Op-Ed: Windows 7, marketing from the Stone Age, and the recession

You have to admire the level of remove from humanity which believes XP users will naturally rush out and buy a new computer to do a clean install on Windows 7. Apparently the guys who did Vista’s marketing are still on the run from the Smithsonian.

Although Windows 7 has been getting generally positive reviews as a good operating system, including one from our own esteemed Jack Kapica, and The New York Times, there’s a recession on. A new computer, just to run a bit of software? Some background here: I'm a second generation marketing person. I don't give a damn about the techno babble. I'm talking about marketing, and in this case, how and why not to do it like this. Apparently the equation is that “computer user = millionaire idiot” is still the functioning marketing methodology in some strange monastery. OK, maybe guys whose bonuses would cover the annual wages of 100 people don’t think about affordability, user needs and ridiculous things like that. It's only basic level marketing, for which you'd fail the degree if you'd left them out. After all what did market realities ever have to do with Vista? Imagine if NCR or some other business system came up with a model requiring massive use of time and money just to set it up. What fun. There'd be a scream that would have DC fully employed for years. Microsoft should at least recognize that it has obligations to users to provide good working options for its systems, not arbitrary “take it or leave it” market stuff. If anything the whole concept raises the antitrust issues more than any other possible sales method. That's not great marketing technique, either. If Windows 7 falls foul, as many other Microsoft products have, of that issue, the retooling alone could cost billions. A mildly well informed canary would be able to see that coming, but not, apparently, the gung ho marketing model Microsoft is using, which is all market weight-based. ("Market weighting" is a particularly primitive marketing concept which is like having most of the pot in poker, and out- betting everyone else. You can still lose, heavily, if you bet on a dud hand.) Imagine if you had to buy a new car every time you wanted to go shopping. Imagine LCD touch screens with Windows wipers… Actually the touch screen function is for screens geared to take it, but how many of those are there? More peripherals, great idea, more cost to users. Merry Christmas. Just so someone knows: 10% of America is on food stamps, and a healthy 13.2% are on welfare. Many are living in tents. That’s 23.2% of the market gone before the shops open. What everyone really needs is another thing to spend money on, a complex new system and a day or so to reinstall everything on computers they can’t afford, or to spend a week or two trying to figure out how to compartmentalize so they can run Windows 7 on their existing computers. Well, it’ll take their minds off the malnutrition… This is practical marketing? What the hell ever happened to functionality as a basis for design and marketing? Is it asking too much for someone who’s taking a sabbatical from the janitor job to fit in an auto install for Windows 7? Imagine some advanced bit of software which starts up and says to itself, being a great conversationalist, “Oh, look, XP! I better run the install for that…” This is maybe the no brainer of all no brainers in any form of computer-related marketing. Who needs, or has ever needed, a ritualized install? Some people don’t want to risk tens of thousands or millions of bucks worth of their own work on something that may or may not install properly and may be a risk to their stuff. As someone who’s got backups of backups of backups, I can sympathize. If you’ve ever had a hard drive crash, you will appreciate why the prospect of paying for something which can achieve the same result, at least in theory, isn’t too appealing. Having to pay for a new computer as well isn't a major incentive, either. In marketing terms, the mere expectation of people slowly replacing hardware also blows sales projections out the Windows... er, window... Incrementalism with a hint of megalomania, perhaps? Or just a great, well un-thought-out concept? My computer is a custom job, duo core, 3GB on the floor. It can run anything, why should I have to pay for another one to run this damn thing? Particularly when I don’t see that Windows 7 is adding much to anything but “niceties” of computer operation? For the sake of some pretty dumb code, Win 7 should be able to run on anything, on principle. The marketing has also fallen down badly in terms of features profiles. The market profile created for Win 7 is another massive dropping of standards in terms of promotional values. There aren't any "Wow" factors in Win 7, just "another operating system". OK, the hardware guys want to cash in. What a surprise. Big deal, who cares? Get them working on something useful, not figuring out ways to gouge consumers for things they shouldn’t need. I can see a point where someone like Google figures out that a basic operating system, maybe cloud based, can be an excellent revenue stream. Like Apple, with all-download installs. They’ve already got a lot of apps which would equate to a working system for most domestic uses. There's another element of marketing, invented, ironically enough, in the US: The "Who needs it?" concept, first documented in the late 1940s. It's a primary sales driver, and it's basic marketing strategy. In the case of personal computing, need is the big driver. Anything which meets major markets' needs will find an instant sales and revenue base, particularly if it out-competes existing market standards. If solid state computing and/or cloud computing takes off, and they should, rather than using the equivalent of a record player, disk systems are dead, anyway. Microsoft might want to take a longer view of these things before reality drops in to say hello. Another fundamental market reality is that the market will always work in its own interest. If that means saving thousands by not buying irritating products, that's what happens. It's an absolute limit, and every single major manufacturer in history has hit it. Think, or be damned.