I do think the "I can't do that" type ads were more effective and show what's unique about Surface. I just don't seem to see those as much as the crazy people dancing around the office for no good reason and with no explanation. In my opinion: Good: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/commercials#Windows 8: Surface RT vs. iPad http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/commercials#INDO-Design-Studio (in concept - would need to be shortened and made a bit more exciting for TV) Terrible: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/commercials#SurfaceVibe
Those ads should have aired before the Surface came out, not after the sales reports came out. It's reactionary marketing. Those ads are amazing, but I always forget about them because the dancing ads are programmed into my memory now. So goofy
Interesting - that one is the one I've seen the majority of time that I've seen Surface ads on TV (well, the first 30 seconds of it). It's only recently that I've seen the iPad one, though most of what I watch is DVRed and I skip ads, so I don't necessarily have the best perspective.
The original ad was so intriguing to me (it was dancing). They made me want to know more about it. It was something I hadn't seen before. It felt exciting.
I just don't understand how anyone thinks that type of evaluation process is a good idea. You can never build a good team, because you get 10 great people together and several are going to be unhappy / ready to leave because they are evaluated as mediocre or bad. Even if one doesn't believe Ballmer is responsible for vision/product design/marketing (I think overall vision is the CEO's primary job), this type of thing does fall directly under his purview. And he's had a decade to fix it and hasn't done a thing.
I see the baseball one more than any, as I watch more baseball than anything else these days (which is Windows 8 on a Dell tablet apparently). This is the dancing one I think of: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/U7UlE-o8DQQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Edit: It's decided, I love the Windows 8 tablet commercials. Just happens to be that sometimes they are using Surface in them. The Surface advertising itself is weak.
Can you imagine having started and built a multi-billion dollar company, deciding to retire, picking your successor, seeing this video, and saying this is the guy to pick?? Lol. Don't get me wrong, I understand there's a ton of value in salesmanship, and I am certainly not privvy to Ballmer's doings behind the scenes... but wow!
So what does MSFT do right? Clearly they are doing something right since they have been growing consistently. I just double checked and it looks like their revs have grown from 23 billion in 2000 to 73 billion in 2012. That's about 10% a year. That's pretty damn good considering the economic train wreck that happened. Again, I recognize that MSFT isn't the most innovative company in the world, but clearly they are doing something right with Ballmer as CEO.
In a lot of ways Microsoft cannot innovate. Leo Laporte and Paul Thurott were talking about this on the podcasts. Microsoft operates on a scale so large they have to temper their creativity. When you have 5% market share its easy to make something wacky and odd, then if it fails you can backtrack to what it was like before. A vista like failure hits a company like MS harder than it would a company like apple.
That's certainly true for Windows - but they started with 0% market share in all these other markets they've entered and failed to innovate in (tablets, smartphones, music, etc). So it's more systematic beyond the large-scale stuff they already do - and to their credit, despite all the criticism, they do the Windows/Office/Enterprise stuff fairly well.
Well look at WP8/7. That's completely innovative because they essentially started with 0%. The problems that befall WP8 are 100% marketing IMO. The device doesn't stand out properly, and the only manufacturer that does a decent job of rectifying this is Nokia. This is why 85% of Microsoft's 4% market share is Nokia! That's nuts! It shows that the OEMs are doing a poor job promoting their phones as well. It annoys me that at AT&T they don't know windows phones, the ads for WP8 are generic and stupid when the OS itself is so easy and fluid in use. I loved iOS, and unless WP gets scrapped I don't see myself going back.
One exception: Gaming They had 0% when Balmer became CEO, and now they are a major player. Not that Balmer was the mastermind behind any of that.
To think, Microsoft was almost a hair away from buying Sega and re-branding Sega to some sort of hybrid.
So no one can say anything good about MSFT or Ballmer, but they have grown revs and ebitda consistently over his tenure. Someone throw me a freakin bone here... what gives? It isn't just be dumb luck and as easy as everyone tries to make it sound. MSFT management has to have done a lot of things right.
