A.

BACKGROUND OF THE CASE

Microsoft Corporation is an American technology firm headquartered in

Redmond, Washington, that is involved in all phases of the computer product lifecycle,
including product conception, design and production, as well as software and services
licensing. The company was founded in New Mexico in 1976 when two childhood
friends who had known each other since they were children first got together to work on
the idea.

Prior to co-founding Microsoft, Paul Allen and Bill Gates were passionate
computer geeks during an era when the availability of computers was difficult to obtain.
The pair of students, Allen and Gates, skipped all of their high school classes in order to
spend their time in the school's computer room. Instead of being expelled, the two
students were asked to help improve the school's computer performance in exchange for
unrestricted computer usage.

Gates and Allen started their own modest business with the help of a friend,
guitarist Paul Gilbert, while they were in high school and they sold a computer to the city
of Seattle to count city traffic.

While attending Harvard University as a pre-law student, Gates moved to Seattle

in 1973. Nevertheless, Bill Gates never lost his initial love, programming, as he spent
much of his time at Harvard's computer lab, where he learned new programming
techniques and implemented new programs. After Allen arrived to Boston, they both
agreed that the best way to work together on their projects was to require Microsoft
founder Bill Gates to quit his Harvard post so they could do so full time. It wasn't clear
what he should do, but fate took action.

Allen discovered an article in a popular electronics magazine about the Altair

8800 microprocessor and brought it to Gates, who was more knowledgeable about the
technology. Following a phone discussion with MITS, the founders of the Altair—Bill
Gates and Paul Allen—wrote BASIC (the brand-new BASIC programming language) for
the Altair.
 The eight-week time frame ended, and then Allen and Gates showed MITS the
finished product, which was named Altair BASIC after the company's founder. Inspired
by the partnership, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs decided to found their own software
company. In other words, on April 4, 1975, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is the
hometown of MITS, Microsoft was founded, with Bill Gates as the company's first CEO.

On July 29, 1975, Gates referred to the cooperation as "Micro-Soft," an idea

proposed by Allen. The term "trinote" was registered as a portmanteau of
"microcomputer" and "software" in New Mexico on November 26, 1976.

In August 1977, little than a year after this initial international office opened, the
corporation launched its first foreign branch. ASCII Microsoft, a Japan-based branch,
was named like way. Microsoft Inc. was incorporated in the US state of Washington in
the year 1979, and two years later it was relocated to Bellevue, where it had remained
until 1988. Bill Gates was both the firm president and the board chairman, while Steve
Allen was the executive vice president.

An operating system is a critical software component that enables a computer to

perform its daily tasks. The company's first operating system product to be given to the
public was a version of Unix called Xenix, which was published in 1980 while the
company was still in its infancy. Xenix, Microsoft's initial word processor, formed the
basis for Microsoft Word, Microsoft's first multi-tool word processor.

MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System), created in 1981 and designed by

computer programmer Tim Paterson, was the company's first massively successful
operating system, which was created for IBM and based on QDOS (Quick and Dirty
Operating System). MS-DOS was licensed to IBM in the deal of the century, but Gates
kept the rights to the program. Because of this, Bill Gates gained a fortune for Microsoft,
which had transformed into a significant software supplier.

Microsoft released the first mouse, called the Microsoft Mouse, on May 2, 1983.
Microsoft's greatest accomplishment in 1983 was the publication of their crowning effort.
The graphical user interface and multitasking environment of the Microsoft Windows
operating system for IBM machines was groundbreaking at the time. The company went
public in 1986. As a result, Gates was now a billionaire at the age of 31.

Microsoft Office was first released in 1989, and it offers a variety of products for
use in an office. There are still people using Microsoft Word today; that software
includes a word processor, spreadsheet, email, and more. Microsoft released Windows 95
in August of 1995. This bundle contained features such as built-in dial-up networking
compatibility, TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), and Internet
Explorer 1.0.

Microsoft has also entered the gaming and mobile phone markets, gaining a major
proportion of both. Many vendors, including HTC, LG, Samsung, and LG, employ
Windows Mobile OS. Microsoft debuted Xbox in 2001 and Xbox Live in 2002. The
success of these products put Microsoft second in the video game market. The Xbox 360,
debuted in 2005, was a formidable game platform. Due to competition, Microsoft had to
lower the pricing of their game systems. The Xbox 360 was the most popular gaming
system in American homes.

Microsoft's SQL Server 2012 had several improvements over prior versions. This
incorporated Always On, which improved database availability and ease of cloud setup
and compatibility. Performance and programmability were also improved. DSP-Explorer
supports all Microsoft SQL Server versions and features on all Windows platforms.

