The Microsoft vs. Apple War is Heating Up (update)
Microsoft has been slowly gearing up its marketing campaign against Apple with the laptop hunter ads, Windows 7, and its retail store strategy. Whether you agree with them or not, the laptop hunter ads seem to be having the desired effect of highlighting the reality and perception of an Apple Tax (Gizmodo) on Mac purchases.
Last week at Microsoft's worldwide partner conference, COO Kevin Turner announced that his office had received a call from the Apple legal department saying "Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices." (MS press link). He mentioned that this was a true story and I have not seen any denials from Apple. What a bizarre event, why would someone at Apple do this, it does not make sense.
Then, you get very differing views from Gartner and IDC on Mac sales growth and market share. According to MacRumors.com, Gartner sees a 2nd Quarter Mac sales growth of 2.5% giving Apple an 8.7% market share or .3% better than the second quarter of 2008. IDC on the other hand sees a market share decrease of .9% from the 2nd quarter of 2008. It will be interesting to see who's right tomorrow when Apple reports its earnings.
The Microsoft's marketing campaign success or failure analysis will start and both camps will throw out talking points, although it will be tough to argue that the economy's state is not part of the mix.
Update 7/21: Well there you have it, Apple announces 2.6 million Mac shipments for the 2nd quarter a 4% increase over the 2nd quarter of 2008. Gartner and IDC where way off. It looks like MS is not having any impact. This is pretty impressive...Now why the weird call to MS, who knows...only Apple.
I myself am torn between this. We need a new machine for home and my 6-year old will inherit my wife's Mac Mini and she needs a new machine. Yet I find myself debating whether the extra $800+ (assuming a decent Windows laptop for around $700) is worth it vs. a Windows machine. While I love my MacBook Pro, an $800+ difference is nothing to sneeze at. Performance is about the same, but long bootup times and the necessity of keeping a virus subscription etc. on the PC side may just push me towards another Mac, Mac Tax and all...
Posted by: Chris Beard | July 20, 2009 at 03:25 PM
I don't know if you have seen Windows 7 run, but I think it is going to give Mac OS a run for the money.
Posted by: Stephen Skarlatos | July 20, 2009 at 06:18 PM
It makes perfect sense why Apple would place such a call to MS: any company will seek to exploit any opportunity they see, and in particular the involvement of lawyers hints that there are legal advantages of making such a formal complaint.
The call was really a pretty insignificant event--just another day in the life of competing corporations and their lawyers. If you want to draw a conclusion it's that Microsoft's marketing is still failing around.
After all, according to this press release the best evidence they have that their ads are working is a un-noteworthy communication from a corporate lawyer.
Seriously?
Posted by: Chris Carlin | July 21, 2009 at 08:06 AM
If they saw a legal advantage they would have written a letter...
Posted by: Stephen Skarlatos | July 21, 2009 at 08:13 AM
Well you're right, Stephen: assuming there was no legal advantage (a poor assumption, I'd say), the incident really doesn't make any sense at all.
But where does that get you? The best proof these guys have is, then, that Apple's legal department did something nonsensical... that's not exactly case closed.
They could have reported increase sales. They could have reported market research saying that the campaign was working. Heck, they could have reported positive critical review of the spots!
Instead, the best evidence they could find of success in selling computers/software was that a lawyer had a crazy moment?
What's next, proof of the company's profitability in the fact that Bill Joy ate an omelet Monday morning?
Posted by: Chris Carlin | July 21, 2009 at 11:27 AM
You are right, MS should have provided some stats. It will be interesting to what Apple's numbers are this afternoon.
If they are down, does that mean the MS marketing campaign is working or is it the economy. We need to look at the MS hardware partner numbers to lean one way or the other. Obviously if they are up, all bets are off and the MS campaign is probably not having an effect.
Posted by: Stephen Skarlatos | July 21, 2009 at 03:43 PM
It's not that simple. PR firms have the ability to do legitimate research into consumer buying habits to determine whether their campaigns are working, and that information coupled with sales trends for both the target company and its competitors can give an overall picture of how the campaign is doing.
Looking at any one number or sales statistic is probably not going to be meaningful in this case; there are just too many outside variables.
In particular, it's often overlooked that that Microsoft/PC and Apple are selling fundamentally different products to very different audiences, and that's one reason this ad campaign is flawed in my opinion. Since they're selling very different products, sales from one don't translate cleanly into marketshare loss from the other.
Anyway, back to the point: surely Microsoft has real, legitimate data showing whether these campaigns are really successful, so why didn't they release it? To me the lack of release is pretty damning.
Posted by: Chris Carlin | July 22, 2009 at 04:50 AM