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An Enticing Experience

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DQI Bureau
New Update

Microsoft has launched a massive marketing campaign to make sure Windows XP

gathers market share at an accelerated pace. The new campaign is trying to

entice the ‘lucky’ ones to win a Fiat Palio, home theater systems, DVD

players, Swatches, and many more goodies.

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The Win XP Professional comes with gifts such as a sleek personal phone from

Beetel, HP 656C DeskJet printer, Casio PVS 250 pocket viewer or a Compaq iPAQ

3760 pocket PC. The Home edition has goodies like Fabmart gift certificates,

Swatch watches, a Casio pocket viewer, a Sony music system and even a Fiat Palio.

All these freebies are targeted at growing the market acceptance of the not so

popular Win XP.

Meanwhile, distributors have decided to play on a single dealer transfer

price. A result of that is the escalated price tag. Distributors have attributed

this price escalation to the dollar exchange price increase and an effort to

bring some stability in the volatile market. This move has further weakened the

already feeble marketshare of Win XP. According to channel partners, this is

keeping customers away as they cannot justify this increase in price.

In addition, channel partners are not at all happy about the licensing policy

of Microsoft and in fact a few have backed out of such license sales. Technical

experts feel that Win XP does not carry the value for money proposition and that

it has more frills attached rather than technically strong features.

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The channel is not enthusiastic about the success of the product; rather, it

is marginally optimistic about it. There are a lot of factors which are

affecting Win XP sales. Reasons range from low market sentiments to low

acceptance of the product in the price sensitive Indian market.

The recent marketing campaign appears to be an effort to expand Win XP’s

stagnant marketshare. The retail segment is yet to get pepped up about an

expensive commodity like Win XP. The corporate and government sectors are yet to

spend freely and the SOHO and SME segments are non-existent in the present

circumstances.

Channel partners think that this is not a product for the Indian target

audience. With not much of value addition, there are very few takers. The

channels believe that the push strategy is the only strategy that might work

well for Microsoft; as there is no pull in the market.

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Vipul Dutta, director, Futuresoft, says, "We are doing business and

still continuing with Win XP. This shows that it is doing well enough in the

market." Most of the channel partners feel that the market will pick up and

so will the sales of Win XP. Ashish Aggarwal, director, Trifin Technologies,

says, "The market has already accepted the product, it just needs to get

into the required momentum. Every product goes through its lifecycle and so will

Win XP. The home segment already prefers Win XP to Win ME/2000 editions. But the

recent ad campaign seems to have had no effect on sales."

Some feel that this product is not as technically strong as other comparative

products, it comes with frills attached. Ravinath Raj, business manager, Sonata,

a leading Microsoft distributor, said, "Yes, it is true that Win XP has not

been able to gather the same attention as its predecessors did, but the market

sentiments are a major factor. Surely, the market needs to be educated more

about this product."

According to Microsoft, this is a regular marketing campaign conducted at the

end of every quarter. Karthik Padmanabhan, senior marketing manager, Microsoft

Corporation (India), informs, "Well, this promo has been able to give us

the required momentum in the market, in fact we have overshot our sales

estimates by 20%."

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Commenting on the impetus given to the Home edition, he felt that this is the

peak season for the home segment to buy commodities. "The Indian market now

is as tech-savvy as the western world is and I do feel that Win XP is exactly

the kind of product that the users would be looking for. It is a technically

stable and advanced product," says Padmanabhan.

With huge marketing budgets, Microsoft has been able to create the required

momentum in the market for its products in the past, but what’s left to be

seen is how soon Win XP gains acceptance in the already dull market.

Shweta Khanna/CNS in New Delhi

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