This is another post about Palm, Windows Mobile, and the iPhone and ok, yes, the title’s a bit of a stretch, but all the “Take a bite out of Apple” jokes are used up…
But for my 19th straight post about today’s smartphones, I wanted to address the new marketing campaign from Sprint targeting current AT&T (specifically iPhone) customers. As seen here, Sprint is basically throwing a pretty firm punch at the iPhone, touting the Pre’s superior capabilities to run multiple applications simultaneously, recieve push notifications, and not cost a boatload more than it should.
The ad smartly goes right after its main competition, without apology or shame. And you know what? It works.
So I finally got to play with a Pre this week and I was pretty impressed. It’s small and sleek, has a pretty screen and fun user interface, and is all around totally gadgety. But here’s my take: none of that matters nearly as much as Sprint’s ability to market the device. I’ve said this so many times, but the iPhone is an awesome gadget, but is wildly successful because of Apple’s incredible marketing. And, as I’ve asked many times before: why doesn’t the competition do this?!
As you’ve heard me make that argument before, you’ll likely not be surprised where I’m going with this… why doesn’t Microsoft do this with Windows Mobile!?
WinMo fans have always taken pride in their phones’ ability to function beyond the iPhone - for a fairly exhaustive list, check out this link. Why isn’t Microsoft talking about this? All the arguments for the Pre in Sprint’s ad above, also apply to Windows Mobile, a platform that’d been around for years before the iPhone, but you’d never know it because no marketing teams have cooked up the messaging yet.
The point I’m getting at, is that I respect Sprint’s aggressive marketing campaign and I think it’s absolutely necessary. The iPhone has been selling like multi-touch-hot-cakes and it’s taking chunks out of its competitors’ market share every quarter. Only two years ago the iPhone was brand new, zero units sold, and now there are over twenty million units out there. It’s time to start fighting back.
I mean come on, Microsoft, Apple lobbed you a softball with its “Copy and Paste is a Pretty Incredible Thing” ad - go stand up for yourself and let the people know that you’ve been doing that Pretty Incredible Thing within Windows Mobile for the better part of a decade.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Great post that I couldn’t agree more with - mostly the new Apple commercial that touts the iPhone’s new copy/past functionality like it’s some amazing thing. Who works in the Microsoft marketing department anyways? Do they even have a marketing department?
October 29th, 2009 at 9:55 am
[...] another generation to come. But, as I’ve said many times before, there is plenty of room for iPhone-killer marketing. I think the Droid’s launch is a perfect example of what the competition should be doing with [...]