Microsoft Corp. will put a more human face on its upcoming global multimillion dollar advertising program for its Windows Server System. The company, which is set to announce the new ad campaign at its Silicon Valley campus on Thursday afternoon, will spend tens of millions of dollars on this worldwide campaign, which will feature specific IT staffers from enterprise and mid-level firms that use the Windows Server System solutions. The first ads will start appearing online and in the leading U.S. IT print publications, including eWeek, on February 9, and be rolled out internationally about two weeks later.
Valerie Olague, a Windows Server System director, told eWeek in an interview ahead of Thursday"s formal announcement, that the campaign will be focused on the IT professional and the challenges they face with doing more with less. Microsoft decided to focus on individual customers it had been working with over time, many of whom were joint development partners for Windows Server 2003. Others were customers who were starting new deployments with Microsoft, she said "But these are all customers who do not use one product, but rather see the value of using Windows Server System, starting with the operating system, and doing it in a manageable way. The focus of this ad campaign is management, doing more with less administrative focus, less time and resources," Olague said.