Abstract

This Micro Case Study discusses about Microsoft Corporation’s ‘people-ready’ advertising promotional campaign. Steve Ballmer of Microsoft also launched an attack on IBM service business model. However, analysts and Ken Bisconti of IBM criticized Microsoft’s proprietary software model which was still in the pre-internet era. Open source rivals like Linux and IBM’s Lotus products were gaining ground on Microsoft. Added to this the launch of the Vista operating system was delayed.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

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Keywords

Microsoft, People-Ready, Campaign, Targeting, IBM, Steve Ballmer, Ballmer, Chief Executive officer of Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, corporate customers, press, press personnel, industry, industry analysts, company, people, Windows Vista, office 2007, Exchange Server, SQL Server, marketing campaign, software, advertisement, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, communications, collaboration, knowledge workers, searching company databases, business intelligence, customer relationship management, voice recognition, e-mail, translation technology, Excel spreadsheet, products, email, network