Microsoft: Microsoft is taking a cue from Coca-Cola - Times Online

Many customers do not like Windows 8th Why Microsoft wants to bring to the market in June, a new version of the operating system. So once also acted Coca-Cola.

© Justin Lane / dpa

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer introduced the operating system Windows 8 in October 2012.

It is a remarkable admission. Microsoft announces six months after the launch of its operating system Windows 8, is to change “essential aspects” of the operation. The user would have difficulty getting used to the new software, acknowledged chief marketing officer Tami Reller, one must take into account the “learning curve”. The update, codenamed Windows Blue is announced for June. In other words, the largest software company in the world inside out to its main product, because customers do not like it

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Microsoft is not the first large companies to fail an important product launch. The prime example of such a flop gave Coca-Cola: The U.S. In 1985, the Group changed its recipe for brown shower, because more and more Americans drank Pepsi. But the people did not like “The New Coke”. The group returned hastily to “Classic Coke” back and brought the world economy a catchy name for such marketing margins. New Coke effect

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evil tongues as the analyst Richard Doherty say Windows 8 is like “New Coke” – “only that Coca-Cola has listened better,” as the expert of the market research firm Envisioneering in the Financial Times blasphemes. The shower manufacturer responded in less than three months to the complaints. Although the software is much more complex than shower, both cases have parallels.

Coca-Cola, Microsoft responded to the growing competition. Traditional desktop computers and notebooks, where Windows dominates, are still a large but rapidly shrinking business. Asked are tablet computers and smartphones – Windows but here is hardly present. Therefore, Microsoft needed an operating system that works well on touch screens.

No shop keeper, but the critics are loud

The software maker did not develop additional product, but replaced the old one. The new Windows is an operating system for both: PC with keyboard and mouse as well as tablet computer with a touch screen. Microsoft revised this operation radically – with the result that many users fremdeln. Market researchers from IDC even think that the dissatisfaction with Windows 8 is one of the reasons for the slump in the PC market. The sales of notebooks and desktops was falling by almost 14 percent in the first quarter.

Now Windows 8 is not a shop keeper. In the first seven months, Microsoft sold 100 million licenses for its own account and that a similar number as after the launch of Windows 7, the only conditionally says something about the actual use. And at the tablet computers, the touch system according to an estimate by Strategy Analytics least 7.5 percent market share at an estimated three million units sold. Despite the small selection.

However, in the discussion of the critics who make fun of the new surface, the loudest to be heard. What to do when customers complain loudly about the product? Coca-Cola quickly led back the old recipe and sparked a marketing Fireworks – the group that people remembered what they will find great about the drink. And now there is not only the classic Coke, but the flavors of vanilla and cherry, as well as versions without sugar.