Chapter 12 Supply Chain Management

Supply Chain Management Software—Microsoft Dynamics

"Optimize your supply chain to get the right goods to the right place at the right time"

Microsoft has developed software for Supply Chain Management to help businesses to reduce barriers of productivity and efficiency and help your organization deliver what customers want and need.

Microsoft Dynamics offers extensible, familiar supply chain management (SCM) software that can reduce barriers to productivity and efficiency, and help your organization deliver what customers need, when they need it.

Here's is a few key things the software will help do!!!

• Help your teams control your supply chain and streamline operations

• Build productive vendor relationships

• Compete successfully by keeping customers happy

• Extend and integrate your systems

• Tighten distribution processes

Product Life Cycle

Product Life Cycle - Xbox 360

Microsoft has expectations on its game console Life cycle. The Xbox 360 has a proposed 10 -15 year Product Life Cycle. Microsoft executive Shane Kim stated at Microsoft the company "firmly" believes that the Xbox 360 "has a life cycle through 2015," or exactly ten years since it launched.

Talking with Mercury News, Microsoft's Robbie Bach quelled our fanboy fears (or hopes) of a new Xbox console releasing anytime soon, admitted that they're in no hurry to release the 360's successor anytime soon."The life cycle for this generation of consoles - and I'm not just talking about Xbox, I'd include Wii and PS3 as well - is probably going to be a little longer than previous generations," admitted Bach. "Just coming up with something that's faster and prettier isn't going to be sufficient." Well said.So, if our math skills are up to par, we'd say a new Xbox revision should be headed down the pipeline sometime in 2011. Yeah, about then, give or take a year

Chapter 10 Developing and Managing Products

Test Marketing

Microsoft Inc. has been conducting some test marketing with their new product Microsoft TV Foundation Edition 1.7 Platform.

TiVo's business model, however, is changing the way people watch TV, even the kinds of companies competing in the multi-billion-dollar television market. U.S. software giant Microsoft, after testing the waters in its home state of Washington, made a deal in March with Mexico's biggest cable-TV operator, Cablevision Mexico, to offer its Microsoft TV Microsoft TV is a division within Microsoft Corporation that develops software platforms for use in set top boxes to access programming over a Cable TV network. It provides integrated audio, video and data services over a single network. Foundation Edition 1.7 platform to subscribers in the capital city. With this product launch, Cablevision becomes the first company to roll out the Microsoft platform in Latin America Latin America, the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies.

This maybe the new wave of T.V. and another successful business deal for the growing software giant Microsoft.

Sales Promotion

Microsoft on October 22 offered a promotion deal for those who are planning to buy a new Windows 7 PC or to upgrade to the newest operating system that discounts the upgrades as much as 58%. The deal applies when consumers purchase a new computer equipped with Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate. The offer is available from Amazon.com and Staples. For example, when buyers purchase a new Windows 7 PC, Staples will sell a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $49.99 which is a 58% savings compared to the $119.99 list price. On the other hand, Amazon has dropped the price of Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade to $59.95 which is a saving of 5% or $60 compared to the list price.

Under the promotion deal, when customers ordered a new Windows 7 notebook or desktop at the same time, Amazon will give a $85 savings (42% off) on Professional Upgrade i.e $115.99 and an $80 savings on Ultimate Upgrade i.e $139.99.

This sales promotion was a success.

Public Relations

Public Relations

Microsoft has released a new public relation effort through its public relation firm Waggener Edstrom.

Twends is the new tweet analysis tool that is free and available to any interested parties. WaggEd reps are using the tool in-house to track budding trends. Waggs also have shared twendz “with various Microsoft clients,” a company spokesperson said.

Basically what Twendz does is Twendz marries twitter search with real-time sentiment analysis. twendz is able to effectively generalize the attitudes and feelings about a particular topic, product or brand as the conversation happens. So, for example, the latest top trend on twitter is about the new iPod Shuffle. twendz is able to tell you how people are feeling about the new iPod, and it can summarize those feelings and attitudes for you over time.”

Like many tech PR firms, WaggEd also monitors religiously Twitter trends involving its biggest client. On March 11, WaggEd went beyond simply monitoring tweets: It introduced a beta version of a software tool for monitoring and analyzing them.

I think it is an very effective public relation. Reason is that the analysis wouldnt be accessible to normal tweeples so it gives anyone free to access to analyze things they like or just play around and read data. Also it helps business track data too.

