Marketing plans for Microsoft Windows Vista in United States

Résumé du document

The main objective of this paper is to describe the marketing plan of a product or service. In the first place I will introduce the product, the company and its mission and vision. Then the analysis will explain the different environs of the product like the situational, neutral, competitors and the company's environs. The target market is one of the main elements in a marketing analysis, followed by a study of the problems and opportunities, marketing objectives and goals, the marketing strategy itself, the marketing tactics or alternatives for the overall strategy, the implementation and control (break even point). The paper will conclude with a summary of the analysis. In order to produce a complete analysis, I tried to select a product for which enough information is available.

Extraits

[...] Universities, workplaces, fairs would be perfect places where the shows could take place. Microsoft Vista being regularly updated, new sales shows could be organized when an important upgrade creates a new differential advantage and presents new features final customers would like. An approximate price would be the salaries of the people working during the show, which would be $10 * 8 hours of work * 4 people = $320. These 4 people need to be transported for one place to another, which would represent a cost of $500 * 4 people = $2000. [...]

[...] However, Macintosh Osx rarely has media coverage as good as Microsoft Products do when they are release. Apple produces its own machines whereas Microsoft gets partnerships with several manufacturers to pre-install its operating systems. Apple is also using a different strategy, specializing its softwares in very particular domains such as movie-making, sound creation. This media specialization creates a marketing buzz on the Internet, and several groups of consumers therefore prefer Apple operating systems to Microsoft one. Other software developers such as Linux-based softwares use this strategy of buzz marketing. [...]

[...] Microsoft Vista possesses such functionalities but they were not emphasized in the marketing campaign as much as they should have been. An interesting marketing plan would have been to create commercials clearly explaining these possibilities. TV and websites are the best types of media for this type of information since computer users are more likely to watch this media. Newspaper readers will in general be less Another interesting idea would be to schedule sale shows in different public places were Microsoft employees would present useful ways to interconnect different devices in order to facilitate users' life. [...]

[...] Moreover, from one Microsoft operating system to the next one, a user doesn't have to restart a learning process, the complexity is generally avoided or several introduction tutorials present the new functions when the user first starts the computer. Another opportunity exists in the fact manufacturers trust Microsoft products and retailers make more profit by retailing this kind of product than free operating systems. Everybody can confirm that nowadays, the largest percentage of newly sold systems is provided with Windows, even though the trend is slowly changing. On the other side, the Redmond company faces several problems. [...]

[...] This is why, during several years, Microsoft kept developing his browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer, at loss. By keeping up to date a product people would use everyday to surf on the Internet, the company tried to familiarize potential customers with the way its softwares work and to make them used to see its logo on most softwares. Another example of the firm's strategy: it helps the development of new markets by offering copies and licenses of its softwares to schools, churches, and non- governmental organizations. [...]