of the fact that everyone else has them.
Don't get me wrong, that doesn't excuse MS's monopolistic tactics or anything. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying you first have to have enough of a foothold before you can apply them. MS's monopoly isn't based on just one thing, it's an interlocking porcupine of pieces which need each other. It only starts working at all after you have at least a few such pieces which are the de-facto standard. And there must have been _some_ merit involved in getting at least those ramm
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Interesting that there are no computer/software/technology companies in the top 11. It's not just Microsoft; there's no Apple, IBM, HP, Intel, AMD, TI, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Panasonic, General Electric, Google, Yahoo? Maybe geeks have a different perception of the world but I thought at least one techy company would make the top 10.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
is this the time for Microsoft to stop making software and instead focus all their efforts on using their mighty and impressive patent portfolio to make money my dropping lawsuits down left, right and centre on the tech industry?
oh wait, thats been tried before...
and actually, looking at what I just typed and considering the patent protfolio that they possess thats really not so funny anymore.
The methodology for this is pretty silly. Interbrand is the known leader in research-based brand valuation and brand strength. Check out their reports at the links below. Also, note that other famous technology brand names aren't even on the list-including the beloved Apple and Google.
http://bwnt.businessweek.com/brand/2006/
http://www.interbrand.com/surveys.asp (source for the Business Week report)
http://www.ourfishbowl.com/images/surveys/Interbrand_BGB_2007.pdf
[This is just further evidence of Microsoft's imminent defeat at the hands of open source software.]
... and don't forget, "This is year of desktop Linux".
That was too funny. You left out the part about how they "were being slaughtered at the gates [of Bagdad]"
I just got off the phone with a microsofts csr.... Ever seen the episode of outer limits where the phone signal kills the person answering? If only I had that... microsoft would have a dead guy sitting in a cubicle somewhere right now. Not quite topical....but I'm pissed and need to spout off somewhere. Any anti-M$ thread'll do.
I don't need
Hah. While you jest, I've seen quite a number of non-techies seriously annoyed with Windows — so annoyed, in fact, that one of my colleagues asked me a number of questions about my MacBook Pro just yesterday. It seems her next laptop will have nothing to do with Microsoft.
Linux has a bit lower penetration among non-technical users... then again, my father, stepmother, grandfather and grandmother are all running Kubuntu. Primarily thanks to me, though — my grandparents have absolutely no need for Windows, since they are complete newbies (I built their computer a few weeks ago).
Apple, however... it looks pretty, it's stable — I certainly cannot attest to any of the problems my Windows-based friends encounter — and it's not Microsoft.
Forget the geek cred; Microsoft's has been pretty much ruined for years. Now the non-geeks are catching on.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Microsoft almost seem to have given up on their PC products. They are churning out latest versions of Office and Windows in order to keep milking their core consumers, but their heart doesn't seem to be in it anymore. Its more like rent-seeking than software development for them now. They seem to have bought their own carefully crafted image of immortality and become complacent.
They just haven't cottoned on to the essential change in peoples perceptions of computers since the last time they fucked up good and proper (Windows ME). You used to talk to non-technical people and they would complain about how computers are too slow and computers are always getting viruses and crashing and computers always need reformatting. Now that the majority of the population have been shown there are computers that don't suffer nearly so badly from those issues, they are more and more talking about how windows always gets viruses, crashes and needs reinstalling. The crappiness of windows is no longer assumed to be just a general feature of computers that users have to live with.
The Xbox line seems still pretty strong though, with a certain demographic of gamers (I won't be too insulting seeing as I imagine a lot of the people here own an Xbox or Xbox 360, but my image of the average Halo player does involve a sideways baseball cap). In fact I think it is strong enough to keep Microsoft afloat and in the public mind no matter what happens to windows/office. Whether or not they can make an apple-like comeback and re-enter the OS market if Windows 7 doesn't miraculously save them, remains to be seen.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
So, Microsoft ought to be selling a decent version of Windows by 2018?
They will NOT in 2018 be selling a decent version of Windows... They will be RENTING to you a version of Windows by then. Whether or not it will be "decent", is another question.
'When you see something decline with increasing velocity, it's a concern.'