Public Relations and Advertising

Advertising

Microsoft is seizing what is perhaps its most valuable advertising real estate, Microsoft said on Friday it has launched a pilot program to sell ads on the Windows desktop.

Advertisers can buy the right to offer various themes that customize the desktop image and that promote various gadgets and even custom sounds for the Windows 7 operating system. Microsoft stressed, however, that users will choose which, if any, of the customizations they want to download.

The Windows Personalization Gallery offers a desktop branding experience for users throughout the operation of their Windows 7-based PC, including backgrounds, slide shows, borders, and application audio elements.

Microsoft's pitch is that the program will allow consumers to connect with brands they particularly like.

The new Windows Theme Experience and Windows Personalization Gallery in Windows 7 allow consumers to customize their technology to reflect the things in life they are most passionate about, Microsoft vice president Darren Huston said in a statement. "These are great examples of Microsoft innovation and technology coming together to enable top global brands to reach audiences in new and interesting ways."

Microsoft said that the advertising program is a test that will run through October of next year. Early partners include Porsche, Infiniti, and Ducati, and Microsoft itself is participating.

"Microsoft is a key partner in our global advertising strategy; they constantly provide new ideas and opportunities which are tailored to our brand and exciting for corporations customers." The Windows Personalization Gallery and Windows Theme Experience are unique offerings that will provide Infiniti with a new set of tools to integrate our brand elements into the lives of consumers everywhere."

Twentieth Century Fox, another early advertiser, will use the Windows desktop to promote its movies.

Microsoft said that the themes are available globally from Microsoft's Web site.

The purpose of this ad is to introduce Microsoft's new innovation for corporations to advertise. The goal is get corporations to participate in this advertising medium so they can make lots of money and also expand their name and brand. If this becomes a success it will increase Microsoft's revenue and give them a stronger presence in the software industry.

Demand

Inelastic of Demand

The changing of the Xbox 360 will have an inelastic demand because regardless of the price of the on demand games it will not effect the products demand. Below will explain

With so much going on at Microsoft’s E3 keynote, the software giant decided to wait until things had calmed down before they announced what one of their biggest feature will be. The Xbox 360 will be getting games on demand; these will be full retail games.

The new on-demand access will launch on August, and will start with 30 game titles, new games will then be added each week. You will be able to purchase the games with a credit card, so no more worrying if you have enough Xbox points.

Xbox 360 users have already been getting exited at the fact that the points are on their way out, but Engadget have heard it on good authority from Microsoft that Xbox 360 points are here to stay. For those who have wondered when Xbox will offer game rental, this is not happening just yet, maybe in time.

Pricing Concepts

REVENUE

Microsoft Corp has announced revenue of $13.10 billion for the fourth quarter ended June 30, 2009, a 17% decline from the same period of the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $3.99 billion, $3.05 billion and $0.34 per share, which represented declines of 30%, 29% and 26%, respectively, when compared with the prior year period. Microsoft's business continued to be negatively impacted by weakness in the global PC and server markets. “In light of that environment, it was an excellent achievement to deliver over $750 million of operational savings compared to the prior year quarter.” The financial results for the fourth quarter ended June 30, 2009, included the deferral of $276 million of revenue related to the Windows 7 Upgrade Option program that was announced on June 25, 2009. This revenue deferral reduced earnings per share by $0.02. The fourth-quarter financial results also included $193 million of legal charges, $108 million of impairments to investments and $40 million of additional severance charges related to the previously announced plan. Operating expenses were reduced by $105 million of capitalized research and development expenses due to the technical milestones reached for Windows 7.

For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009, Microsoft reported revenue of $58.44 billion, a 3% decline from the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the year were $20.36 billion, $14.57 billion and $1.62, which represented declines of 9%, 18% and 13% respectively. “While economic conditions presented challenges this year, Microsoft maintained their focus on delivering customer satisfaction and providing solutions to our customers to save money.

