Microsoft's Strategy for Small Businesses (A): The Innovative PR Campaign for MS Office Accounting 2007

Microsoft launched an innovative public relations (PR) campaign to support the launch of OAE 2007 and OAP 2007. On November 18, 2006, Microsoft officially launched the marketing initiative for its OAE 2007, which it called 'IdeaWins: The Ultimate Challenge' (IdeaWins), in Times Square, New York, USA. It was a contest that targeted aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners. The participants had to come up with innovative business ideas. The winner would receive US$100,000 as startup money, a rent-free retail store space in Manhattan, New York, USA, as well as software and service support from Microsoft and its partners, to put his/her idea to work. (Refer to Table II for the break-up of the grand prize)...

Analysts felt that the launch of OAE 2007 and OAP 2007, and the intensive marketing push for the software, was a marked attempt by Microsoft to grab a larger share of the small business accounting software market, particularly from QuickBooks. As of January 2007, OAE 2007 was available in the USA only, and according to the company there were no plans to offer the product to the international market except for the UK. The UK version of OAE 2007 started beta testing from May 2006. Experts felt that compared to QuickBooks 2007 and the latest version of Peachtree, OAE 2007 had the best integration with other MS Office applications...