\f\f\f\f\f\fRunning head: MICROSOFT'S PRODUCT AND MARKETING EVOLUTION Microsoft's product and marketing evolution Name of the Student University 1 MICROSOFT'S PRODUCT AND MARKETING EVOLUTION 2 According to Kotler and Keller (2015), Microsoft is the world's largest software manufacturing company that was founded by both Bill Gates and Paul Allen . While the company is thought of being the role model in the software industry, it has evolved in terms of both its product and market from the year 1975 when it was founded. In its fight against the stiff competition in this industry, Microsoft has had better innovative solutions in its products and marketing strategies as well as an unstable evolution due to a number of factors which include competition, customer satisfaction, demand and its management. The DOS operating system was developed in the 1980s to be used in the IBM computers. One Microsoft brand was then established and comprised of the DOS, Excel and Windows. This created uncertainties in the sales for other consumers preferred to make their own choices on the type of browser they wanted to use. In so doing, Microsoft was in a position to control the sales of its products to more than one manufacturer which was a better option than if it had sold the software to IBM manufacturer. After the development of Microsoft, the operating system became popular and was publicly known in 1980s. In addition, the Windows 3.0 operating system was incorporated with both the file manager and the program manager hence attracting more sales. For this reason, the customers were more willing to purchase an all in one operating system hence increasing sales at Microsoft. Based on the aggressive nature of the company, customers were confident that Microsoft's products would be regularly updated. The company associated its new releases with a slogan that always encouraged and left the customers craving for their products like the case in 1998 where the slogan was, \"Where do you want to Go To Today,\" so that they could market the whole industry rather than their individual products. MICROSOFT'S PRODUCT AND MARKETING EVOLUTION For the purpose of preinstalling computers with the Windows 3.0 and the need to counter the popularity of Netscape, the Internet Explorer was developed by Microsoft and then bundled with the office product forcing office users to only be limited to the Internet Explorer. This trend in the operating system industry went on giving rise to the Window 2000 and Windows XP in the year 2000 and 2001 respectively. Microsoft specialized in the software industry and hence neglecting the hardware components and their untapped potential. Its immediate competitor, Apple launched competing products including Mac computers, iPods, iPhones and iTunes. Microsoft then launched Vista in 2007 containing some bugs that were later resolved by using commercials aimed at improving the employee morale and customer loyalty thereby engaging in the psychological marketing that increased the company sales to date, Using Bing as a search engine, Microsoft could now compete with Google who had dominated the search engine and later the company expanded to also supply smart phones. This was the ultimate decision whose time was late but this shows that the company was actually flexible and that it was run on the basis of evaluating its performance based on the expectations that the society and the advancing technology dictated. References 3 MICROSOFT'S PRODUCT AND MARKETING EVOLUTION Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., Manceau, D., & Hmonnet-Goujot, A. (2015). Marketing management (Vol. 14). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. 4