What You Can Learn from the World's Most Highly Valued Brands - Part 2

iWORKS - Photo Courtesy of Apple

In Part 1 of this articles series we discussed the importance of thinking strategically and studying the brand strategies of the most valued brands in the world if you want to sustain your own market leadership as a luxury real estate professional. Here we continue with Microsoft’s biggest brand strategy challenge.

Microsoft, a late comer in the race to dominate the world of mobile devices, has a potentially strong competitive advantage over Apple in the tablet war: A deep corporate client database of satisfied Windows customers who use Microsoft Office, their productivity suite of software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc). Enterprises and governments, who represent a huge untapped market for tablets, are increasingly finding new ways of using tablets for light computing, rather than using PCs, on the job. Of course, Samsung and other Android-based tablet manufacturers want in on this market segment, too.

Along with Apple’s recent launch of new iPads came a bombshell that may become Microsoft’s worst nightmare. On all new iPads, Apple is giving away iWorks (Apple’s own productivity suite: Pages, Numbers and Keynote) for FREE! Plus, they have developed a version of iWorks that works in iCloud, which is accessible by Macs, all PCs, and ANY mobile devise with a browser, including all Android and Windows mobile devices. And, that is FREE, TOO! We highly recommend iWorks for luxury real estate marketing professionals.

Microsoft charges up to $15 per user per month for their cloud-based Office 365! But, iWorks is fully compatible with Word, Excel and PowerPoint. For example, you can import a Word document into Pages, collaborate on the document with colleagues from all over the world via iCloud.com, then download it in either Pages or Word or PDF format to any computer.

The one-two punch of FREE (and stunningly simple to use) iWorks creates a buffer zone for would-be tablet competitors like Microsoft, Samsung and (Google’s) Motorola. It also provides a switching barrier for customers who have all of their documents, spreadsheets and presentations stored in Apple’s locker, i.e., in iCloud.

If tablets are going to replace PCs as the primary computing device Apple has a clear shot at sustaining and expanding their dominance in the post PC era.

Amazon’s Kindle, which is primarily a consumer tablet, may still have its niche. But, it has no chance of catching the iPad. And, as we will cover in Part 3 of this article series, Android’s greatest weakness in tablets is Apple’s greatest strength. We will also discuss how you can apply the same strategic thinking of the world's most highly valued brands to your own luxury real estate marketing practice to gain or sustain market leadership.

Written by Ron & Alexandra Seigel-

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