Retailing at Microsoft

The company i am pursuing is Microsoft a software giant who does also produce hardware, they currently dont have any retail stores that are physical they have currently opened the Microsoft store online. The online store was made to provide its customers with its products directly from Microsoft directly to them. The way it works is when you buy a program from the Microsoft online store you dont have to wait for shipping, or pay for shipping and deal with the usual problems of out of stock or shipping company mistakes, the software is downloaded instantly to your computer with in moments or how ever long it takes your computer to download. The prices are moderate to high and will get maximum service through the online customer support and via phone service. This is an effort to please their customers and cut cost on packaging and shipping fees. Microsoft announced plans to open retail stores, hoping to boost visibility of many of its products and its brand. The move seems to be an effort to mimic the success that Apple has had with its retail stores. The news is just too tempting not to have some fun with. So here are some yet-to-be-officially-revealed details about the Microsoft stores.

Microsoft plans to open its own retail stores to "transform the PC and Microsoft buying experience," it hired an executive to run the retail operation.

The stores will help Microsoft engage more deeply with consumers and learn firsthand about what they want to buy and how, according to a Microsoft press release. Deciding where the stores will be located and what they'll look like will be the first order of business for David Porter, who will report to work on Monday as corporate vice president of Retail Stores.

Microsoft has long been perceived as lagging behind rival Apple in appealing directly to consumers, and Apple has a head start of several years in running a chain of stores. While Microsoft makes its own Xbox game terminals, Zune media players and some other devices, it doesn't have a branded PC product of its own like Apple's Macintosh.

This will be the test of innovation and creation if Microsoft can become a good competitor in the retail business?

A Visit to Target (Retailing)

In this blog i will be talking about retailing at the store i visited this weekend. This weekend i took a visit to Target one of the worlds largest retailers. Target would be considered as a chain store as its classification as a retailer.

As i am a frequent Target customer a lot of things i have noticed but didn't understand why until i read this chapter on retailing which explained it all, it is retail marketing. Target has a wide variety of product assortment such as electronics, clothes, frozen foods, a fast food restaurant on the premises, sporting equipment, jewelry the list goes on. I noticed that the baby pampers, wipes weren't next to the section where the accessories for babies were such as toys, bottles, bath tubs and etc. The baby pampers and wipes were in front next to aisle where you would find deodorant, tooth paste , tooth brushes, and hygiene products. So that stood out to me also their location is key to their success, they are located in a shopping center in an area which is urban and middle class to lower class with other retailers in the same center. So their products are priced as inexpensive to moderately expensive but not out of the price of its demographics. They have clothes in front as you enter the store, maybe to promote the selling or becoming a seller of clothes, their electronics section is separate. The store appearance is generally clean it is always alot of traffic, but they have less sales people on the floor so you have to look for a lot of stuff yourself which to me is a good thing for a retailer it gets customers a chance to find other things they should buy. I observed a lot of things that day about retailing and by the looks of the store and shoppers, the people at Target know what they are doing.

Product Modification

Microsoft has a foothold in the gaming console industry with its Xbox video game. Its competitors Sony, and Nintendo also have very popular games. With the releases of the Playstation 2, Nintendo game cube Microsoft released the Xbox which was a good contendor. But to be more efficient and have the cutting edge advantage over their competitors they had to modify and upgrade the Xbox, which brought life to the Xbox 360. Microsoft then displayed Product Modification and planned obsolence. The Xbox 360 made the xbox obsolete and became the game console of the world.

Recently, the console war between Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo has escalated, and it’s all thanks to the Xbox. The original Xbox was designed to compete directly with Sony’s highly popular Playstation 2 and the Nintendo Game Cube, recently emerging in the consumer’s awareness. With the Xbox 360’s launch, the console war climbed to new levels of competition, though it can be said that the Xbox 360 was the clear winner for a full year after its release.

Sony and Nintendo had no intention of simply lying down, and they both quickly released their own seventh generation gaming consoles, the Playstation 3 and the popular Wii. This time it was harder for gamers to pick between one or the other since each console came with its own strengths and weaknesses. To simply things, this article will compare the Xbox 360 and its two competitors in terms of games, controls, and graphics.

Product Concepts

In this blog i will discuss a convenience product Microsoft has put into commerce recently. A convenience product is a relatively inexpensive that merits little shopping effort. It is usually referred to as candy, soft drinks, aspirin but in the case of Microsoft a company who sells software and hardware its convenience product is introduced differently but is a product of convenience for its customers.

In 2007 Microsoft was touting the advantages it would have in search as a result of its ability to integrate its engine into its own online properties and products.

(Microsoft execs referred to this kind of search as “convenience search.” Going to a search engine and typing in a query there is what they called “destination search.”)

