Developing and Managing Products

Microsoft recently has created the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Operating system for select smart phone. This operating system is a innovation for Microsoft's Windows phone operating system 6.5. Dell has actual made a a phone called the Venue for the Tmobile network that recently hit stores this November. Prior to the release of the Dell device the operating system was made available on a few HTC and Samsung devices for the ATT mobile Network and T-Mobile as well. The goal for Microsoft is to eventually compete with the android and iPhone market share and make there devices even better.

Venue By DELL

Product Concepts

Product: Everything, both favorable and unfavorable, that a person receives in an exchange

Microsoft has a wide variety of both consumer products and business products. Its most popular consumer product is in its Microsoft Xbox console product line. The Xbox video game console is a very successful product for Microsoft. Microsoft makes thousands of games to keep there customers coming back for more and giving them variety. There most recent product for the Xbox console Call Of Duty Black Ops made over 361 million dollars along with Xbox 360 Kinect virtual gaming attachment selling over 1 million units before December aswell.

                                                                                                                  

Intergrated Marketing Communications

Christmas time is right around the corner guys and Microsoft has a lot to offer this season. Microsoft Xbox 360 consoles are now shipping in a variety of different bundles for the holidays. these bundles usually include 2 or 3 games or extra accessories along with the Xbox 360 consoles. These bundles are equivalent to using coupon codes that result in saving you lots of money. If these same items were bought separately from the console they'll cost you lots more money. For example Gamestop retail stores are selling holiday bundles which include 2 games and a controller  for the standard price of the Xbox console. That's 2 FREE! games Microsoft is giving you for the purchase of a new Xbox 360 console. If buying the games separately it would cost at least 100 dollars or more being that the games are 50 dollars and up. So is this a deal or is this a deal?

visit http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=88261 for more details.

Advertising and Public Relations

Microsoft has finally launched its virtual gaming expansion "KINECT" to the Xbox 360 gaming console. Microsoft has advertised this product lots throug blogs, television and electronic showcase events such as E3. The video beneath has over 300,000 youtube views which means this product has been introduced to lots. When advertising a product recognition is key. Very few people have not herd of the Kinect expansion and the reason for that is strong Advertising from Microsoft.

Advertisement Xbox 360 Kinect - Your Shape Fitness Evolved

If this doesnt influence you enough to purchase than i dont know what will... Amazing video!

Target Markets

Microsoft has two very substantial target markets for its business. Its first substantial target market is for corporate business around the world. Microsoft windows is the preferred operating system in the corporate world in today's age. Most businesses use Microsoft software for a very wide variety of reasons from organizing data to it just simply being easy to operate.

Another Target Market for Microsoft is Teenagers. Microsoft Xbox 360's product lines most convenient consumers are from teens. Teens are the ultimate buyer of games for this console. Simple reasons being that teens have more time on there hands than adults and have less responsibility. Microsoft makes an exponential profit from these video games from teens. Especially from Microsofts most popular game franchise today HALO

Business Marketing

One big part of the Microsoft Corporation success is its strategic alliances with other companies. Microsoft gained partnerships with many companies such as Facebook, Motorola , EMC and etc. Microsoft isn't just making friends to make friends now. The companies Microsoft are doing business with have something that Microsoft lacks and viceversa. 


Microsoft's alliance with Facebook plays a big role for both sides. Microsoft pays facebook to display ads on its websites. Over 60 percent of the Facebook community is from outside of the u.s which means that Microsoft is gaining publicity and potential consumers worldwide from advertising on Facebook.  On the other hand Facebook is gaining publicity from Microsoft from its Facebook applications and ads on Microsoft products. These two companies work hand and hand to maximize profits for there companies. 


Microsoft biggest alliance is with IBM. There alliance has a joint demand. where there was a demand for IBM the demand for Microsoft's operating system was there. Whenever an IBM computer is sold Microsoft is making profits.


For all businesses to be successful u need strategic alliance. A business cant produce everything it needs for its business from scratch. Investments and partnerships are needed. Your business is going nowhere but downward if you try to b a loner in the business world. 

Retailing

This past week i visited a few retail stores around the Bronx that have the Microsoft office software in stock. The three stores i visited were Best Buy, P.C. Richard and son and Walmart.

To my surprise Walmart Department stores held the best prices for Microsoft office software. Microsoft Office Home and Student software was listed for $119.99, while at both Best Buy and P.C Richards prices for the same product was $149.99 . 

