(public).sospep.subjects ~ view article ~ memo-re-windows-8-in-2013

<h1 style="text-align: center;">open memo to Steve Balmer re: windows 8 in 2013</h1>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">to: steve</h2>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">re: windows 8 going forward&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;date:jan, 1, 2013</h2>
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<ol>
<li>] Marketing</li>
<ol>
<li>] the television commercial with&nbsp;Lenka dancing around on&nbsp;the new&nbsp;start screen is NOT going to make me want to buy a new&nbsp;<a href="article?id=549#content" target="_blank">windows 8</a> pc or a <a href="article?id=939#content" target="_blank">surface</a> or a even an upgrade from the current windows os I already own.&nbsp;&nbsp;Nothing against Lenka, cute girl, catchy ad jingle, but ive seen it (x) times and i'm&nbsp;NOT sure whats its told me about windows 8.</li>
<li>] in 2012&nbsp;samsung did a series of ads for their galaxy smartphone in which they poked fun at the major competition, taught&nbsp;the viewer&nbsp;about the unique distinct features in their product and did it in an informing &amp;&nbsp;entertaining way.(WIN) &nbsp;The 'commercials' went viral on the internet before they even hit the TV airwaves(WIN) (can you say COST EFFECTIVE distribution) the ads&nbsp;WON several&nbsp;awards as best of ... and MOST IMPORTANTLY ... check out their SALES numbers/market share/growth(WIN * WIN). So why not take that idea/concept &nbsp;... ctrl + c, - ctrl + v and get some WIN in the windows 8 marketing (aka user adoption)</li>
</ol>
<li>] get in the "Game"</li>
<ol>
<li>] app - a win RT / win 8 exclusive. Don't tell me that the company that brought you XBOX, couldn't have had some EXCLUSIVE HOT GAME or 2 ready to roll at launch ... include it in the OS native gaming experience ... for FREE ... if little johnny or litty suzy&nbsp;WANT a SURFACE becauses its got "super duper game" a lot of little johnys and suzys are going to get a SURFACE, the side benefit is that they are going to figure out windows 8 in about 4 minutes and they are going to teach mom &amp; dad how to use it (over time).Hopefully&nbsp;at some point in time mom and&nbsp;dad will feel comfortable&nbsp;enough to put 8 on the family pc or laptop&nbsp;or&nbsp;maybe&nbsp;even pick up a surface of their own</li>
<ol>
<li>PS make sure marketing knows about the FREE super duper game that comes EXCLUSIVELY&nbsp;with windows 8&nbsp;on the new surface &nbsp;</li>
</ol>
<li>] apps - don't get caught up in the&nbsp;"we have 900k apps, we have 901k apps game",&nbsp;FOCUS on the apps&nbsp;that the majority of customers want and use, the top&nbsp;(x) apps that people are actually using&nbsp;across all platforms ... reach out and facilitate where you dont have those apps on your platform, whats the real reason Google doesn't have its apps in the windows store, some of them are best in class services, get them there!&nbsp;</li>
<li>] ecosystem - do NOT, do NOT i repeat do NOT try and lock your customers into your ecosystem with proprietary file formats or other shenanigans.</li>
</ol>
<li>] Education </li>
<ol>
<li>] we could include this under marketing BUT a whole new OS, the biggest most signifigantly&nbsp;changed version of a&nbsp;windows since the introduction win 95 17 years ago and not a decent TUTORIAL/guide in site, it should be part of the OOBE, it should be omnipresent on the screen somewhere, it should be easily accesible, it should be highly polished, slick, interactive,&nbsp;where is it ??? i go to my windows 8 start screen and&nbsp;type "help" NOPE, i type "tutorial" NOPE, i type "training" NOPE .&nbsp; Sure Julie(windows&nbsp;division president)&nbsp;says everyone ignores them and maybe they do and maybe i would, until i needed it -&nbsp;but that&nbsp;doesnt mean it should'nt be there(see first sentence)&nbsp;and&nbsp;IF it was good, i dont think people would ignore it!&nbsp;</li>
