.NET Marketing Focusing on Developers, ISVs, Enterprises

.NET not only represents new technology for Microsoft but also a new marketing challenge. Instead of being aimed primarily at the desktop, which Microsoft has dominated, .NET is pitched at a much broader market: a distributed computing environment in which smart client devices are fully integrated with server operating systems and applications. Instead of winning desktop ISVs, few of whom remain anyway, the company must convince corporate developers and consultants of the value of .NET, and its partner strategy has gained a more vertical focus. These shifts have not been easy for the company: marketing challenges and some early branding missteps have the company struggling to explain .NET and establish its unique value proposition.

Changing Goals

Microsoft has applied the label “.NET” to a huge range of products and activities. However, the fundamental goal of the company’s .NET evangelism is to maintain and extend its strength on the desktop while also driving sales of server products, such as Windows .NET Server and SQL Server. Attracting developers to the company’s .NET development tools is vital to this effort because applications created with the .NET development platform will run almost exclusively on Microsoft operating systems and will integrate most tightly with its server products.