[smacktoward]

"Microsoft is associated with corporation and money and monopoly."

This is a good point, but I think it'd be closer to the mark to say that Microsoft is associated with work.

People are often forced to use Microsoft products when they are at work. They frequently have little say in how these products are selected or configured. They're told that The Company has made those decisions for them, so they should just shut up and learn to love them, all hail The Company.

This is not an association that will make people leap joyfully to buy the same products when they are deciding what to spend their personal money on.

This is part of why I have been baffled at MS's insistence on branding Windows 8 and Windows Phone, both of which they desperately want individual consumers to buy into, as "Windows" products. Windows is work. Products to be sold to individuals need to be positioned more like play to be appealing.

[azakai]

Spot on. For most people, Microsoft products are what your boss tells you to use. Psychologically, there is just no appeal in buying them outside of work.

Microsoft was smart not to call XBOX "Windows Console" or such, but probably silly to call their mobile OS "Windows Phone".

[stock_toaster]

I wonder if they had called it "XPhoneOS" and targeted some type of gaming integration/compatibility with XBOX/XBLA if they would have had better luck.