No, it's called gravity!
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
If anyone posts a comment with such words and phrases as "brand recognition", "user experience", "increasing velocity", "methodology" or "marketshare", can they automatically be modded down 1 point for each occurrence of said words?
Might you also consider taking the feature a stage further by secretly designating one of these words or phrases to be "Buzzword Of The Day"? And that the first person to use the "Buzzword Of The Day" immediately has their home address revealed on Slashdot? Then the Slashdot reader who lives nearest can go round his/her house with the "Slashdot Slappacam" and beat the living shit out of him/her whilst filming it so we can all stream it and watch it?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
For some reason, Windows users feel happy after they fix their computer, not pissed.
I believe thats the primary reason behind Windows still having popularity.
You see it all the time.
E.g. Printer wont print just before something urgent is due.
They are annoyed when it occurs but are happy when they fix it (usually by rebooting or restarting the app).
I've been watching people using Windows and most of the time they dont even realise when it crashes.
Its just automatic for them to reboot/restart the program and they edit what happened out of their memory.
I've actually had to tell someone that their computer crashed because they didnt notice.
They have been taught that all computers are like that and they just accept it.
Whenever I make Windows crash (very often with Explorer) I get really pissed.
Which is why I make a point on not using Windows unless absolutely necessary.
I disagree.
Linux has been around a long time, and it's still nowhere near ready to replace Windows on the desktop, say what you like, 99% of people can't deal with config files and CLI and compiling from source.
Microsoft should however be very worried about the trend toward online applications, Silverlight was too little too late and still isn't gaining much traction compared to Adobe Flex. Their monopoly on the desktop won't be challenged, it'll simply become less relevant, and when a user friendly OS DOES appear, then Microsoft will become a costly option with the same features.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
Microsoft makes money off of defense contracts and their contractors. You can be assured that the Green Zone is a Microsoft zone. The Business Software Alliance sues the customers of Microsoft by proxy. So its more than incompetence, Microsoft is the computer face of Brand America... and we know that brand has been in free fall for some time now. Apple seems more international, and less Amero-centric.
There are no absolutes.
alot of the comments are along the line of, well brands are ok for joe six pack /.ers think they are better or different ? I bet if every person who posted one of these snotty comments honestly went thru and looked at what she or he bought over the last 6 months, they would find that "stupid" marketing drove a lot of hteir purchases.
why do
or, as garrison keiler put it, here in lake woebegon, all the childrne are above avg.
there is also a snottyness in putting joe sixpack down for buying a computer cause it is cool. why is that bad ? why is your technical stuff better ? (aside from M$ hatred)
With a distro like Ubuntu do those 99% need to deal with config files, CLI, and compiling from source?
Seriously, using Ubuntu on this machine I rarely if ever have to go to any of those above. Almost anything I could want (except high-end games) is up on Apt/Synaptic with a decent summary, push button installation/un-installation/updates. Configuration is much the same way, with far more options available through nice gui menus than are ever available to the Windows user.
Even those games that I have for linux such as Second Life and Eve Online have been push button to install. Sure with SL I did have to make my own menu button for it but that was filling in a gui form menu and was not strictly necessary.
Pinkley: Where you from, son?
Soldier: Madison City, Missouri, Sir!
Pinkley: [Shakes head] Neeever heard of it ...
[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
Most people like to complain, so that is not really much of a surprise. If the mainstream OS was OSX or Ubuntu, "most people" would complain about them as well.
If the only folks using XP or Vista were the ones who made a deliberate choice to use those, I expect there would be fan club similar to what we see now for Apple and Linux. Might be a very small fan club, but...
"IBM suffered a "much faster and more severe" decline in brand power in the early 1990s, Gregory said, and it took them 10 years to rebuild the brand's reputation. To stage a similar turnaround, Microsoft must have a clearer vision of the direction in which the company is headed and put forth leaders that people can trust to articulate that vision, he said."
Hmm. Ballmer's vison must be reasonably good if he can throw chairs accurately.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
It's their training. People are trained that crashes are a fact of life so they accept them as a cost of using a computer. Once they learn otherwise they stop accepting crashes.
