Windows 8 Marketing Campaign Likely to Hit $1.5 Billion

[Guest]

Microsoft has poured marketing dollars into Windows 8 for well over a year as the entire PC industry is depending on a decent launch.

Windows 8 Marketing Campaign Likely to Hit $1.5 Billion : Read more

 

[nieur]

I hope it succeeds in both markets PC and tablet/phone

 

[wemakeourfuture]

Are we getting another Rolling Stones song in the $1.5 Billion?

 

[hrhuffnpuff]

For $1.5 Billion, they could have fired the entire Metro UI division, and make more silly money.

 

[aoneone]

This will be the worst launch failure since Virtual Gameboy. Remember that!? Of course not, it went up in flames faster than Spontaneous Human Combustion. Bahahaahaa I crack myself up ^_^

 

[diddo]

The best marketing campaign is not insulting users with Metro Bob 2.0.

 

[hrhuffnpuff]

[citation][nom]aoneone[/nom]This will be the worst launch failure since Virtual Gameboy. Remember that!? Of course not, it went up in flames faster than Spontaneous Human Combustion. Bahahaahaa I crack myself up ^_^[/citation]

I actually had one, bought it at an AAFES store in Fort Hood,Tx.

 

[fayzaan]

[citation][nom]nieur[/nom]I hope it succeeds in both markets PC and tablet/phone[/citation]
I am confident it will. Start menu was inefficient and even MS said according to their statistics it was used very little. Who likes to go Start>Programs>Accessories>Paint.exe etc. no one does that anymore!! if you use a program often, you put it on the taskbar or a shortcut on the desktop. Windows 8 gives you that in a awesome way.

 

[nebun]

1.5 billion for what?....i am a little confused....such a waste of money

 

[Kami3k]

[citation][nom]fayzaan[/nom]I am confident it will. Start menu was inefficient and even MS said according to their statistics it was used very little. Who likes to go Start>Programs>Accessories>Paint.exe etc. no one does that anymore!! if you use a program often, you put it on the taskbar or a shortcut on the desktop. Windows 8 gives you that in a awesome way.[/citation]

Wow, sounds like a Microsoft employee defending his work on metro UI and hoping he doesn't get fired for it.

 

[barter]

would it be cheaper just to give all windows 7 users a free upgrade instead of spending 1.5 billion to charge us £20-25 quid to upgrade? (75 million upgrades)

 

[wemakeourfuture]

[citation][nom]barter[/nom]would it be cheaper just to give all windows 7 users a free upgrade instead of spending 1.5 billion to charge us £20-25 quid to upgrade? (75 million upgrades)[/citation]


600 million windows 7 licenses, $40 per upgrade (digital copy, cheapest one), that's $24 Billion dollars

 

[wemakeourfuture]

[citation][nom]wemakeourfuture[/nom]600 million windows 7 licenses, $40 per upgrade (digital copy, cheapest one), that's $24 Billion dollars[/citation]

Also, I'm not including XP SP3 and Vista which are eligible, plus we know they won't get 100% of machine upgrading.

As an MSFT investor, I don't mind them spending $1.5 billion on marketing the ROI is going to justify it.

 

[ravinmachine]

Spend a whole lot less than that and simply give people a "CHOICE" let them us the new GUI or let them use the old one.

that way EVERYONE WINS!

 

[nebun]

[citation][nom]fayzaan[/nom]I am confident it will. Start menu was inefficient and even MS said according to their statistics it was used very little. Who likes to go Start>Programs>Accessories>Paint.exe etc. no one does that anymore!! if you use a program often, you put it on the taskbar or a shortcut on the desktop. Windows 8 gives you that in a awesome way.[/citation]

no it does not...i like the old fashion UI...it works and it's very simple...why confuse everyone and make it ugly at the same time?

 

[jerm1027]

That 1.5 billion would have been much better spent with R&D (emphasis on research) and overhauling arguably one of the worst (desktop) UI's ever created.

 

[kaisellgren]

I just looked through my room's Window and saw 8 birds outside.

 

[fayzaan]

[citation][nom]nebun[/nom]no it does not...i like the old fashion UI...it works and it's very simple...why confuse everyone and make it ugly at the same time?[/citation]

Well then stay old! bwahahah, the rest of the world will be moving forward...after all that is how the tech industry works (it moves forward all the time). And seriously, how is it simple? I haven't used the start menu since like forever. I already explained my point before. So ist not simple, at least not as simple as it is in Windows 8.

 

[bllue]

W8 price doesn't seem too high (unless that's just pre-order price). $69-139 is pretty reasonable. If they want it to succeed they can't be selling W8 for $200 or 300 because then no one's going to want to upgrade from W7, which is already a pretty exceptional OS. The same goes for the Surface, if they sell it too expensive then barely anyone's going to want to buy it over the iPad or Kindles or whatever other Android Tablets out there. MS can tank a flop but why risk it? Why not price their products at a range most people won't mind spending? Give the Surface RT a $299 price tag and the Pro a $499 or even $599 and watch as they sell millions of these by the end of this year.

 

[jojesa]

Microsoft could have save more money just by giving it for free, to those who might want it.

 

[Pennanen]

I like to make my own desktop with rainmeter, dock programs and such.

So no thanks to the whole metro ui thing.

 

[spartanmk2]

Needless to say, I wont be part of their "Operational Income" for atleast another 5 years or so

 

[Guest]

So they are going to spend $1.5billion on marketing? May i ask the difficult question: What is the benefit of having to upgrade Windows 7 to 8?

 

[damianrobertjones]

[citation][nom]Kami3k[/nom]Wow, sounds like a Microsoft employee defending his work on metro UI and hoping he doesn't get fired for it.[/citation]

I'm sorry but where I work it's true. As soon as you place the shortcuts onto the task bar the only reason to use the start button is to log off or shutdown. That's it. I've had people call to ask where office had gone we all know that they could have found it within the start menu.

Think about it...

 

[springhalo]

I think microsoft isn't really targeting the current windows 7 performance market (which most of this community is a part of) their main platforms are going to be laptops and tablets, which require a fast, light interface. As a crappy-laptop owner I can confidently say windows 8 is better than windows 7 on this computer. The memory usage is stellar (300-500mb) compared to windows 7 (1gb+) and startup from power-off is stellar on a slow hard drive (15-30 seconds). Metro is easy to use on an inaccurate trackpad because it requires less precision, and the search function is extremely good as well.

Sure, for my desktop at home with an SSD and great CPU, windows 7 performs its job much better than metro could, but for my laptop, it's a lovely OS.