Frank Shaw on competitive landscape
From Marketing Excellence - Resetting the Microsoft Image Agenda - Frank Shaw - 2010/04 · · WalkingCat
“We have never had better competitors than we have now. I actually think Apple is the toughest competitor we face currently. I think we have more to worry about from Apple from a competitive standpoint because they've got some big ambitions and fewer warts to some extent. Google is a formidable company with a broad ambition and their Achilles heel is their arrogance. Does that sound familiar to anybody? And we have to exploit that. They are they are heading for a fall.”
On , Frank Shaw, Chief Communications Officer at Microsoft, spoke about competitive landscape during Marketing Excellence - Resetting the Microsoft Image Agenda - Frank Shaw - 2010/04 on WalkingCat.
About Frank Shaw
In a 2010 internal talk, Shaw discussed Microsoft's brand image, describing Windows 7 as having "saved the company" by demonstrating its ability to deliver a quality operating system on time. He characterized Google as having an "Achilles heel" of "arrogance" and accused the company of lying about its user numbers. Shaw stated that Microsoft was "making a bet on citizenship" as a long-term branding strategy, even though it did not "dramatically move the brand" in the short term. He identified the U.S. Marine Corps as a brand he admired for its authenticity and the Dallas Cowboys as one he disliked for representing "arrogance." In a 2026 podcast, Shaw discussed the role of AI in public relations, arguing that the profession "really hasn't changed" but now has "better tools." He said he does not view AI as a cost-cutting measure but as a way to address work that currently cannot be done due to resource constraints. Shaw stated that communications professionals must become accustomed to working with "agents" that have "unique talents," managing them similarly to human team members. He noted that AI allows practitioners to "get information more rapidly" and "process information more rapidly," but emphasized that they must still make time to "sit and think about it."