I don't think this phenomenon is limited to Joe Sixpack. I know plenty of intelligent, thoughtful people who, when confronted with new evidence about something they care about, try to fit the evidence to their opinions rather than the reverse. For one it's global warming, for another it's the evils of the United States, and so on. Not that their conclusions are necessarily wrong: but they are not rationally arrived at (perhaps they once were - if so, they no longer are). I imagine I'm different, but rationally I concede this must also apply to me.
To some extent, this is not a terrible strategy: it allows for rapid decision making and may be better than constant vacillation. Something similar has been described as a conservative principle:
I do not, in general, agree with this. It's all very well to talk about the wisdom of the species, but any given individual must judge precedent somehow. Rationality has significant flaws, but I'll take it over a "mysterious incorporation". Nonetheless, there is some truth here.
But I'm straying from the point. I think it is arrogant for us - with our various convictions about Linux, Microsoft, copyright, free markets, and so on - to claim to be exempt from the unthinking judgments of a Joe Sixpack. We all make most of our judgments based on fixed categories, existing opinions, personal interests, and emotional attachments. It is a tragic problem for politics. I believe I recently saw a report of a study (on Slashdot?) that scientific evidence only contributes 15% of people's opinions (whatever that means). I saw another finding that sports fans are unable to see violations by their own team. This isn't even deliberate: one study participant figured the evidence presented him was faked, because he couldn't imagine his preferred team could play so cleanly. They didn't, but he was unable to see that in spite of his rational skepticism.
"This is just further evidence of Microsoft's imminent defeat at the hands of open source software." - by UbuntuLinux (1242150) on Friday March 28, @12:54PM (#22895180) Yes, yes, "Sure"... (sarcasm on my part) & with a nick-handle like YOU use ("ubuntulinux"), there's little doubt if you're objective, or not (you're not, period).
How come I have been hearing that b.s. out of those like you, for over 15 yrs. now, & it STILL has not come true?
(Maybe, because it's just that - PURE BULLSHIT!)
Heck - maybe even those who were posting this type of thing around 1994 or so, grew up & got out into the REAL WORKING WORLD, out of academia period... & what did they find out here with MORE surface area/usage than any other platform? X86... & what OS family runs on that MORE THAN ANY OTHER??
Microsoft Windows NT-based systems!
You want work? INCREASE YOUR SURFACE AREA OF OPPORTUNITY, & GO MICROSOFT (this IS the bottom-line, & reality... not b.s. fantasy & "prophecies" that are SO damn inaccurate now for nearly coming up on 2 decades, that it is not even FUNNY anymore to hear such crap).
I think it means she thinks that you are weird and most likely gross and messy if you got cheeto clumps on her keyboard. The guys at Best Buy, Geek Squad, look more like Billy Baldwin to her when compared to you. :)
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
There doesn't seem to be much statistical difference between being #1 out of 1,200 companies in 1996 and being #12 out of 12,000 in 2008. As you add more industries and increase the number of total companies in the survey, this result is about what you'd expect. The headline should be, "Microsoft maintains a remarkable consistency of brand recognition over a period of 12 years".
yes, in the same delusional world where GIMP is better than Photoshop, she likes you... I use and like Linux as well, but come on, comparing GIMP to Photoshop is like comparing a Honda Accord to a Ferrari and saying that the Accord is the better race car..... its a fine car, and I have no complaints about it but as a race car, you've got to be kidding... same deal with GIMP... its a fine program, but comparing to Photoshop? I mean, come on.
LMFAO
This is a MS marketing ploy that has managed to devalue the brand and that is word assumptions. For example, when DOS came out it was referred to as "DOS", then it merged into PC, PC became Computer, now what was once DOS problems are now computer problems, the same thing happened to Windows, Windows problems became computer problems, OS became Windows editions, word processor became Word, E-Mail became Outlook and until recently Browser used to be IE. By MS having a monopoly, these simple words that without a monopoly would be broad definitions became un-trademarkable words, making the MS brand obsolete, which is why Apple can stick either Apple or i in front of anything and it will sell because Apple avoided that, OS != OS X Mac != PC (and because that is a computer with most MS users, it makes Macs referred to as Macs, not just computers) and it also is why MS can't make Zune or Xbox make a profit.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
WinME wasn't supposed to be any good, it was only released to bilk a bit more cash out of people in the euphoric high of the dotcom era. We knew it, Microsoft knew it. It wasn't a major investment for MS and Win2K/XP was just around the corner.
