Windows Vista's major marketing and advertising failures

Windows Vista Market Failure or Industry Trend Sacrifice?

Windows Vista was toted by Microsoft in early market releases as a fundamentally different Operating System that was user friendly and would assist the user in creating a system that did everything the modern internet user could hope for. Heavy emphasis in the OS on graphic capabilities and speed that would be associated with game playing and improved high graphics surfing as well as high security, which has caused some problems, were and still are the marketing points of Vista. (Microsoft Vista: Home Page, 2007, NP) the reality being that Vista did not meet the sales expectations of Microsoft and it is likely that it never will. (TopicPulse Article, 2007 NP) Reasons for this sales lag are limited to several aspects of computer use and marketing expectations. It is clear that in the Box sales of Vista lag far behind those of other launched Microsoft OS systems, with one expert stating that comparative in the Box Sales are staggeringly low,

Microsoft managed to sell an estimated 300,000 copies of Windows XP in the operating system's launch week. In the first week they hit the shelves, Windows 98 was sold in over 400,000 copies. Some 25,000 copies of Windows Vista have been sold every day for a forecasted total of 125,000 in the first week. That is less than even Windows 2000 that scratched the 200,000 units sold milestone. (TopicPulse Article, 2007 NP)

According to TopicPulse, the reason for this low in the Box Sales is twofold; first the system's hardware requirements warrant an upgrade of the whole PC and two the system is available as an OS on pre-manufactured PC systems that do not require upgrades. Many people chose then to buy a whole new system, given that the program in the Box is roughly 1/3 of the cost of a whole new system, preloaded with the OS and that experience has shown many upgraders (those who purchase OS off the shelf and then try to make their existing system run it) find that there are countless incompatibilities and systems challenges, including everything from existing software incompatibilities to existing hardware incompatibilities. The trend has then become delayed replacement of OS until a time when the whole PC system can be replaced rather than upgraded. The sales associated with Vista preloaded systems show this trend as a viable marketing reality, and though Microsoft may not have anticipated the trend it is one they have developed and seen through the process of each marketing segment of a new OS and can be seen in the timeline of sales, above. Commentator Don Mart, in fact states that there has not been a significant OS in the Box release since Windows, when it was still feasible to simply upgrade an existing system. Marti implies that the trend is simply an evolution of a maturation of the PC market, not necessarily a failure in marketing of the Vista system. In the Box sales of XP have in fact oustripped sales of Vista, bay an alarming rate, which shows a belated immature response by those who do not have the cash to upgrade the entire system. (TopicPulse Article, 2007 NP)

Wilcox, disagrees to some degree, stating that belated "real" marketing of Vista began almost a full year after its release, as Microsoft attempts to point out the real benefits of VISTA over other OS systems. In this article there is a hint that Vista is yet another system that requires collaborative software (also from Microsoft) to be utilized effectively and marketing it in quips is ineffective because of this interrelated operating style. (Wilcox, Dec. 30, 2007, NP) Any real marketing failure would simply relate to Microsoft's inability to foresee that the complicated nature of Vista would not easily play to traditional marketing attempts, as the benefits cannot sell themselves if users do not see them right away. "The key to effective technology marketing is simple: Articulate real end user benefits. The Vista videos take a very task-oriented approach: You can do this and you can do that. You can do this much more with these two products together." (Wilcox, Dec. 30, 2007, NP)

One final thought on the potential aspect of failure as it is related to Vista is that the reality of the OS even preloaded demonstrates that many of the interrelated software systems are offered to the user as trial ware, that then requires additional subscription purchases to run. This turned off many early purchasers of the software and the full systems, and Microsoft must now offer systems that contain full operating programs. This belated offering demonstrates that Microsoft was unaware of how much these unsuspecting "trial ware" purchasers would protest the reality of putting out hard earned cash on a system that required them to then purchase additional software within six months to fully utilize the system. (Vamosi, 2007, NP) Consumers who were blindsided by the expenditure requiring additional subscription when they purchased the most basic of the packages, Windows Vista Home Basic, with their new PCs have clearly driven the trend for the demand of affordable alternative packages that do not contain trial ware but instead contain whole versions of software.