In this next installment of Print Advertising Wars, we will cover some of the issues working against an ideal delivery and acceptance of Microsoft's .NET message. These issues were basically out of Microsoft's control.

First, let's be clear that Microsoft is a marketing machine. In fact, I've heard it said that it's better to think of Microsoft not as a software company, but as a marketing company that peddles software. And Microsoft is very, very, very good at marketing software.

The .NET marketing push was (and is) very important to the company. You can be assured that Microsoft spared no expense in testing their printed advertisements in front of focus groups over and over and over again, insuring that the printed word (and more importantly, the psychology behind the pictures) was consistent with the message Microsoft wished to convey. This message was delivered to everyone within the company -- I can tell simply because the message was consistent from top to bottom, in word and in deed. That's consistant (and effective) marketing. ".NET is coming and it's here to stay" is one of the marketing messages that has worked.

However, many events were working against a fully beneficial penetration of the marketing message.

US economy turns sour -- This is the major factor working against the .NET marketing message. There is less money to spend on new development. Companies are continuing to maintain currently running software -- if they're in business.

Microsoft brain drain -- People like Tod Nielsen to Adam Bosworth to Nathan Myrvhold have left the company. This has had an incalculable detrimental effect to the .NET marketing efforts. We'll see why in a later installments.

.COM fallout -- the US economy may be stagnant, but IT investment is in a near free fall. This has been reported on the UT and elsewhere -- see http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/11/25/021125hnitgrowth.xml?s=IDGNS. .COM companies are simply trying to survive -- IT heavy companies are simply trying to get their old computers out of storage and doing something useful -- not buying new machines and OSes and untested software development environments.

9/11 -- Not only another shock to the US economy, but companies look more seriously at backup and recovery and various security issues. Which leads us to the next issue...

Security issues -- Have you seen the printed advertisements whereby there's a person on the right hand side of a two page advertisement (sometimes it's a foldout advertisement covering four pages) with an incredulous look on their face? This is more Microsoft advertising. This is part of Microsoft's counterattack against the perception that their operating systems and software products are both buggy and insecure. They have been displaying these advertisements for months and months. The trouble is, these advertisements could be talking about .NET, but they aren't. This dilutes the effectiveness of the .NET message.

.NET took too long to develop -- This allowed other companies to prepare marketing messages to counteract the .NET marketing juggernaut. We'll see in the next installment how the subliminal messages in IBM's printed advertisements directly oppose the submliminal messages in Microsoft's printed advertising.

Stay tuned!

Bill Anderson