Personally, i thought Best Buy would have the best prices for Microsoft software. Because its name being "Best Buy" simply fooled me into believing that its prices would be better than the other two department stores. I did notice that in Best Buy, Microsoft products were advertised more though. Xbox 360 was advertised lots more than the competing PlayStation 3 and Nintendo wii and Microsoft vista and office was advertised lots more than competing apple software. There were lots of bill boards and posters throughout the store advertising Microsoft. In Walmart store i went to Microsoft was advertised about just as equal as apple. while checking out some computers i noticed that 2 sales guys were recommending to a customer that Microsoft computers over apple computers tho claiming it to be more convenient. 

I believe personal opinion or belief really helps things sell in retail as well. because a lot of the time in these stores employees get the question of which do you prefer and go based on the answer that is given. They could of easily said apple computers were better and still made a sale for about the same but they didn't. they based it on opinion's of there own and there own personal experiences. Its almost as if Microsoft has extra advertising for free for putting in a good word.

Global Marketing

China is one of the largest markets for Microsoft to this day. After all its population holds over 1.3 BILLION people and it has one of the largest growth rate for computers and Internet use in the world. There demand for the adoption of information technology increases extremely quickly leading to Microsoft  to strategically jump in to fulfill China's needs. China's electronic market, mainly its mobile electronic market is the largest in the world. 

Microsoft focus is trying to make a impact in China's mobile market. Being that approximately 70 pct of the market is controlled by China Mobile, Microsoft feels there is plenty of lead way to join this market. But into doing so you will need concrete understanding of the requirements of potential Chinese consumers. For example China's cellular phones far outnumber its personal computers which means that cellular phones come to a much more convenience to people. Cellular phones are really one of the most important things to the Chinese, its part of there everyday life and somewhat defines the people in china. This simply means Microsoft cant just make any kind of cellular phone and try to sell it in China because it simply wont sell. They need to shape there product around what the Chinese consumer wants. A sell phone in China could be whatever a person needs it to be from a GPS system to a Internet source or means to communicate with others. The only way Microsoft will succeed in the Chinese market is by proving to them that there product is of VALUE to them. 

Microsoft Windows Mobile Phones seemed to have played its part in doing just that. They partnered with Samsung, Motorola, and  China Mobile to customize the phone interface for Chinese users.  Microsoft Touch series was also a big seller in the Chinese mobile market as well. They also got into business with D.Phone which is the largest phone retailer in China and the largest IT distributor in China, Digital China. Now that Microsoft is a success in China's market there next goal is to be an even bigger success. They believe that there product can be good enough to be number one in the mobile market and they continue there push forward to finding out the deeper unique characteristics of the Chinese  so that they can make Microsoft's the Chinese mobile markets foundation.

Consumer decision makeing

Belief - : anything believed or accepted as true

Belief reflects on the value of the consumers. As for Microsoft belief plays a significant role. Belief isn’t a factual thing; it’s more of an opinion. But belief can contain facts to influence an opinion. Microsoft’s corporation provides a product that consumers find valuable which is also more of a personal opinion. Some people think burger king is better then McDonald’s just like some people think Apple OSX is better than Windows. Microsoft as well as every other company key to progression is influencing people to believe there product is "the better product," by shaping there product around what the people would expect and want. 


If you believe windows is no good why would you purchase it?

Amazon.com customer reviews on windows 7 shows perfect examples of why opinion matters to a company. A product review on January 22, 2010 stated:

"I bothered with upgrading my computer with the hope of seeing a brand new Windows. I've never been disappointed before - from Dos to Windows 95, from Windows 95 to XP, from XP to Vista, there has always been lots of new, fancy stuff for me to explore and enjoy. 

Not Windows 7. It is almost identical to Vista in every way."

     This particular person believes that Windows 7 is no good as you can see. His belief on the product is that it simply repeats itself from the previous version. He explains his loyalty for windows briefly saying he always updated his software since Windows 95and that he had more value for windows previous software then he did this one. Being that this new Windows 7 software is a repeat in his opinion of Windows Vista, shows hes disappointed in this product. Which mean he lost value for this product. Which also means Microsoft might be potentially loosing a customer.

