Replies

He also described Apple's impact on Microsoft sales this year as ‘a rounding error’, saying that; “Apple's share globally costs us nothing...
“Hopefully we will take share back from Apple,” said Ballmer, “But they sell only about 10 million computers globally so it's a limited opportunity.”

True. Even if Microsoft grabbed all the Apple mac sales every year, it'd only about to about $500 million extra revenue for Microsoft per year, which isn't that much when compared to Microsoft last 12 months revenues that came to approx $60 Billion. This is not so much about grabbing share from Apple, it's about not losing Windows PC sales to the mac.

“We don't believe in coming to market like Apple - high margin, high quality, high price. We believe in high volume and low price,”

Shoulda said, “high volume, high quality and low prices for Windows PC’s..”

“Investors are pushing us to spend more money on this marketing.”

“Ballmer also released the latest data on Windows 7: 8 million copies of the release candidate have been downloaded; half of IT managers plan to upgrade to Windows 7 ‘as soon as it's available’; and 80 per cent intend to move within 30 months”

Good, good. But ummm..as an investor, I'd be happy to know total pre-order figures for Win 7 so far in retail as well. I know it's high, but just how high?

“We did a programme to cut the price of Windows in emerging markets. The theory was that lower prices would lead to higher attach rates and higher revenues. That theory was wrong, so for Windows 7 we'll readjust those prices north.”

Bad idea. Adjust the prices even lower south for a lower powered version of Win 7 for the much poorer developing countries.

Question is, why the heck did it take Microsoft so long before running attack ads against Apple, after Apple had been running attack ads Against Windows for to the tune of 7 years, with no reply from Microsoft?

I think the better question is why are they doing it now? The ads make no sense. They are helping to give mindshare to what to MS is essentially an insignificant competitor. They are advertising a product that MS does not make. Very few other companies are as dominant in a market as MS is, but how many other dominant players do you see mentioning the competition who has next to no market share.

Shoulda said, “high volume, high quality and low prices for Windows PC’s..”

But then he'd be lying.

Adjust the prices even lower south for a lower powered version of Win 7 for the much poorer developing countries

Yes, sometimes they forget the fact that they're competing with free on the low end. Add to that the fact that many developing countries don't give a crap about copyright, so most of the copies of Windows will be unlicensed anyway. They need to give a better value for the money, added value above the competition for that market.