When I saw the Simon Sinek video on leadership (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4), it quickly clicked with me that the supporters of Apple are also people who above all want a quality product, that has beautiful design and is easy to use.
Also, people who support Google believe in what Google believes - freedom, openness, personalization, and not getting overcharged and arm and a leg for the service they provide.
But when I thought of Microsoft, I couldn't get neither a quick answer, nor a good one. What are Microsoft's beliefs? What is their mantra? Why do they exist? I couldn't really come up with an answer - except "making money". 15 years ago Microsoft's mantra was about putting a computer on every desk. They've pretty much accomplished that mission. But Microsoft doesn't inspire that in me right now - what they inspire and makes me think about them is that above else, they want to make money.
Every company wants to make money, but we "believe" in the companies we love for different reasons, not because they want to make money. We love the companies that share our beliefs. What exactly are Microsoft's beliefs nowadays? To kill Google? Is that what makes whatever fans they have left to still love them?
I don't think that's enough to win over a larger crowd in the future, as they start losing their monopoly on "computing machines", and all the negative sentiment they are gathering with the patents right now, will come back to haunt them later and create a negative halo around all their products. They're forgetting "Android users" could very well be customers of other products of theirs.
>Also, people who support Google believe in what Google believes - freedom, openness, personalization, and not getting overcharged and arm and a leg for the service they provide.
Openness, unless of course you are talking about the one thing that brings them money, that is surprisingly not open...I am sure it is just a coincidence...ohhh, no wait, it is for the 'good' of the end user, I forgot. Luckily for them it happens to also work out perfectly since it is their dominant source of income.
People's blind belief that Google's motivation is solely the good of the world is amazing, especially for people that claim they are objective.
I don't think very many people around here have the kind of absolute faith in Google that you're talking about. Most often, Google is seen as the yang to Microsoft's (and increasingly Apple's) yin.
Google doesn't have too hard to be seen as the more ethical corporate citizen, given how low Microsoft has set the bar. Remember, this is the company that brought you such treats as the AARD code and the Halloween memos.
I don't know if you were being facetious but I think he meant the search engine.
Forget the search engine, how about their flavor of Linux that they made all their tens of billions off of? Nope, that's closed too and the improvements aren't available to Linux developers.
If Linux were licensed under the Affero GPL instead of theplain GPL, Google would be infringing.
> that's closed too and the improvements aren't available to Linux developers.
Are you sure those are improvements most people would want to have? Google has a remarkably narrow set of requirements for their servers and it seems more likely than not that if they made changes to their kernels, they would not be regarded as improvements by anyone with slightly different hardware.
I think your point isn't actually about the beliefs (as Sinek puts it), but the marketing of those beliefs.
Are Apple products truly superior to everybody elses products? or is it that Apple has done a great job (much better than anybody else) of telling you that they make the most beautifully designed, and easiest to use products.
I think this is one of the huge reasons WP7 isn't gaining much traction in the marketplace. Nobody knows what it is about. I haven't seen any WP marketing. Though I do own a Samsung Focus and it's awesome.
Android had the big push from Verizon with the 'Droid Does' campaign, google did a great PR job with Android, and they are 'THE other' smart phone. Whereas WP, WebOS, Blackberry seem to just be 'other' smart phones.
WP7 started with a marketing campaign that was giving it a bit of identity with the 'really?' campaign. It didn't tell you much about the phone, but made a great point. If they had stuck with that it could have been something aspirational.
What are Microsoft's beliefs? What is their mantra? Why do they exist?
Microsoft had a great mission statement, one of the most ambitious of all time: A computer on every desk, in every home and business, running Microsoft software. They pulled it off, basically, and there was nowhere to go but down from there.
Google was smart enough to pick a mission statement ("Organize the world's information") that can never be entirely fulfilled.
Also, people who support Google believe in what Google believes - freedom, openness, personalization, and not getting overcharged and arm and a leg for the service they provide.
But when I thought of Microsoft, I couldn't get neither a quick answer, nor a good one. What are Microsoft's beliefs? What is their mantra? Why do they exist? I couldn't really come up with an answer - except "making money". 15 years ago Microsoft's mantra was about putting a computer on every desk. They've pretty much accomplished that mission. But Microsoft doesn't inspire that in me right now - what they inspire and makes me think about them is that above else, they want to make money.
Every company wants to make money, but we "believe" in the companies we love for different reasons, not because they want to make money. We love the companies that share our beliefs. What exactly are Microsoft's beliefs nowadays? To kill Google? Is that what makes whatever fans they have left to still love them?
I don't think that's enough to win over a larger crowd in the future, as they start losing their monopoly on "computing machines", and all the negative sentiment they are gathering with the patents right now, will come back to haunt them later and create a negative halo around all their products. They're forgetting "Android users" could very well be customers of other products of theirs.