Vista's different. Vista took seven years to develop, it's supposed to be a flagship product and last for many years. It fails on all counts - people simply don't want it and many of them are even stocking up on copies of XP for the coming winter.
No sig today...
Not the "does she like me" and Ubuntu t-shirt bit, but the open source is better than Windows stuff.
>Don't be fooled by the article however, Microsoft still has the mindshare of future consumers -
> they're the cool company that brought us the Xbox, Xbox Live, and the Halo franchise...
> In another 20 years, wouldn't you want to buy technology from the guys who brought you all
> the great memories from your childhood??
Actually Xbox 360 is a hot piece of gadget rather than cool...
Don't you know the infamous RROD (Red Ring of Death)?
It sure has been traumatizing many young kids, much more than Blue Screen of Death could in the past.
Windows stopped being that bad since the days of Win 98 and ME. XP never crashed on me or anyone I know and a lot of people I know use it daily.
I personally only recently switched to OS X, but the reason for switching wasn't stability or even security issues like you might think. I just wanted change and something different that can also run Adobe suite of apps (most critically Photoshop).
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Troll?! Seems pretty insightful to me!
I don't think lack of innovation is a new thing at MS. Not to mention that despite your feeling on the Xbox it is soon to be in 3rd and final place worldwide as the PS3 continues to gain ground (somewhat sadly). Still software is running great, but I wonder how long that gravy train can last with massive losses to marketshare. Lets not forget how much the Box has lost MS in profits despite it's one "magical" quarter which is suspicious all by itself.
...that their decline began at roughly the same time they began focusing on locking competitors out of Windows beginning with the elimination of Netscape's air supply. Sort of makes you wonder how things might have turned out if they'd decided to focus on designing better/faster/more-reliable software instead of redesigning their OS so that others could write decent software that ran on it.
When I do think about Microsoft nowadays, it's because I'm wondering how their latest announcement works to further the perpetuation of their monopoly; not because I'm curious about what nifty features might be in any new offering. (Heck, I stopped thinking that their products had nifty features years ago.)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
The Tylenol is for when you say you have a headache, the Rolaids are for when you say you ate too much and the KY is for when you tell me you're on your period.
Forget Microsoft, Intel is not even on the list! Isn't it amazing after all the Billions spent on "Intel Inside"?
For some reason, Windows users feel happy after they fix their computer, not pissed.
I think that is true for Linux and Macintosh as well
Harley's certainly aren't going to win the prize for the most reliable motorcylcle, but that has nothing to do with the fact that so many are "trailer queens" (ie carted around on trailers). The reasons for this are:
1) to keep the mileage low,
2) to keep the cycles clean and pristine without road tar, and chips from flying debris, etc.
3) to show off one's KEWL wheels.
It has nothing to do with reliability, and everything to do with showing off, and maybe a little to do with resale value. That said, both of my Harleys have been very reliable. They've certainly gotten a lot better than the days shortly after Amercian in the 70s took them over and totally trashed them. They've remade themselves and are quite reliable now. Still KZs are probably more reliable, but I'd rather blow my brains out than try to repair a KZ.
You are a car mechanic wondering why people don't change their own oil. Synaptic is far more advanced and capable than the Windows installer, but it's harder for the average user. All those configuration options are wonderful for you, but overwhelming for the average user. Those "one-button installs" are nothing of the sort, as they invariably ask questions that most users won't even comprehend, even if the default answer is the right one (i.e., they will ask "Where to install?" with the default option "/usr/local/bin/" (or similar). Just seeing "/usr/local/bin/" is enough to throw off the average user).
That's not to say Linux, and especially Ubuntu, isn't becoming more and more usable for the average user, it still has a long way to go.
You'll notice people never say, "I know nothing about computers, but I run Ubuntu" or "my dad/mom/grandparent/etc. just installed Ubuntu on their own", it's always, "I built them a PC and installed and maintain Ubuntu for them". Remove the PC enthusiast from the picture, and Ubuntu is absolutely *not* and option, while Windows and Mac are.
