Punchdrunk Microsoft seeks bright side

Life

29 June 2010

Microsoft has dug up some stats to remind the world it’s not failing to hold up against its rivals, after a leaked memo suggested the software giant was feeling a little downtrodden.

Head of corporate communications Frank Shaw listed off a host of positive statistics in a blog post, noting Microsoft sold 150 million copies of Windows 7 since its launch, took its market share on netbooks in the US from 10% in 2008 to 96% in 2009, and added 21.4 million users to Bing in one year.

The numbers seem aimed at cheering up the Microsoft faithful after a few months of media coverage focused on rivals Apple and Google.

Shaw apparently sent around a memo earlier this month, admitting it felt like the “momentum [was] against us”.

“It has been a rough couple of weeks for us from a coverage standpoint,” Shaw said, according to a copy of the memo printed by the Wall Street Journal’s tech blog. “It seems like every time I turn on the computer, or talk to a reporter, or pick up a publication at home, or do a scan of my RSS feeds or Twitter client that I see more stories and opinions about the challenges we have, and how great some of our competitors are doing. iPad this, Droid that, sheesh.”

He told his fellow Microsoft employees to think positively, at one point imagining the theme from the film Rocky in his head. “Right now, we are massively over-indexed in thinking and knowing about our losses and challenges. But what of our wins?”

After taking a dig at Google for “copying” Bing’s photo-based search page, Shaw praised Microsoft’s search engine for gaining ground against its rival.

“Yes, we want to (and will) do better in phones,” he added. “Yes, we want to (and will) have more cool thin slate/tablet/other form factor devices that run Windows.”

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