Microsoft communications head Frank Shaw caused somewhat of a stir yesterday when he posted some highly telling statistics about the company – and its rivals – on the official Microsoft blog. Judging by the sheer volume of comment and debate that it has already attracted, I’d say he’s done a pretty good job of trying to set the various doubters straight – even if some of the stats are a little out-of-context.
As anyone following any sort of technology-orientated media sources in recent years will be aware, the likes of Google, Apple, Twitter and Facebook tend to get about three to ten headlines (this is a blatant guess from me, let me know if you disagree) for every one Microsoft is able to get. And even when MS does get a headline, more often than not it is about various un-sexy PR disasters (racism in its Polish ad campaign last year, complaints over vomit ad, monopoly lawsuits etc), while others like Apple usually seem to have some pretty morale-boosting sales figures or mega-hyped product launches to throw in the mix (though they of course get the odd bad headline too…).
Among others I also questioned some of Microsoft’s long term prospects in recent months, particularly the difficulty they have in muscling in on the disproportionate media coverage given to some of the aforementioned rivals. Well, Frank Shaw’s post yesterday is intended exactly for people like me: a dose of bare hard facts to set the record straight.
And guess what? All in all, it makes for pretty impressive reading, and I must applaud Shaw for his astute use of the blogosphere to restore some perspective and redress the balance of coverage given to major players in the tech world.
The main gist of the post is that Microsoft is BIG, getting BIGGER, and outperforming all its rivals if one looks at the companies balance sheets as a whole (profits for 2009 stand at well more than Apple and Google combined for example).
However, Shaw is keen to illustrate that the extent of media coverage devoted to Microsoft’s rivals is highly disproportionate to the relative size of the companies involved. Again, point well made, though Shaw seems unwilling to acknowledge that this is because much of what is offered by these high profile rivals tends to offer mainstream news media with viable stories (about social networking, fancy new phones etc), while operating systems tend to be of little interest to ‘mainstream’ media channels (BBC news for example is unlikely to report on Windows 7 sales, while iPhones of course are big news). The lesson here is that MS needs to get its ’sexy’ stuff working a little better in the mainstream news and media arena – something like the xBox for example might be just the product to do this.
In any case there’s a wealth of expert analysis of Shaw’s figures floating around already, with Guardian tech and Techcrunch being my two top tips so far (check the Guardian one for some excellent ‘reading between the numbers’, and TC for some more comical analysis).
However, one thing which neither have yet discussed is the question of who Shaw’s figures are intended for? After all, if Microsoft is happily smashing profit targets and dominating markets in a relatively quiet and understated way, then who cares if the press want to discuss iPads all day and night? Ultimately, as Shaw points out, Microsoft’s profits and growth rates are such that they need not worry too much about what others are doing. And yet they clearly do worry somewhat about their inability to be the media darlings that Apple and Google currently are.
For example, Shaw points out that Nokia’s smartphone sales far outstrip iPhone sales in 2010 – the message being simply ’shut up about Apple already – they’re not even that big…’ But isn’t it funny that Nokia don’t seem half as bothered about endless iPhone hype, they’re just calmly reeling in mega-profits year after year, mainly by letting products speak for themselves. I somehow feel Microsoft’s best strategy, judging by their self-evident success regarding sales numbers and profits, might be to follow suite, since I doubt they’ll ever succeed in out-cool-ing Apple or Google in terms of media image.
Dejan Levi