What is surprising is how both the volume and shrillness of their online apologists is increasing in direct proportion to their decline.
Microwho?
Ding dong the witch is dead music.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
What is surprising is how the volume and shrillness of their online apologists increases in direct proportion to their decline.
but for majority of people that's nothing compared to the alternative. Switching to something else means giving up all your familiar apps that you spent years optimizing your workflow in and getting really fast, re-learning something else (which is not a bad thing in itself, it's just that you are kind of slow and useless until you learn enough to be as productive) and in some instances it means switching your "computing philosophy" altogether. And that's a huge. It's like moving to a different country, learning the language and making a living. Not very many people do that.
I tinkered with Linux and got really comfortable with Unix long before I decided it's time to give up the last windows machine at home. But I'm sure for a lot of people that is a huge step forward that many don't have the time or will to make.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Mod GP up, baby!
-- thinkyhead software and media
> uptime
21:37 up 44 days, 7:58, 2 users, load averages: 0.24 0.27 0.30
-- thinkyhead software and media
soooo much wishing and dreaming is almost touching. Like it or not, deserved or undeserved, Microsoft products are 'it' for the vast majority of users and that's not going to change anytime soon for the simple reason that there are no 'viable' alternatives. Before the howls commence, let me clarify what I mean by viable. Windows installs and runs at least well enough on a vast array of hardware configurations. Wizards do their job satisfactorily in terms of installing/finding drivers, and generally setting up the system - pretty hard to say the same about Linux with a straight face. Similarly microsoft products like the Office suite are easily good enough for almost everything the average home/office user needs. Sure Wordperfect had some great features that Word has never come close to matching (ah how sweet is the reveal codes function) and sure Word has some really irritating quirks but lets get real, Open office os a very long way from being in the same league as Microsoft Office. I work in government and cash strapped IT departments would love nothing more than being able to ditch the never ending expense of the unholy marriage that is dependency on Microsoft but it just can't happen. The alternatives are simply not there to switch to without taking a functionality hit that is too great to be seriously contemplated. I wish it wasn't so, really I do but at least for now I can't see moving away from mac hardware running windows with flyakite software giving a mac'ish sheen to the windows apps I depend upon.
It was fairly funny this first time but I daresay it's losing entertainment value with re-use...
Coke recognized the error of it's ways and changed back as soon as it was clear New Coke was a flop.
...and maybe that is why Coca-Cola is, and has been, one of THE most recognized brands in all of business history. Companies screw up all the time. That's part of business.
I don't see that same behavior from MSFT.
What seperates the men from the boys is how a company reacts to a screw up. JnJ recalled Tylenol. Coke changed back and killed New Coke. Hell, even Jack in the Box was able to come back from the dead after killing a few people. In contrast, MSFT doesn't seem to recognize the lessons there so it continues screwing up while it thinks it is doing it right.
You have 2 things going on here.
First, goodwill in the accounting sense is from mergers and acquisitions. Second, Accounting rules can be weird and oftentimes, they don't match what you would intuitively think. That's the case here. "Goodwill" is not some magic number that has to do with the goodwill of the brand. It has NOTHING to do with brand.
IBM was foolish enough to partner with Microsoft on the development of OS/2. In hindsight the outcome was predictable but I do not think a reasonable interpretation of the events is "Windows won on its own merits."
Help stamp out iliturcy.
What was so amazing especially when Windows 3.1 came out was the viruses and crashes on the PC's which people found a "minor inconvenience" and yet if any Unix machine crashed which was a very rare occurrence people would remember that but never the times they lost the document they were preparing on "their" PC. The IT group I was in were constantly bemused by this weird ability of the PC user to forget the inconveniences they suffered using PC's.
Note I used the word "their" in quotes since I think that a person can think of a PC as theirs and will put up with the inconvenience of crashes, viruses, etc, while a Workstation or X Terminal is (as far as they are concerned) even though much more reliable and flexible is not perceived as theirs. Whenever I make Windows crash (very often with Explorer) I get really pissed. Which is why I make a point on not using Windows unless absolutely necessary. That is why I only have Linux (Fedora 8) on my home laptop and I really don't miss MS Windows, especially when I have my work laptop running MS XP Windows (Vista is not allowed) which was setup by our Windows IT department to wind me up.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Band-Aid.