This customer review on the product is the complete opposite. A customer review on October 22nd 2009 by Anonymous stated: Should you upgrade from Windows Vista? YES! I mean it - upgrade today. "Windows 7 is quite simply faster, more stable, boots faster, goes to sleep faster, comes back from sleep faster, manages your files better and on top of that it's beautiful to look at and easy to use. Even the preproduction version of Windows 7 was better than my Vista with SP2."  

     As you can see this customer is in love with this particular product. He or She believes that this new windows is faster, manages files better and easy to use, while the other review states that it’s simply just a repeat of an older version of Windows.

Microsoft product isn’t perfect and never will be perfect as far as opinions are concerned for the simple fact that there is other competition. But they must find a way to alter the opinions of those who dislike the Microsoft products and focus more on understanding personal feelings as best they can. 

The Marketing Enviornment

approximately fifty four percent of the goods are being consumed by men and forty six percent by Women. Age is another demographical factor that reflects on marketing. Microsoft’s says that people between the ages of thirty five and forty nine are the most impacted consumer ages in this market. Simple reasons being that a majority of people between this particular age range of thirty five and forty nine, have started careers where they have the extra income to purchase Microsoft software, that’s requested (Needed or Wanted) for their own purposes. 

Usually people within the ages of forty four and forty nine have children that are on their way to college or already in college. As many of u may know college students such as me need help from their parents to get through school. The purchasing of computers which have Microsoft software installed on them is a very popular demand that students need and parents are buying for their children to help get through school. Microsoft says teens under the age of eighteen's predicted distribution is only about five percent which means most teens don’t have "it" financially themselves to purchase these things on their own. It’s approximated that the ages between eighteen and twenty four predicted distribution is only seventeen percent as to the ages of thirty five to forty nine being approximately thirty two percent.

Another Demographic Factor that reflects strongly on marketing is location. In Urban cities such as New York Microsoft makes lots of its profit. Reasoning for this is because New York City is heavily populated and technology has a very high demand. As to upstate New York, let’s say Buffalo, where technology demand there wouldn’t hold as much an impact as it will in the city. So one of Microsoft’s main focuses is to target HEAVILY populated areas where the demand for their product is high so they can make as much profit as possible. At the same time don’t want to forget about the "little guys"

Query: microsoft Gender: Male-oriented, with the following confidence:  :0.54  :0.46 Age: 35~49 Oriented with following distribution:

 

Corporate Irresponsibility

The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the world’s largest crib recall in history. Telling consumers to no longer purchase Stork Crafts drop down cribs. Four infants have died in these cribs and there have been over 100 incidents where babies have been trapped in the drop down side of the crib, or have fallen out of the crib. The reason that drop side cribs are so hazardous is because there are often parts that are broken misassembled or missing. For example the drop side of the crib can break off of the bar that holds the drop side in place causing a hazardous gap which can lead to a child’s entrapment. These cribs break very often causing the CPSC to consider banning drop side cribs all together.

    As a Manufacturer your job is to provide sufficient goods that aren’t hazardous to people. Manufacturers weren’t working hard enough to provide safety which probably is one of the main reasons of having a crib for your child in the first place. A crib is suppose to be a secure place for your child, but if we as consumers have to worry about our small children suffocating or getting entrapped and suffocating in your cribs why should people trust you to provide anything else. Money can’t bring a child’s life back, and the 4 children that have had their life taken away because of this product shows irresponsibility on your behalf.

Country Of Origin

T Shirt - Honduras
Boxers - Vietnam
Sweatshirt - Cambodia
Pants - Pakistan
sneakers - Taiwan

Ethics And Social Responsibilty

An international anticorruption group Transparency International believed that some of the Microsoft’s corporation lawyers in Russia were helping fellow corrupted law officials into steal money from people accused of pirating Microsoft software... 

Transparency International stated that they had a numerous number of reports from business owners throughout Russia who said they had been victims of these antics. The scheme is believed to work like this. Corrupted officials seize computers, and claim to have found pirated unlicensed Microsoft software on them. They then demand bribes from the people they accuse of putting the pirated software on their computers with help from the corrupted lawyers.

Microsoft believed that people who had no legal authority to represent Microsoft were disguising themselves as Microsoft officials to extort money. 

Microsoft made a statement in response to the piracy inquiries in Russia. Microsoft states that "We take the concerns that have been raised very seriously. When we grant powers-of-attorney to outside counsel to aid our antipiracy efforts, we vet candidates carefully, we bind them contractually to strict standards and protocols, we train them and we monitor their activities." they state that they have to protect their products from Piracy but now they even more so have to protect their company from fraud and schemes. They agreed to increase monitoring in there company, try to their best effort to prevent individuals or organizations from fraudening claiming to represent Microsoft and increase awareness of Microsoft’s Info donor Program in Russia.