When Bill Gates and Paul Allen launched Microsoft in 1975, they had no clue it
would become the world's largest provider of computer software. Microsoft is a
technology powerhouse with about $77 billion in annual revenue. Operating systems,
gaming devices, productivity applications, and Internet software and services are among
its products. It also focuses on information technology and underserved populations
globally. Microsoft has encountered legal and ethical challenges that have harmed its
reputation, but it has also weathered threats of bankruptcy, leadership changes, and
several court battles, including antitrust allegations in the US and the EU. Microsoft is
still the world's largest distributor of software and a pioneer in CSR and philanthropy.
B. MAIN PROBLEM OF THE CASE
A highly competitive and continually shifting industry is where Microsoft is
positioned. Companies in the software industry strive to maintain a competitive
advantage through ongoing innovation, and disagreements have arisen between Microsoft
and its competitors over anticompetitive practices and intellectual property disputes,
among other things.
Microsoft faced antitrust investigations in the year 1990 by the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) related to possible violations of the Sherman and Clayton Acts,
which ban monopolies and anticompetitive behavior. In August of 1993, the FTC
deadlocked and passed the case to the DOJ, which then discovered possible violations. In
the end, Microsoft agreed to settle the claims, even though they did not admit any
wrongdoing. In addition to this, part of the settlement provision gave the DOJ access to
all of Microsoft's documents, enabling it to perform further investigations in the future.
A key aspect of that deal was a condition which prevented Microsoft from
offering PCs to OEMs at a 60% discount. Only if the OEMs agreed to pay Microsoft for
every machine they sold did they obtain the discount (a “per processor” deal). For some
of its machines, an OEM would be paying for two operating systems instead of just one,
which means that the OEM is effectively paying “double royalties.” Some felt that this
method was unjust to both users, who were charged when they bought a different
operating system, and manufacturers, who couldn't recoup the 60% price cut for doing so.
Based on available market share, it appears that Microsoft was utilizing its significant
stake in the market to exercise market dominance and eliminate smaller competitors.
Following its defeat in the Macintosh-compatibility dispute, Microsoft went on to
battle Apple for the next lawsuit, and this time, the charges against Bill Gates centered on
allegations that he had threatened to cease the production of Macintosh-compatible
products unless Apple ceased development of its competing software. Microsoft
produced most of the Macintosh-compatible apps, and because of that, Apple said that it
was being put in a no-win situation, forced to accept a lousy deal or die. In a separate
lawsuit, Apple claimed that Microsoft had not sent copies of Windows 95 until the
company had removed all references to Microsoft from the litigation. In the end, the two
firms got past their issues, and in 1998, Microsoft paid $150 million for $100 million
worth of non-voting shares in Apple and obtained an irrevocable, royalty-free license to
all of Apple's patents. A second time, it appears that Microsoft has used its market
dominance to force a competitor to play by our rules.
The Department of Justice requested a federal court to hold Microsoft in civil
contempt and to levy a $1 million-per-day fine beginning in October 1997. Microsoft was
recently criticized for including Internet Explorer into the Windows 95 operating system.
Microsoft used this argument to claim that IE was an essential and inseparable feature of
Windows 95, which the company did not package in order to put competitors such as
Netscape at a disadvantage. A U.S. District Court judge found the firm was infringing
and ordered an injunction barring it from requiring that all customers receiving Windows
95 licenses also receive a copy of Internet Explorer. In order to prevent legal action
against Microsoft, the company provided PC manufacturers with a version of Windows
95 that did not include Internet Explorer files. Despite this, the product was unable to
boot, as Microsoft eventually confessed. As a result, the Department of Justice (DOJ)
requested that the district court order Microsoft to pay a fine. Microsoft's stock price
started to decline. Most likely, as a result of the market selling down in anticipation of a
significant depreciation, Microsoft decided to supply manufacturers with the most current
version of Windows 95 without the Internet Explorer icon.
Despite numerous previous plans to merge Internet Explorer into the Windows
operating system, Microsoft disputed the facts, asserting that it had planned to do so
before competing browser company, Netscape, even existed. Microsoft made the case
that because Internet Explorer had better technology, it was doing well with consumers.
To that end, Microsoft maintained that it had not illegally restrained computer makers
from making alterations to the Windows desktop interface.
Microsoft must stay on the cutting edge by devising innovative ways to remain
competitive with competitors such as Apple and Google. Despite sluggish sales of the
Windows operating system and Office suite, the company must also contend with new
PC sales declines. Microsoft has improved the capacity of its own search engine, Bing, as
well as offered a free online version of Microsoft Office to help growth elsewhere. It is
also trying to provide the younger generation of consumers with new technology. A
Microsoft product line that's newer includes its mobile operating system, Windows
 Mobile; an improved Kinect, which is a motion-based gaming device for Xbox One;
Windows Phone 8; and Windows 8. Microsoft bought Skype in 2011 for $8.5 billion,
making it the largest single acquisition in the company's history. As Microsoft paid 32
times the adjusted profitability of Skype, it had a significant level of confidence in the
purchase.

