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by Paul E. Burke
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rosoft assigned an almost religious value to the Windows desktop by referring to it as their "sacrosanct intellectual property." Let's take a look at the definition of "sacrosanct" as defined by Websters:
Sacrosanct comes from Latin sacrosanctus, consecrated with religious ceremonies, hence holy, sacred, from sacrum,
religious rite (from sacer, holy) + sanctus consecrated (from sancire, to make sacred by a religious act).
When Microsoft called the Windows desktop their "sacrosanct intellectual property" they assigned a holy or sacred value to it. Again, no "neat gimmick" here.
What makes the Windows desktop so valuable? It is the fact that very few people buy on a first time visit to a site. The key to making sales is *repetition*. It is a basic marketing principle that the overwhelming majority of customers need to be exposed to an offer three or more times before actually making the purchase. And the Windows desktop provides the multiple exposures necessary to make the sale. Here are the facts:
- Capturing the desktop is key to capturing users, eyeballs, and market share.
- The desktop is the first screen the user sees when the computer boots up.
- The desktop is the only persistent screen that the user returns to again and again.
For the believers in desktop marketing the question is *how* to get their company on the desktop. Big companies that have the money are paying OEMs such as Compaq, Dell, and Gateway substantial sums to get their icons shipped on the desktops of new computers. As a matter of fact, it was reported that in certain instances AOL will pay OEMs around $35 per computer to place AOL on the Windows XP desktop. Ouch! $35 per desktop shortcut. That's quite a King's ransom.
Historically, the cost of getting on the deskt |
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