Microsoft Strategic Planning (2) Internet Explorer 9 -IE9-

This week Microsoft announced 2 Really BIG releases: The Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 Beta and the developer tools for Windows phone 7.

Both of these products represent worthwhile risks for Microsoft in the areas of business in Mobile phones and Web browsers. Microsoft is known for their quality products but in today’s time it’s a bit harder to convince consumers then it used to be. Problem about these releases is that Microsoft has some heavy competition in front of them, taking on the Google Android and Apple I phone Platforms for the mobile industry and the Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers. Microsoft’s goal is to keep its Market share in these two industries by releasing these products. In this particular post my primary focus is on Microsoft’s IE9 web browser.

On September 15th Microsoft at the presentation in San Francisco states that IE9 provides the best on web performance delivering better content then other web browsers and faster. Dean Hachamovitch the corporate vice president of windows internet explorer explains his vision on what will make IE9 different from others and better than others as well. He states...  “The Web is about sites; the browser should be, too. People go to the Web for sites, not the browser; much as you go to your PC for apps, not Windows. Today, Websites are boxed in. The box is the browser,” He also states “We asked ourselves: how could we put sites at the center of the experience? How can IE make sites shine. Our approach here is to use the whole PC.” Dean’s goal was to think as a customer and not as a producer. He believes that the new features of window IE9 will do so. 

The New Browsers features allow the ability to:

- tag tabs into the windows 7 task bar so that you will later b able to open a web page without having to open the browser first. This simply saves much more time and makes thing much easier to obtain.

-Jump lists that allow easy access to website tasks like checking on your emails and reading breaking news

Microsoft HOPES that IE9's greater speeds and new features will allow this browser to compete with other browsers and makes its Market Share lead concrete. Analytics from Net Applications predict that IE July market share will increase to 60.74 pct from 60.32 pct. being that Mozilla Firefox at 2nd place in the Market Share doesn’t make a release that will top IE9's release

Microsoft Strategic Planning

Microsoft sucess story primarily revolved around its Monopolistic buisness practices. Microsoft new that there product was unique and there was no one in competition with them. There business plan started with the Altair 8800 micro computer that they had made an interpreter for in 1975. The interpreter for the micro computer worked wonders eventually leading MITS to a agreement to distribute there interpreter for the micro computer. This lead to the creation of Microsoft. This was the door that Microsoft was waiting for to open. Expansion began and deals to create a operating system for a IBM came along as well. soon enough this became the leading PC operating vendor, opening even more doors for the Microsoft Windows and office developement from 1985-1994. IBM liked what microsoft was doing for there company so Microsoft and IBM gained a partnership or alliance with one another. IBM then gave permission to launch the Microsoft Windows graphical extension for the MS operating system as well as the microsoft office extension. Both these extensions were things that Microsoft knew the people wanted and will become a need. Being that computer technology was on a uprise around the 1990's MS software had a very high demand in corporate/ business america, as well as home and schools. So sales increased as well as the wealth of the Microsoft company bringing in Hundreds of millions of dollars.

Microsoft Mission Statement and Brief History

"At Microsoft, we work to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential. This is our mission. Everything we do reflects this mission and the values that make it possible."

The Microsoft Corporation is a worldwide corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington USA created to develop and sell a interpreter system for the Altair 8800 micro computer by MITS. The Microsoft Corporation provides a variety of products and services that relate to computer systems. It was founded on April 4th 1975 by today’s well known BILLIONAIR, Bill Gates. The company has been very successful creating 4 actual Billionaires and approximately 12 millionaires in the past Thirty Five years, dominating the home computer operating system market as well as the office suite market. The Micro Soft Disk Operation System was created in the 1980's which led to the dominance in these markets alongside the Microsoft window software in 1986. Microsoft was basically what I call the "Bully" of business that monopolized the computer industry making it so that most computers need Microsoft software in some way to actually work. This also means he’s getting PAID for any computer running his software which is MOST computers! I guess it’s safe to call Bill Gates the "Kingpin" or "Shogun" of Business because he has a good so strong, you almost need it as much as you need water in this day in time...