Desktop platforms Toolkit

Ballmer: Vista needs a bigger marketing budget

Marcus Browne ZDNet Australia

Published: 05 Feb 2008 10:02 GMT

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer believes the software giant needs to spend more on marketing in order to sell more copies of Vista, and has hinted that a sizeable increase in its marketing budget is on the horizon.

It has been estimated that over $500m (£250m) has been spent on marketing Vista since its release.

Speaking at a Microsoft strategic update conference in the US on Monday, Ballmer told attendees that the company will have to begin re-engaging consumers in the face of renewed competition.

"We're going to have to invest more than we ever have in consumer excitement," said Ballmer.

The Microsoft chief executive told attendees to expect more to be done to "highlight Windows", and said the task will "require more investment".

Vista Upgrade Blog

Grappling with the OS

How is the switch to Vista affecting your workplace? Take a look at our new group blog and share your pain and praise.

According to Ballmer, Windows is the company's biggest growth opportunity, which could, according to an analyst, be because large companies still prefer XP to Vista.

Matthew Oostveen, software analyst at research firm IDC, said that Ballmer's announcement does not come as a great surprise given "the public's reception to Windows Vista was lukewarm at best".

"While the year of Linux on the desktop never eventuated, threats to Microsoft's desktop dominance came from the surge in Apple, which was buoyed by its iPod sales," said Ootsven.

Microsoft's Ballmer also hinted at progress on Vista's successor — Windows 7 — but would not discuss any details at the conference, saying: "I'm not really going to talk about that now, but we're very hard at work on the next version and I'm enthused about what we're doing."

CNET News.com's Ina Fried contributed to this report.

Credit: More marketing dollars will sell Vista: Ballmer from ZDNet Australia

Did you find this article useful?
7 out of 11 people found this useful

More In Desktop platforms

Company/Topic Alerts

Create a new alert from the list below:

Related Jobs

Marketing Analyst with (Teradata) SQL - URGENT Contract

My Thames Valley based client is in URGENT need of a Marketing Analyst with (Teradata) SQL to work within the customer retention department. You ...

Senior Marketing Analyst

My long-established client requires a Senior Marketing Analyst on a temporary basis as maternity cover. Given that the role is for a marketing ...

CRM Marketing Analyst

The purpose of the role is to analyse and improve performance of response based marketing. Knowledge and experience of marketing campaigns Salary: ...

Featured Talkback

So if you upgrade to XP SP3 you can't uninstall Internet Explorer, I'm quite sure I'm having a Deja-vu feeling about MS preventing people from uninstalling Internet Explorer in other Windows products.