C. SWOT ANALYSIS
a. STRENGTHS
 DOMINANT BRAND IMAGE. One of the most recognizable brands in
both the computer hardware and software industries is Microsoft. Having
this strength contributes to the company’s potential to attract customers,
particularly those who associate brand strength with dependability.
 PRODUCT ALIGNMENT WITH POSITIVE EXTERNALITIES.
Microsoft reaps the benefits of positive externalities associated with the
use of existing items on the market. If, for example, more third-party
software developers write products for IBM PC-compatible operating
systems, the popularity of the company’s Windows operating system will
increase.
 STRONG ALLIANCES WITH OTHER FIRMS. The strength of
Microsoft’s affiliations with other companies helps to the company’s
ability to exert influence over the market in its favor.

b. WEAKNESSES
 VULNERABLITY TO CYBERCRIME. Microsoft’s products are at risk
of being compromised by cybercrime. This is a good illustration of the
many cybercrimes that continue to target Windows as an operating
system. Because of this flaw, Microsoft products aren’t as desirable as
they may be. With reference to this, cyber security is an issue faced by the
computer hardware and software firms competing in the market.
 IMITABILITY OF SOME PRODUCTS. Product imitability can
weaken Microsoft in the long term.
  LACK OF DOMINANT COMPUTER HARDWARE PRODUCTS.
The business is further weakened by its product range, which indicates
dependence on software items; hardware and software products are in
equal supply in the market.

c. OPPORTUNITIES
 BUSINESS DIVERSIFICATION. The company’s primary business is to
serve the needs of the consumers by producing high-quality software that
emphasizes the strength of the Windows operating system. As a result, the
corporation has the potential to expand because of the several divisions it
possesses.
 INNOVATION FOR COMPUTER HARDWARE PRODUCTS.
Microsoft can grow new markets or industries, as well as by mergers and
acquisitions. By doing this, the corporation can access a wider variety of
business growth.
 STRONGER SECURITY AGAINST CYBERCRIME. Continuous
enhancement of Microsoft’s security features could make its products
more attractive.

d. THREATS
 CYBERCRIME. Cybercrime is a huge danger to firms involved in
computer technology. A cyber attack on Microsoft’s operations can
damage organizational processes and perhaps endanger customers.
 PIRACY. Piracy, especially in areas where the use of technology is
relatively limited, is another serious danger to the corporation.
 STRONG COMPETITIVE RIVALRY. Fierce competitive rivalry also
puts strong market dynamics in place that pose a significant danger to
Microsoft’s expansion as one of the largest companies in the market. Also,
due to competition in the industry and the increasing popularity of
freeware, it’s possible that the company’s business may be limited and
perhaps reduced.
D. ALTERNATIVE COURSES OF ACTION
a. Develop and Innovate Microsoft’s Hardware Projects
ADVANTAGES
1. Succeed in tomorrow’s technologically-driven economy.
Microsoft must implement drastic measures to embrace the future
of innovation.
2. Hugely popular software. In addition to making computer
hardware, Microsoft may use the immense wealth generated by its
popularity to influence the development of future technology.
DISADVANTAGES
1. Increased expenditure on research and development. There is a
lot of discussion about whether research and development raise the
price of a good for consumers without increasing the selling price.
2. Other competitors of Microsoft are already innovating
something more, and trying to keep up with Microsoft.

b. Create New Environmental Policies.

ADVANTAGES

1. Reduce c
2. Gather more data that can be used to create new software, services
and know more about customer needs.

DISADVANTAGES

1. It is costly.
2. It might lose on efficiency, flexibility and easiness.
c. Partnering with main competitors.
 ADVANTAGES
1. Pooling of resources.
2. Ease transition to platform by joining forces.
DISADVANTAGES
1. It might lose its competitive advantage.
2. It is costly.

