ARE YOU PEOPLE_READY ? MICROSOFT NOW IS

It's been a long time since Microsoft was seen as the geeky start-up. As it has  evolved and grown to more than 60B$ in revenue, it faces new challenges. It's no longer the sexy new company that everyone used to admire. It's a corporation, and a big one.

Take for instance its latest campain, that has just been launched, surely you'll see it around: people_ready. Are you people_ready? Ok just a hint for all of you who are not aware of Microsoft's marketing history: this is marketing campain is business-oriented, and this is quite new! No more B2B communication talking about weird acronyms that nobody (from the public) gets (still wonder what SQL means? Structured query language, developped in the first place in the 70's by... IBM!), the new one will focus on one core message: "people drive business success - amplify their impact and you create greater success".  This campain is actually an extension of the 'Your potential. Our passion' customer campain. Simple? Yes, simple and new.

Doesn't seem that much but when you know that supergeek Bill Gates has announced he'll retire from business ops in 2008, that the firm is facing major reorganization issues,  and is under fire on the internet business, you get a new opportunity to try asking again, as Lou Gerstner would have said it, "who says you can't make an elephant danse"?

Comments

[Rédigé par: Jeremy Fain]

"still wonder what SQL means? Structured query language, developped in the first place in the 70's by... IBM!": IBM has invented pretty much everything in a computer that we recognize as..part of a computer.

I wrote a review of "Who said Elephants can´t dance", I hope it will be of an interest to your readers: http://itaddict.blogspot.com/2006/06/book-review-lou-gerstners-who-said.html

Thanks for your very interesting post: Microsoft is indeed undergoing quite a few challenges, but the company I´m sure of it, will thrive and survive in the future as well as it did in the past. Microsoft has outstanding R&D departments that probably prepare to kick some ass in both consumer electronics and the Internet in a near future.

[Rédigé par: Hadrien]

Thanks for linking me into your post Jeremy, I'm copying here the comment I've addressed you there.

Yes I totaly agree on IBM, I'm assuming that not all readers of this blog are though aware of it. Maybe one of us could talk in a next post about how Microsoft slipped away from IBM's domination by licensing its products instead of selling the IP straigh to big blue.

I will try to have a look at what Lou has to say about managing change>success in big corporations. On the same subject, I've also started to read 'Winning', from Jack Welch from GE. Has anybody read it?
However let me give you a piece of feedback of my meeting with Philippe Bourguignon (ex-CEO Eurodisney and Club Med) last december, when I asked him about these books he told me 'I never read these management books', and instead offered me "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu. Chinese ancient wisdom against American management methods, looks like lately China does too have some business insights to teach us about... :-)