Cut to July 9, 2009. Today, Microsoft announced one of those long-promised “convenience search” capabilities with the ability to directly insert Bing search results into Hotmail messages. Microsoft has moved from pilot stage to final and has integrated a "Quick Add" Feature in Hotmail.

To use Quick Add, users can select a category from a new Quick Add pane on the right when composing new e-mail messages. From there, they can directly insert a Bing search result into their messages.Quick Add is “currently available in select languages and geographies (Australia, Canada, China, India, US, and UK), according to the Hotmail team.

Microsoft Research Media Aggregators

Today Microsoft announced a new proof-of-concept prototype monitoring tool which aims to help businesses organize and analyze their social presence on the web. Looking Glass is a Social Media Aggregator and Monitoring Tool for Businesses. Code-named “Looking Glass”, this platform enables companies to manage their social accounts effectively as they create advertising on major social networking websites. By merging social media and advertising into one simple and easy-to-use platform, marketers are now able to listen to the conversation on the social web. They are able to track customer sentiment across an array of social media sites by grabbing a wide variety of feeds related to a specific topic from platforms such as YouTube, Twitter and Flickr. One good example would Microsoft’s new Zune HD. In the past, the Zune HD marketing team would have to analyze statistics from Twitter search and this could be quite tedious unless San Francisco-based micro-blogging service sells data to Microsoft.

Using technology from Microsoft Research, Looking Glass automatically rates each posting as positive or negative, so the Zune HD team could rank comments according to sentiment and see how customers are responding to the product and the campaign to sell it. All these information are converted into pie-charts or line graphs which show them how well their campaigns are progressing. Currently "Looking Glass" is still in testing mode and will be opened to a small group of testers next month.

Market Research

The Marketing Research function at Microsoft is centralized although roles with market research responsibilitites can also exist among product groups at Microsoft. The Corporate Market Research group focuses on research related to specific products and technologies, advertising and PR, brand awareness and customer segments. They partner with outside research vendors to produce strategic insight to drive business decisions.

At Microsoft, they often employ third-party market research companies to conduct surveys on our behalf. Below is a list of companies they engage with for market research.

Market Research Companies

Cheskin Research
comScore SurveySite
ConStat
Hall & Partners
Harris Interactive Europe
IPSOS
Management Insights Technologies
Maritz
MarketTools, Inc.
Market Strategies
Milward Brown
Momentum Market Intelligence
Penn, Schoen & Berland (PSB)
Schireson Associates
Strategyn
Synovate
Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS)

Microsoft Rethinks Customer Segmentation

It's Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT)'s turn to think different.

The software giant's top sales executives are challenging both partners and Microsoft's own sales teams to think more deeply beyond employee numbers or seats deployed when considering customer prospects. This theme surfaced time and time again during keynote addresses Sunday at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference here in Toronto.

"Current elements of segmentation are quite insufficient," said Orlando Ayala, senior vice president of the Small and Midmarket Solutions & Partner Group and COO of Microsoft Business Solutions. A better indicator of what technology a customer might need is server penetration, he said.

Ayala received a dose of this reality firsthand when he volunteered to help outfit his brother Oscar's small business, a hobby shop, with Microsoft-built technologies including Small Business Server. (For more on his experiences, click here.)

The problems that Oscar Ayala faced as a business owner " managing payments and cash flow, maintaining appropriate inventory levels, supply chain management, handling the end-of-day settlement process, and maintaining a viable e-commerce presence " were more particular to his classification as a retail store than any artificial census numbers tied to counting seats, his brother related.

For additional evidence, Orlando Ayala points to another poignant example, that of a real estate firm that employed very few number of staffers but yet ha deployed nine servers and supported an annual IT budget of $400,000.

As Microsoft eyes a sales goal of $11 billion for the SMB marketplace, the Redmond, Wash., company is encouraging both its partners and its own sales team to become "cultural anthropologists" who can provide insight into more practical sales scenarios as the market evolves and help partners create repeatable solutions for solving them.

"It's all about evidence," Orlando Ayala said. Steven Guggenheimer, vice president of small business for Microsoft, said beyond the per-seat dynamic there are a number of ways for partners to assess and categorize prospects in the small business world. Among questions that solution providers should ask during early customer work are: What is the prospect using currently? What is the owner's overall view about technology? And what are the company's growth plans?