E. RECOMMENDATION
In my view, I think the last one is the safest recommendation. By
collaborating with its major rivals in the SMB market, and given the popularity of
Xero, the shared collaboration with Intuit makes QuickBooks the site, helping the
suppliers, their interests balanced in the partnership with Intuit and its full product
offering to the SMBs. This will lock Intuit as the industry leader, ad open the
company to fresh large volume of data and prospects for the large number of
consumers it work with.
It fits well for software goods and services as you they can offer and sell
add-ons from others to boost money. This will extend the product range – which
help consumers – and the rivalry to benefit from incremental sales development.
While Intuit’s core competencies operates on its own, there are still certain
rewards where all of the core competencies will win. The aim is to incorporate the
talents of each individuals to be able to create a different form of service,
something that neither might create on their own nor together under the same
timeframe or at the same expense.
The easiest way to achieve this is by the establishment of realistic
performance goals and incentive-based rewards for achieving and reaching certain
targets. After the reputation have been built and become a valued member of the
company, the strategic relationship can expand to a financial one.
F. CONCLUSION
Intuit, Inc. has continued to achieve a strategic edge in the market with the
introduction of newer innovations, leading to heavy use and dependence on
modern technology in the industry. Because of the large percentage of consumers
whom the company is targeting such features also enabled the company to
achieve a competitive edge; rarity makes the competitive advantage non-suitable,
but the company’s customer-oriented key strengths and the management expertise
that help them to gain value, and they seek new opportunities that make the
competitive advantage sustainable over the long term.
An additional Intuit key skill is its capacity to establish successful links
and relations within the organization and between the various resources and
divisions. The company is at the center of an environment in a specific and
particular market: this allowed it to become a sort of intermediary between the
different organizations it has access to. For example, the data collected directly by
the clients is used to help identify their needs and then the customer will then be
given new programs, software products and will be able to market the products.
Besides being an essential commodity or something that is very important to the
purpose along, a need of means is uncommon since it can only be accomplished
by one’s use of network, and the sustainability is vulnerable since it can only be
obtained by means of acquisitions.
Each part of Intuit resembles to its individual part that come together to
form one bigger, single entity. In reality, during its lifetime, the firm has helped
businesses create such tech products for particular targets while it has also helped
its clients by making great software and servers to operate them. Then it managed
to buy a wide group of smaller companies in an attempt to grow from networks to
B2B systems and becoming a more expandable organization. During its
commitment to research and consumers, Intuit website built a capability to fill
holes in the industry by organizing its tools and exploiting them to its advantage.
An excellent example would be QuickBooks, which generated out of the Intuit
finding that a significant portion of its clientele lacked the requisite credit
eligibility attribute and eventually used its data for the application process.
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International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 33. St. James Press, 2000. Retrieved from
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/intuit-inc-history/

Intuit QuickBooks Harvard Case Solution and Analysis. Retrieved from

https://www.thecasesolutions.com/intuit-quickbooks-2-25333

Jidifusor (2020). Intuit Case Study Marketing Management Process. Retrieved from
https://jidifusor.wordpress.com/2020/04/01/intuit-case-study-marketing-management-process/

Williamson, David (2018). Intuit SWOT Analysis/Matrix. Retrieved from

https://www.essay48.com/term-paper/13159-Intuit-Swot-Analysis

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www.intuit.com
1. Elaborate on Intuit’s use of customer research. Why did it work so well for the
company?
In hopes to keep up with the day in modern consumer testing, Intuit uses
methods such as site tours, laboratory studies and remote studies to collect their
customers’ wishes and preferences. The organization spends a considerable
amount of time and resources on market analysis each year due to the fact that it
includes how precisely the consumers use their goods and feel about it. The
evolution and speed of technology have evolved exponentially, forcing customers
and buyers to adapt to accommodate the transition, and this generated a shift in
the quality of the goods. Therefore, without wasting time resource on testing, this
piece of software would not have adapted to the changes over time and resources
on testing, this software would not have adapted to changes over time.
Furthermore, in the case of Intuit’s use of customer testing, I think that Intuit’s
solutions are very good because they focus heavily on direct contact between the
user and the product. It is a company that provides goods designed specifically to
work with users and their knowledge. One of the many reasons this organization
conducts research is that they can figure out the unique challenges an accountant
encounters, enabling them to design a more reliable and successful product that
can make their life simpler.

2. Could anything go wrong for Intuit now that it has beaten out Microsoft? Why or
why not?

Even if Microsoft had prevailed this time, Microsoft could still improve or
later on release product. Even now, those that may have made use of the
discontinued product still have money that has not been invested yet. Other
companies can try to create new products that are similar to Quicken Since
Quicken has become a major star and many customers have it, if there is anything
else that is doing better or even has a better result in programs it could encourage
the consumers to see what their current software is doing if it is really not doing
well. Intuit needs to try to develop Quicken app in order to prevent the software
slipping by the wayside like many other related software out there.
3. How should Intuit gauge the result of its research among young consumers with
mobile devices?

Intuit can monitor the results of their younger consumers by tracking the
amount of time each consumer spends using the software. The longer a customer
uses their application, the more probable it is that the customer will enjoy it and
continue to use it.