<li>] windows 8 = windows 7 + 1 (scott hanselman) - There are a few simple concepts that the average user needs to understand before he/she is going to be comfortable with the new operating system. Windows 8 is NOT exactly the same as windows(insert favorite windows version here) and does&nbsp;NOT work or&nbsp;look&nbsp;exactly like windows previous version. It is a new operating system (keyword here is NEW) and has&nbsp;many new and useful features.&nbsp;You might want to&nbsp;cc marketing on&nbsp;these key points&nbsp;as well, IF they could see fit&nbsp;to substitute&nbsp;1 or 2 of the dancing spots to&nbsp;just come out and directly tell people about&nbsp;the key differences, who knows people might catch on. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
<li>] Pricing </li>
<ol>
<li>] the price on the OS itself is great RIGHT NOW (with the current promo offer good until jan 31). BUT What's going to happen to the windows-8 price after the promo period? If the price&nbsp;goes back to the&nbsp;regular price and stays there ... I cant see that being good for what are widely speculated to be&nbsp;low&nbsp;initial usage/adoption numbers, you might need to extend that promo offer&nbsp;period for a bit longer OR do something even more radical.</li>
<li>] surface RT&nbsp;pricing - your new to the game, you have an immature ecosystem, totally new hardware and a price point thats at the top end of the market scale, IF you want ipad/android numbers your price point is going to have&nbsp;to be&nbsp;more attractive to those users, it's NOT. I would expect that anything less than double digit (&gt;10%)&nbsp;market share in&nbsp;this&nbsp;space&nbsp;would be a dissapointment for msft given the investment they have made. Suggestions ...</li>
<ol>
<li>surface RT 1.0 - $399 with touchpad or typepad,</li>
<li>surface RT 1.1 - $499 with LTE radio and&nbsp;touchpad or typepad,</li>
<li>i already bought a surface RT - early adopters club -&nbsp;who paid&nbsp;499+, throw them a&nbsp;bone with coupon for&nbsp;products/services for getting on the bandwagon early and paying top $ to do it.&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
<li>] surface PRO - heres a gamechanger tablet for sure, so yeah go for the gold with a top drawer price, BUT keep in mind when you do that your parking it right beside the new crop of convertibles/laptops, so now i have to choose,</li>
</ol>
<li>] Stay the course&nbsp;OR adjust&nbsp;your path to consumer&nbsp; wants/needs</li>
<ol>
<li>] EXAMPLE - a native option to include the Start button/menu and boot directly to the desktop,</li>
<ol>
<li>] personally, as a windows 8 user, I would say that if a user did&nbsp;used that option they are&nbsp;going to miss out on 1 of the best things in win 8 and thats the start screen and that you dont need the start button/menu at all, but that's just my 2&nbsp;cents&nbsp; <a href="../view/article?id=894#content" target="_blank">http://sospep.com/view/article?id=894#content</a></li>
<li>] BUT&nbsp;IF&nbsp;you put it in as an OPTION, it would probably appease a lot of users,(and save them from having to do it themselves, ) and also make it look like you were responding to customers wants/needs </li>
</ol></ol>
<li>] and finally ...</li>
<ol>
<li>good luck - i want windows 9 = windows 8 + 1, i do NOT want windows 9 = windows 7 (with fresh paint)</li>
<li>the products are solid - yes even the Surface RT(it's a little misunderstood and lot overpriced but a solid product) . windows 8 is a bold initiative. No one would have been surprised to see msft slap a fresh coat of paint on 7, add a&nbsp;handful of new features and call it windows 8. You could have easily ridden the coat tails of 7's success for a few more years of decent sales with a minimal investement in R&amp;D or marketing.</li>
</ol></ol>
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<h2>&nbsp;</h2>
<h2>[REFERENCE]</h2>
<ol>
<li>] cnet article - 5 things msft must do for windows 8 in 2013</li>
<li>]</li>
</ol>
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<hr />
Good article Seth ,&nbsp;I&nbsp;had some of the same concerns that&nbsp;I wrote about in ...&nbsp;
... my open memo to Steve B over at microsoft&nbsp;...
<a href="../view/article?id=940#content">http://sospep.com/view/article?id=940#content</a>
I also had a few other thoughts&nbsp;I wanted to share here as well ...
<hr />
&nbsp;
cnets Seth RosenBlatt wrote an article about 5 things msft must do for windows 8 in 2013.
I had some similar thoughts and few ideas, I put&nbsp;them into my open memo to Steve Balmer&nbsp;over at MSFT in regards to windows-8 and the new surface&nbsp;going forward.
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