Likewise, Microsoft is mobilizing its enterprise team and partners to consider how deployment or infrastructure integration strategies differ by industry, and it is forcing its sales and services teams to come up with unified account plans for the roughly 4,600 customers it touches with a direct relationship.

"More and more we are taking a position depending on the vertical market," said Simon Witts, corporate vice president of the Enterprise and Partner Group at Microsoft during the Sunday morning keynote session. In general, the industry faces a scenario in which many enterprises are overlicensed and underdeployed, meaning that customers are failing to derive the true value of their infrastructure or applications, Witts said. "It's a real competitive threat for the entire industry," he said.

Another issue is lagging upgrades.

Gerry Elliot, Microsoft's corporate vice president for U.S. Enterprise and Worldwide Industry Solutions, estimated that only 15 percent of the company's enterprise customers have migrated to Office 2003, while only 40 percent are using Windows XP. Conversely, approximately 40 percent of the installed base has migrated off Windows NT 4.0 and earlier versions onto Windows Server 2003, Elliott said.

During fiscal year 2005, which started July 1, Microsoft's enterprise team hopes to drive up to 8,200 deployments in tandem with partners, compared to 6,500 in the previous fiscal year. In exchange, Elliott said solution providers and other channel members must be prepared to finetune their customer focus and provide evidence that their services can be better differentiated from those of their competitors.

Target Markets

Microsoft has a new plan to introduce itself to a new market which is Mobile Carriers. Microsoft's plan is to provide mobile carriers. Windows Mobile 6.1 is billed as an update that includes new time-saving features, easier phone navigation and management, and increased security safeguards. Microsoft says it includes "several key updates based on customer feedback, including the capability to make the most critical information readily available at a glance, quicker phone setup, and enhanced features adapted for the small screen."This will enable Microsoft to tap into a new market that has great opportunity for longevity in profit. The smart phone has conquered the mobile phone business. Since smart phones are high tech and are very similar to as PC they encounter many technical issues, and since there are over 8 million subscribers to smart phones. Service carriers are in dire need for quicker and easier solutions to consumer issues. So Microsoft has developed a program that deals with those issues and has majority of the Mobile carriers ready to use its program.

Microsoft has unveiled new software products for mobile network operators designed to help them manage the growing number of Windows Mobile OS based devices on their networks and provide additional services to users of these devices

Mobile Device Manager has been in trial with a number of customers and according to Microsoft, "Companies across the financial, manufacturing and professional services industries also requested that mobile operators deliver a core set of software and services to help businesses meet their management needs...A study conducted by Microsoft with large and midsize organizations showed businesses would like to move beyond their current mobile solutions to offer more sophisticated services."

Mobile Device Manager, Microsoft claims, meets these needs with "Features to manage phones with the same ease and flexibility as Windows-based PCs, addressing IT priorities for saving resources and protecting information; capability to help protect sensitive business files and e-mails, contacts and other information through file and storage card encryption on the phone should it be lost or stolen; [the] ability to access more of the information mobile workers need for staying on top of their jobs via a mobile virtual private network, which provides security-enhanced access to company data and application updates over the air."

Inelastic Demand

Inelastic Demand

Microsoft has an elastic demand in its Microsoft Office suite products for computers, which are widely used in almost every part of the world and is almost virtually impossible to complete a vast amount task. The Microsoft processor for computers are used in various institutions and is essential to life and business. Inelastic demand means that an increase or decrease in the price of a product will not significantly affect demand for the product. Since the product is highly needed if the price goes up or down it will still be in demand. The Microsoft product is used in every school, every business, and almost every home.This is an example inelastic demand.

Business Marketing

Business Marketing

Business marketing is very essential for a business whose main clients are other businesses. Business marketing has different components of it that help marketers understand the decisions they make and the effect that it has on consumers and its customers. One form of business marketing is Derived Demand. Derived Demand states that organizations buy products to be used in producing their customers product.

An example of derived demand in Microsoft would be in its game console Xbox 360. The game console was first introduced with a hard drive that allows user to store more memory and access to the internet. Derived demand comes in now, because the game console is priced expensive because of the hard drive. The hard drive is a crucial part of the success of the console. The rise and fall of the Xbox 360 depends on the hard drive which makes up the derive demand. The products sales didn't do as well as marketers expected because of the high cost of the hard drives. So to drive up sales Microsoft made an less expensive version with out the hard drive to offset the loss. So the marketing plan worked and now they have two console which both make money.

