Hacker News Reader

Comment by msg | Hacker News Reader

After Vista, PlaysForSure, Silverlight, Windows Live all killed their brand/device/service? I think the lesson for consumers is that Microsoft has not been able to expand beyond its cash cows (Xbox/Kinect the notable exception).

If you google [microsoft flop] you will get many overlapping examples. Kin shows up, of course. As does Vista, as does Zune. And that latter day tablet product that never was. And the other products of MSR that never quite make it to stores. Consumers are not dumb. They are aware of these high profile collapses.

And there is a general trend of lagging the market, then failing to catch up. This more than anything explains the performance of Windows Phone in the market.

View on HN

Windows Live isn't dead, by any stretch. It's been rebranded as "Microsoft Account", and actually extended a ton in Windows 8. Vista wasn't "killed" any more than Snow Leopard was "killed" by Lion.

PlaysForSure and Silverlight are actually great examples of what I'm talking about- consumers have zero idea what they are. Developers are angry that MS dropped Silverlight because they spent a lot of time learning it and creating stuff with it, but beyond an initial install screen (which they've already forgotten about) consumers have no idea whether they are using HTML5, Flash or Silverlight. This is a good thing.

Consumers do not regard the MS Courier tablet as a flop. They have never heard of it.

Fine, they are "undead" products. I reiterate that the consumer is aware of them as failed experiments, not as "subtle redirections forming the core of a new flagship product".

I don't know how many google searches you want me to provide you with. Here is the top result for [Microsoft brand]. Admittedly it is from 2010. However, it is not an isolated example.

"Microsoft is a dying consumer brand"

http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/27/technology/microsoft_pdc/ind...

Consumers have turned their backs on Microsoft. A company that once symbolized the future is now living in the past.

Microsoft has been late to the game in crucial modern technologies like mobile, search, media, gaming and tablets. It has even fallen behind in Web browsing, a market it once ruled with an iron fist.

Here's something from a few days ago reinforcing my position.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/microsofts-branding-crisi...

The articles you link to state that MS has brand problem. I agree with that. It isn't "cool", and people don't identify with it. As your quotes say, they are behind the times.

What I am disgreeing with is the original suggestion that these brand problems are the result of products that are abandoned quickly and/or have no future. I do not think that consumers regard Silverlight as a failed experiment, I don't think they know what it is, or that it even exists.

I think Microsoft's brand problem is that they are not seen as interesting or innovative, not that they ditch their products too quickly.

I agree with you. Here in Turkmenistan mp3 market is taken almost entirely by iPod. In contrast, pc market is almost entirely (99.9%) windows. I can't show you official statistics, but I am sure the deviation from my estimations is insignificant.

People love windows in here, they are very eager to try new versions of windows (Majority of them don't even know that something else exists). Many companies with annual revenue above 1$mln usd use Excell as a primary work station. Nobody heard about Silverlight, MS Courier tablet (even me) and other "failed" MS products. Microsoft is regarded as a safe-bet. Thats what keeps many people from buying macbooks.

Thats said, I believe that majority of the world (those who don't follow tech news) think of Microsoft as they think of Windows- stable, reliable, familiar, indispensable product (company in case of Microsoft itself).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com