The new Windows Phone 7 was introduced this week and just like the iPad announcement a few weeks ago, Microsoft’s revamped phone OS is getting much scrutiny. The techies, the press and the everyday user each is having a go at the sea change in thinking by MS.
But as I was checking the reaction, I noticed a marked difference in how the respective business chiefs talked about their products.
For Steve Jobs, the iPad, despite its derided name, drew superlatives from the master of hype. On the other hand, Steve Ballmer seemed a bit afraid to tout his company’s highly anticipated mobile OS upgrade.
Jobs (in the New York Times):
The iPad “is so much more intimate than a laptop, and it’s so much more capable than a smartphone with its gorgeous screen,” he said in presenting the device to a crowd of journalists and Apple employees here. “It’s phenomenal to hold the Internet in your hands.”
Ballmer (in the New York Times):
“There is no question in our minds that we needed and wanted to do some things that were out of the box and clearly differentiated from our past and — hopefully you will agree — clearly differentiated from other things going on in the market,” Mr. Ballmer told the group.
Is either approach more effective in enhancing a product’s launch? How would you launch one of these products?