Marketing Implications of Involvement

The marketing involvement for the Microsoft store is very high. The reason it is high is because of
Electronic Software Distribution is a new technology that will soon take up alot of market share of software sales. The promotion for the store is extensive because Microsoft has a large target market which is its consumers. The market implication is high because Microsoft understands the consumers wants and needs. The wants and needs are to have all Microsoft products accessable at any given moment without long waits at a physical store, or long waits for custom shipping, saving money from shipping costs. The good thing is that Microsoft has loyal customers and a good product reputation which should give the store a opportunity to show why it is needed.

This is the new wave of technology and marketing for Microsoft products.

Consumer Decision Making

Social Influences on Consumer Buying

Microsoft Inc has recently open the Microsoft Store in the United States, currently it has a total of 5 stores stretching to countries such as Korea,UK , Germany and Japan. The Microsoft store isn't a physical store front, it is a virtual store that can be accessed from computers via internet.

The goal of the store is to offer its customers a faster way to get the products they need in their home or office. It is commonly referred to as Electronic Software Distribution. Ofcourse people will say Microsoft products are already online for sale. The difference is with ESD when you order a product you dont have to wait for the postal service to deliver it, it downloads to your computer within minutes saving the customer days and shipping fees. It saves people time who work and engage in alot of activites where its hard to get to a retail store or are tired of botched deliveries and re-sending of defective packages. This is where Social Influences on Consumer Buying steps in.

Social Influence on Consumer Buying is a major part of how this store will operate and stay open. Social Influence comes from office chatting, store talk, online forums and basically any where you meet people and converse on todays products likes and dislikes. So if a product comes to the market place and majority of the consumers who purchased the item give it a good review , and majority say they bought it from the Microsoft store and it saved them time and convenience plus it works well. Then that will spread word of mouth and influence others to use the Microsoft store, so forth will it spread through the internet forums and blogs increasing business and rendering Microsoft a good name in the ESD industry. Social Influence plays a big role in business today. Microsoft has given its customers their great products all of its entirety quick and easy to access, sounds like they have this under control.


Have you used the Microsoft store yet? If so how your experience, if not why?

Global Marketing and Economic Development

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — June 7, 2007 — Microsoft Corp. today announced two important new partnerships to help bring social and economic opportunities to people in Africa through the benefits of technology. The agreements were signed at the first subregional Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Best Practices Forum for West and Central Africa, an event created as part of a collaboration among Microsoft, Burkina Faso, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa to discuss ways to improve using information and communication technology for economic and social development across Africa.

“The world has entered an era in which access to the sources of information and knowledge has become a decisive factor in competitiveness and economic growth,” said His Excellency Blaise Compaoré, the president of Burkina Faso. “In the face of the digital divide that threatens to increase the marginalization of developing countries, we must step up the introduction of electronic communication infrastructures to seize the opportunities offered by new technologies. This forum is an occasion for African governments, their advisory institutions and ICT experts to share their experiences so that we can build an inclusive information society to serve the sustainable development of our countries.”

The agreements announced at the forum include the extension of Microsoft’s work with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to develop an environmentally responsible and localized computer refurbishment program that would benefit small and midsize businesses in Africa, and the signing of a strategic partnership agreement with Burkina Faso to provide ICT training for civil servants in Burkina Faso, as well as support for broader online government initiatives.

“Technology in all its forms has tremendous potential to connect communities and facilitate healthy, sustainable economic growth,” said Dr. Cheick Diarra, Africa chairman for Microsoft. “The partnerships and progress made at this ICT Best Practices Forum are helping the expansion of the African IT sectors and ultimately increasing technological competitiveness for Africa. At Microsoft we have made a commitment through Unlimited Potential to work closely with governments to help local economies develop and compete in the global marketplace and provide technology that is relevant, accessible and affordable.”

Global Marketing

REDMOND, Wash. — Microsoft Corp. today announced the appointment of Jeff Bell as the new corporate vice president of Global Marketing for the Interactive Entertainment Business, reporting directly to Peter Moore, corporate vice president for the overall Interactive Entertainment Business, effective June 12, 2006. The Interactive Entertainment Business includes the Xbox^® and Games for Windows^® businesses and is part of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division. Bell joins Microsoft from DaimlerChrysler, where most recently he served as vice president of product strategy for the Chrysler Group.

