Case 1:
Microsoft WORKS
Paola Griselda Escobedo Flores A01381022
Josbel Rocha Ruiz A01380943
Gabriela Alejandra Soriano Lara A01381759
Kazandra Rangel Fino A01380034
Maria José Jiménez Martínez A01380538
Mtra. Sandra Maycotte
International Business Intelligence
January 22nd, 2018
Case 1- Microsoft Corporation: The introduction of Microsoft Works
2
Microsoft is an American company founded in 1975 by bill gates just after dropping
Harvard school to create and developed programs for microcomputers of those
days.Since the beginning , Microsoft has been the software leader for computers,
even when their competition startet to gain power and market , they found an
opportunity to break that brand boundary and decided to release their programs as
Macintosh friendly so the apple consumers could use their products too.
As the american market was already fulfilled, Microsoft started their plans to go
globally.The executives were aware about the world transformation and their
necessity to seek for a more globalized product, strong and attractive so it could be
globally used, taking in consideration the logistic costs and the impact that going
international would cause to their income.
One of their major software was the one named WORKS, a multifunctional
software that included many tools such as databases and communication programs,
adding the fact that was easy to learn and easy to sell. The case mainly refers about
the situation that faced Microsoft in order to went globally and the changes they
needed to do in the software and the marketing strategy so it could penetrate the
foreign markets.
Originally, WORK was ready to be launched in the American market with the
specifications stratified to the chosen segment in their home country, but when the
executives started to planning the idea of going globally they needed to choose what
they’re going to do to achieve that goal.Two worries that Microsoft faced during this
lapse of time was the option of making changes in their software so it could be used
in every country they would be sell or launch it as soon as possible in America for
then launch it in other countries with the inconvenient that it was not going to fulfill
the requirements of the foreign markets and that meant that could not succeed.
We need to analyse the case like if it we were in those years so we can know the
background and the conditions in which the situations are based. Besides the facts
already mentioned ,other fact is the one of “time”, they need to take a decision
sooner because the competition is growing rapidly and if they don’t launch their
software it exist a possibility of facing another company releasing a similar program.
Case 1- Microsoft Corporation: The introduction of Microsoft Works
The decision they need to take needs to be strongly based and influenced by the
international point of view because they are receiving yearly more percentage of
their income from abroad due to their hardware foreign associates and the trend of
globalization is always increasing.
Later in this case analysis we are going to get dig deeper on the information
presented in the Microsoft case study, but for now we have clearly spot the four main
actions Microsoft needs to take in order to segment and localize the software to the
foreign countries.The first information Microsoft needs to take into account to take a
decision is the differences in hardwares, american computers are different from the
European and Asian ones, the keyboards have different symbols so the software
needs to be compatible with it.
They also have to consider the differences in Microsoft’s Competitive Position
and Corporate Image , germans wanted a different order in the spreadsheet of
WORKS and in France the exact translation of the slogan produced kind of