You realize, I won't be able to watch that show without thinking about this comment, right?
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
I've had a similar experience to the one mentioned in the parent post, but with Ubuntu instead of OSX.
... I explain a bit ... and many of them leave with the name "Ubuntu" written on a post-it note, because they want to try it out.
After I moved my home and office PCs to Ubuntu, I've had a lot of people (house guests, employees, clients) ask me what's running on my computer
Some employees have, without my advocating it or "preaching Linux," installed Ubuntu on their home machines and told me about their experiences. They're always glowing when they tell me how cool the effects and other eye-candy are, that they enabled.
A lot of people ask me things like "why isn't *everyone* running this?" because they like it so much, plus it's free, etc. I know it's a big joke to mention "the year of the linux desktop," but times are certainly changing when "regular people" (not IT people) are installing linux on their home machines and big name stores/manufacturers are selling linux desktop machines, etc etc.
I've had 2 Apple lovers tell me that they likes Ubuntu's "eye-candy" more than OSX's and they wish they wish Apple would catch up with open-source!
( none of this is necessarily specific to Ubuntu - there are lots of great linux desktops, but I've had these experiences with Ubuntu )
But most Ubuntu users will go to the far simpler 'Add/Remove Programs' tool. In Ubuntuland synaptic is for advanced users. More like knowing where to put your petrol in than changing your oil.
I have some sympathy for this view. The ability of the US government to require companies like Microsoft to become part of the surveillance state apparatus has left many out side the US - *especially* other governments - wary of using US software in security-sensitive situations. This lack of trust is corrosive and spreads easily. Linux and the open source model make it possible to run systems that have not been co-opted by the surveillance requirements of a foreign government (from a non-US perspective). Would the US tolerate a Chinese software firm, required to give unspecified information to the Chinese government, having 90% market share in desktop operating systems in the United States - including in all government departments? Not for a second. You're right in saying the destruction of Brand America, through the folly of George W Bush and Dick Cheney, is a problem for Microsoft. It's a problem for all but a few US corporates. Google avoids this largely because Google has been SEEN to be consistently ethical and socially aware in a way that few other major US corporates ARE (as opposed to pretend to be).
Only boring people are ever bored.
kill -9 microsoft
for proc = 86 ; proc 786 ; proc += 100 There seems to be a belief in a lot of software design that "computers are fast now so we don't need to be effecient" that's not true at all. next proc
Instead they use proxies like BSA, SCO and others to make the times miserable for everyone else.
The OOXML mess isn't helping them either.
And the copy protection scheme they have is just making things harder for the legitimate users. The pirates and others doesn't care about the protection technology and cracks it soon enough anyway.
I suspect that the upcoming versions of software from M$ is going to require TPM chips in our computers to work. But that will probably also make them even more alienated.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
"Please forgive me for going a little OT here, but, at one point she suggested that Photoshop was better then GIMP." .. which only shows that she has a far better clue about the usability of software then you ;)
++ chris
Quite right. Using Ad/Remove programs provides 99% of the software you are looking for (and about a million packages you didn't know you needed but now can't do without) with an incredibly simple search line, click-to-install procedure. Easier for a granny than searching around the internet for a program, deciding on which OS, which language, which version etc. Once installed it automatically updates itself. It has a nice textual description of what it does. If you really can't find the app you need you may have to look on the internet, but it is rare, and when you do there is usually a deb which instantly brings up your package installer, which handles all dependencies (and doesn't even ask you where you want to install it). Could it really be any simpler?
I'm running Windows XP on a Dell, and the only times it has crashed on me are when we get a power outage. I'm not saying other OS's aren't better, but I really haven't had any major problems in over 3 years. Firefox occasionally craps out on me, but rarely, and then as you suggest, I just restart the program. And to be fair, I think half the time it's my ISP not being available. Oh, and I downloaded Open Office, and have gone back to Excel, Word, and Access. I find OO takes forever to open - like five minutes. Too aggravating!
What was once true, is no longer so