“Jeff brings a unique mix of consumer experience and innovation to the Interactive Entertainment Business,” Moore said. “His accomplishments at DaimlerChrysler, including the creation of its owner loyalty program, his track record in driving automotive video game strategies, and his influence on urban marketing plans, are indicators of his expertise and leadership.”

Bell holds a master’s degree in international economics from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. As an innovator in brand marketing at DaimlerChrysler, Bell led the launch of the Dodge “Grab Life by the Horns” tag line and its associated advertising, including the Hemi campaign and the Dodge and Aerosmith music alliance. He drove the formation of other key strategic alliances including Jeep and HBO’s “Band of Brothers,” Jeep and “Lara Croft: The Cradle of Life,” and Chrysler, Hypnotic and Universal Pictures, which created the Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival. Bell also pioneered new approaches to urban marketing, providing multicultural agencies with greater opportunities in the geal market arena.

Marketing Plan

Marketing and Demographics

I will discuss a few ways Microsoft is marketing to minorities and other demographics. Microsoft is offering its Office Ultimate Suite of products to students at 12 black colleges and universities and members of Hispanic student organizations for $59.95 (a 91% discount from the product's $679.95 regular price) through a program it's calling the Ultimate Steal Promotion.

The company will also donate a dollar from each sale -- as offered through a special URL -- to student organizations registered with the company.

Here is a few tips of how Microsoft markets and appeals to minorities and demographics especially the Generation Y, also known as Echo Boomers or Millennials.

1. Make your products cool for the kids as well as their parents. "Offer pop clothes at good prices with a brand that will appeal to 30- to 50-year old soccer moms and dads but that Gen Y is not loathe to adopting," Cooper says.

2. Exploit contests and promotions. "Gen Y is unbelievably enthusiastic about winning free concert tickets or cars or ski weekends," he

says. "Marketers need to generate teen excitement with radio and mall tie-ins, advertising, discounting, promotional kiosks — anything that's cool and has cachet."

3. Become "hip." "You have to be present where teenagers want to spend time, in skateboard parks, at concerts,

in malls.

You need to balance the benefits of attracting the younger market against the difficulties of embracing alternative business principles."

After that, you need to get a handle on how Gen Y makes buying decisions. Like teens before them, Gen Y relies on peer recommendations.

Social Responsibility

Social Responsibility or Profits


In this blog i will be discussing "Corporate Social Responsibility" of Microsoft Inc. I will discuss a particular case in which Microsoft's Corporate Social Responsibility is questioned. The question which remains to be highly opinionated is, whether Microsoft intentionally violated Anti-Trust Laws or was Microsoft so good at creating and marketing their products they over shadowed competitors dominantly and the result were these accusations.

The case went to trial in the U.S. District Court, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson found Microsoft guilty of using its domination in the software market to restrict competition. Judge Jackson then ordered the company to be broken into two and undergo restrictions. The court found that Microsoft abused anti-trust laws designed to protect competing companies from the domination of monopolies. For instance, it was said that Microsoft delayed the installation of Windows 95 on IBM computers when IBM refused to drop its own operating system. It was also said that Microsoft forced its internet explorer on consumers by bundling it with its Windows operating system, instantly claim half of the browser market share once dominated by Net Scape Navigator. Many social investors,business persons,consumers and economist have questioned Microsoft social responsibility after the ruling. After all, technically they were declared not socially responsible because of the Judges ruling. That doesn't mean they were, Microsoft is appealing the guilty verdict and says they will be vindicated.

If the Appeals Court agrees with Judge Jackson's order to break Microsoft into "Baby Bills" and disclose company intellectual property to break its monopoly, many shareholders will be questioning the future viability of their investment. But whatever course the antitrust case takes, social investors have to ask themselves if Microsoft's behavior, as determined in a federal court, befits a leader in corporate responsibility. Basically what this says is, if Microsoft has to disclose intellectual property, it will create more competition, there for the companies stocks and products may be in danger. This will bring less money to the company and ultimately less money to the share holders because of new competition. Microsoft has been a staple of the socially responsible investment industry, considered a leader for its progressive employment practices, its environmentally benign products, and its charitable donations. For instance, Microsoft recently granted $260,000 in cash and $2.5 million in software to eight Native American colleges, lunch money to a company that net almost $8 billion last year, but still a significant social impact.

