“Despite holding more than 90% the operating system market and limiting Apple’s share of the PC market to 8.7%, according to Gartner, Microsoft outspent Apple’s $214 million ad budget for the same period and doubled its rival’s TV spending in the last two quarters,” Jason Notte reports for TheStreet.com. “Months later, the question of ‘why’ remains.”
Notte reports, “Microsoft’s latest array of ads displaced a short-running, ill-received campaign featuring former Chairman Bill Gates palling around with Jerry Seinfeld. It was Gates’ last turn as the public face of Microsoft… Microsoft’s new ads seem as sporadic and mercurial as its current figurehead and one of their biggest proponents, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.”
Notte reports, “Nor is it helping the company’s revenue or market footing. Microsoft’s revenue dipped 17% in its fiscal fourth quarter from a year earlier, including a 29% drop in Windows revenue based on ‘PC market weakness.’ Revenue was down 3% with Windows sales off 13%. The lost $2 billion was roughly what Adobe paid for Omniture. Apple, meanwhile, saw its global revenue jump 12% last quarter despite an 8% drop in computer sales.”
Notte reports, “‘Clearly, they’re threatened by it,’ Andrew Graff, CEO of Watertown, Mass.-based ad firm Allen & Gerritsen, says. ‘You would think that, as such a dominant leader, they wouldn’t need to fight back, but I think they look at what Apple’s doing and realize that they could be the next generation’s product of choice.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JES42” for the heads up.]