March 20th, 2006
A $500M campaign, and you need to steal our slogan?
Anyone who read my rant last year "The
IT Industry Needs A Slap"
knows that I try and avoid "mud slinging" and "getting into
politics", but this is really bothering me, and why have a blog if
I can't vent right?
Microsoft is a getting a lot of press right now about their new $500 M
marketing campaign for "People Ready". Steve Ballmer is
being quoted saying "We're talking about giving people in business
the tools to be more productive every day".
Hello? Alan calling the "blatant rip-off department", will
you accept the charges?
- Look at the "Related Links" section of almost any product page
on the Lotus web site, and click on Lotus
Software Advantage. Right
at the very top of the screen it says "Making more people more
productive in the context of the business they do every day".
- Google "ambuj
goyal people productive context business"
and you can see that IBM has been saying this for years!
- In his Lotusphere
Keynote address on Jan 26th 2004
Ambuj said "We are helping companies integrate people into the business
process".
- Or how about in
2003 when IBM was introducing Workplace
as "an innovative platform for integrating people with business processes".
- And "People Ready" seems awfully similar to our long standing
"People
Productivity" theme, also
seen here IBM
Middleware for people and productivity.
Look, I don't "hate" Microsoft or anything silly like that. However
it does annoy me that for all their talk of innovation, and all the money
they have to blindly throw at marketing, they can't come up with their
own ideas. Even more than that, it annoys me that there are people
out there, IT decision makers no less, that hear MS's messages and think
they are original. Before anyone comments that I am just jealous
of the attention they are getting... you bet I am!
If you have not seen it yet, please read IBM
responds to Microsoft’s campaign: An interview with Ken Bisconti.
(screen saver image on my computer from 2003!)
