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No Competition
The recent Microsoft TV advertisments reminded me of an incident which happened to me in a pub recently.
I went to the pub to meet up with some friends for a drink after work. The wife of one of my friends was also there. She and her friend came over to sit with us outside. I happened to be wearing a Firefox polo shirt which was noticed by my friends wife – she works for Mircosoft.
Friends wife: “Is that Firefox? Where have I heard of that?”
Me: (not wanting a conversation about geek stuff in the pub) “It’s a product which competes with one of Microsofts products.”
Friends wife: “Nah, we don’t have any competitors.”
Me: “…”
Friends wife: “Except maybe Google.
I didn’t say anything else.
Is that really the perception of people in Microsoft, that they have no competition from anyone? Isn’t that a touch arrogant?
If it’s true, why the TV ad campaign, why the Mojave experiment? Surely if they have no competition then they have nothing to worry about. Maybe they just know that they have (in Vista) a crap product that people don’t want, which requires significant ($300M) investment to bolster public perception.