Microsoft's Windows 7 sales pitch revealed

You can almost hear the Microsoft salesforce - locked up in their secret-base barracks - doing sales-type exercises, under the gaze of a drill-team-leader. "Drop and sell me 50" he barks. "Hut, hut, hut" go the troops as they practice marching from retailer to retailer. Then, as D-Day approaches, they all sit down under the projector and look at the wall, waiting for the big cheese to give them the masterplan.

Their mission, to sell Windows 7 to the world. A world battered by economic shocks and aftershocks, a world collectively wounded by the fudged launch of Windows Vista (something that eventually evolved into a decent OS and the bedrock on which the slinky Windows 7 is built). So, what is this super-secret, "eyes only"-tagged, sealed in a manila evelope, masterplan? Well it took about half an hour for a recent version to leak.

We looked at the slides earlier today, but the theme running through them is "easy", "works", "what I want" and "is cool." Even a brief analysis says that two out three isn't bad, as no company can declare its own product "cool." That will be for the individual to decide. There is also a mock-up of what a kiosk will look like, just in case you might miss one once the product is released. The fact that "works" is the biggest block in Microsoft's pyramid sell (below) is reassuring -- as Vista certainly was short on "works".



_{Pyramid selling? Styling yourself as cool? Is this an operating system or a lifestyle choice?}

So, if you're walking down to your local computer superstore sometime in October and hear "hut, hut, hut, works, hut, hut, hut, easy, hut, hut, hut..." you know its time to duck and cover. Of course, marketing plans can change in an instant and Microsoft could yet launch Windows 7 with rainbow striped koalas singing the Hallelujah Chorus in a dance style. But, its always nice to know what goes on behind the pitch.