Microsoft: Unorthordox Brand Equity

As reported by Business week (http://bwnt.businessweek.com/brand/2006/),
Microsoft was Interbrand's #2 brand for 2006 (Coca-Cola was #1). Brand
consultant Millward Brown Optimor actually placed Microsoft at the top of
their list. This is interesting considering that anti-Microsoft sentiment
often runs high among consumers. Consumers don't love Microsoft like they
love other brands such as Google, but they have a great deal of respect for it
(http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39157840,00.htm?r=1). I
think that some consumers feel uneasy with the fact that Mr. Bill Gates has
built a money-machine enterprise that, in many ways, tends to monopolize the
industry. At the same time, however, consumers recognize the importance of
Microsoft to their daily lives. Where would business people be without
Microsoft products and services? In other words, consumers hold the Microsoft
brand in high regard, but it seems to be in a league of its own as compared to
other top brands.

The point that Microsoft's brand equity comes from consumers' respect for the
brand is very different than the equity built by the Coca-Cola brand, for
example. The Coca-Cola brand is strong because its consumers use its products
by choice, despite a plethora of direct competitors. If all Coca-Cola
products magically disappeared tomorrow, consumers would eventually move on
and begin to drink other products. On the other hand, I don't think anyone
knows what life would be like without Microsoft. An argument can be made that
a key component of Microsoft's brand equity is that consumers recognize their
dependence to its products. A slightly more far fetched theory is that consumers fear life without Microsoft.

While there are direct competitors to Microsoft products, consumers fear using them due to reliability concerns and the amount of time it could take to become acclimated to the new product. In short, Microsoft’s monopolistic characteristics have led to equity centered around sheer respect for the brand. As smaller competitors continue to enter the market, will Microsoft lose its unorthodox brand equity? Can the Mozilla Firefoxes of the world ever capture significant market share?

Robert Cusumano