Wrong or Right? Great marketing or Technological Tyrant? That is the question.

SWOT ANALYSIS OF MICROSOFT

Microsoft Inc... Strengths,Weakness,Opportunities, and Threats



Microsoft the world renowned computer giant will be compared, contrasted and broken down into a S.W.O.T. Analysis. Microsoft greatest strength is that it is a huge global brand, one of the worlds largest software developers with a customer base of 30 million plus. It has a reputation of successful software development which enables Microsoft to have a healthy set of loyal customers. Microsoft has a strength in the Operating System Market Place, desktop market place where it has dominated for years.

A weakness that Microsoft has that effects it greatly is, that the company is so big and successful it has been frequently sued by the U.S. Department of Justice and the 50 states. Microsoft has been accused of Anti-Trust Violations. The accusations against them was that Microsoft abused its monopoly power, in the selling operating systems and web browsers. Microsoft lacks a solid client and service support center on the internet. They also had issues with compatibility with other hardware and software manufactured by other companies.


The primary threat of Microsoft in the operating system industry is the Linux Program developed by independent programs. The program is gaining popularity and has a high number of customers due to the fact of it being free and works effectively.

The opportunities Microsoft has capitalized off of was the move to the Chinese Market, by producing computer programs based on the Chinese language. Microsoft has also diversified its products, In recent years they have ventured into fields such as game design,game developing, and publishing game consoles such as the world famous Xbox 360.

Do you know of any threats,weaknesses,strengths, or opportunities Microsoft should be aware of?

Strategic Planning

Xbox 360

Microsoft's Bill Gates unveiled a strategic plan tosell and distribute their new game console "the Xbox 360 " the sequel to the Xbox. The xbox 360 has many upgraded technological advances such as a gaming market place, online availability to play games and order movies,tickets,live chat etc.The new system will allow you to rip music to the hard drive to use during games. Microsoft's strategic plan consisted of getting more than 70 companies to support the Xbox 360.The plan they devised was well thought out and organized. Their main goal was to create the future of gaming, and to work with the japanese game artist to pioneer new dimensions of creativity in video games. Microsoft struck a long term deal with Sega to form a strategic alliance to bring future versions of great Sega games to Xbox. Also part of the strategic plan was to obtain an alliance with NT Communications a major electronic company in japan. The plan was to build a broadband online gaming service for japan to outline a vision for online gaming, in which gamers can connect to a high-speed , high band width, always on game network. One of the major of components of the plan was an Xbox japan division.

Microsoft Today " A 21st Century Giant"

21 st Century Giant


Today Microsoft has become a 21st Century Giant in the Computer Technology Industry. It develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. Microsoft stands today with Bill Gates as Chairman and Steve Ballmer as CEO. Microsoft has an annual revenue of 60 billion, an operating income of 22 billion, a net income of 17 billion and assets totaling 72 billion. Microsoft employs over 93,000 people in over 100 countries. It is a multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures,licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. Its most profitable products are Microsoft Windows Operating System, and Microsoft Windows Office Suite. It also possesses footholds in other markets, such as the MSNBC cable television station, home entertainment products like the Xbox and Xbox360 which are profitable and popular around the world. Microsoft is on the the leading computer technology product and software provider in the United States. The company does so well that the founder Bill Gates is estimated to be worth over 40 billion dollars.


Bill gates makes 9 million per hour imagine that, how many you think would work for an hour then quit?

The History of Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft was founded in 1975, in Albuquerque, New Mexico by William "bill' Gates and Paul Allen. Bill gates dropped out of school to work with Paul Allen to start Microsoft. Then in 1979 they relocated to Redmond,Washington. The company was developed to sell basic interpreters for the Altair 8800,which was a computer with an 8 inch floppy disk system. Its first mission was to have a computer on every desk and in every home running Microsoft Software. In 1981, Microsoft became incorporated and its 16-bit operating system MS-DOS 1.0 is introduced in IBM's personal computer. The companies first international office was in Japan it was named ASCII Japan, that was founded in 1978. Then Microsoft went to add Steve Ballmer as CEO in 1981. Microsoft began to develop various programs and computer software and hardware over the next decade that would soon shape the world of technology , and Microsoft would become the leading computer service company of the world.


Where do you think it will be in the next 5 years? and what do you think would help them become stronger and more dominant?