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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."
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
Mike Rowe Soft.
It's a dirty job.
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.
From TFA "CoreBrand measures brand power using four criteria. It first rates the familiarity of a company's brand. Once a company has a certain level of familiarity, they are ranked according to three "attributes of favorability": overall reputation, perception of management and investment potential..."
I don't believe you, I'm here for a seat on the secret spaceship.
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.
- Coca-Cola (same rank as last year)
- Johnson & Johnson (same rank as last year)
- Hershey Foods (up from number 8 last year)
- Harley-Davidson (up from number 6 last year)
- Hallmark Cards (same as last year)
- Campbell Soup (up from 10 last year)
- UPS (down from 4 last year)
- FedEx (down from 7 last year)
- Colgate-Palmolive (up from 12 last year)
- Starbucks (up from 13 last year)
- PepsiCo (down from 3 last year)
This list is measured from a telephone interview among business leaders. Their scores were weighted higher if they had more familiarity with the companies in question. They were rated based on the Brand's overall reputation, perception of management, and investment potential. Note that these are corporate brands, not consumer brands. Apple is not on the list, in case anyone was wondering.Qxe4
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?
The reality is, being cool is about being cool. Can't be defined. Any attempts to do so peg you as uncool, and you'll probably never know why.
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.
People don't always necessarily go for quality. If that were the case, McDonald's and a bunch of other businesses that turn out what are essentially low-quality, cheap or just plain mediocre products would be out of business.
Some people want a brand because it represents an attitude -- like I'm different. Think of Apple's Think Different campaign. People bought Macs just to be different -- they didn't care about features in the OS or available software, they just wanted a different kind of computer.
In the end the average Joe Sixpack buys what he finds familiar. He doesn't make buying decisions based on facts or critical thinking or anything related to clear, precise, logical thought. Kinda scary when you think about it.
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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.
This study has nothing to do with reliability, only brand recognition. Regardless of Harley's reliability, they are a very, very widely recognized brand name.
I don't know what kind of evening you have planned, but count me out.
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I think Microsoft's problems run much deeper than just Vista. Microsoft has completely lost sight of how to create innovative products that people enjoy using. When they can't seem to innovate, they backtrack and try to compete with existing products. Only it takes them so long the thing they're competing with becomes deeply entrenched in the market and has become a de-facto standard. Examples: TiVo and UltimateTV. iPod and Zune. It surprises me that XBox has done as well as it has. Microsoft has been in the mobile phone business for over 5 years. They've had all this time to refine PocketPC/Windows CE as a phone OS. Still, I don't know anyone who really loves Windows Mobile. It's functional but clunky. Yet Apple comes along and takes their first stab at a phone, it's a smash hit with people overall. Vista is just another example of how Microsoft just "doesn't get it". They keep changing things around in ways that just aren't better, especially for less technical people. They keep taking their common "standardized" UI elements away from their applications. That goes for other products too. The most basic UI staple - the menu bar, is now missing from Internet Explorer 7 and Word 2007 amongst others. i really used to be a fan of Microsoft's products, but not so much anymore.