Will Microsoft score with Wilson?

Wilson, endorsement deal and Microsoft Surface tablet in hand, was convinced.

Microsoft in 2013 inked a five-year deal to persuade the rest of the National Football League, at a reported cost of $400 million, to integrate some Microsoft brands and eventually get Surfaces in the hands of Wilson and his counterparts on the sidelines, among coaches and in broadcast booths. Microsoft is hoping that, with the aid of Wilson, a $2 billion-plus advertising budget and investments in everything from smartphones to retail stores and snazzy Web-based versions of its software, it can make fans out of the generation more familiar with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg than Bill Gates.

“It’s all part of a very focused marketing campaign to change the perception of Microsoft,” Daniel Ives, a financial analyst with FBR Capital Markets, said of the NFL deal. “Microsoft is kind of viewed as that legacy technology vendor. You don’t need to have a Microsoft product as a consumer. That’s the uphill battle they have.”

Microsoft, at 39 years old, is firmly in middle age by the standards of technology companies. It makes the majority of its money selling its trio of cash cows — Windows operating system, Office productivity suite, and server tools — to businesses. The company also has long run a profitable business selling Windows and Office to individuals.

But the consumer-technology battlefield of the 2000s was brutal to Microsoft. The company had a hit with its Xbox gaming consoles, but was an also-ran in the Web search, music player, smartphone and tablet trends that followed.

Microsoft has a two-pronged strategy.

First: Chase potential customers, wherever they are.

Microsoft in 2014 waived the licensing fee that manufacturers of phones and small tablets must pay for Windows, hoping that offering the operating system free will broaden its reach. The company is also shedding its reputation for pushing people to Windows at any cost, offering free versions of its Office software for devices powered by Google and Apple.

Second: Sell products that plug people into Microsoft’s ecosystem.

The company opened its 111th retail store in November. The outlets boast a broader range of Microsoft-built hardware than the company has ever offered, including the line of phones bought from Nokia in 2014, the Xbox and a new health band. On the software front, the company is hoping the Windows 10 operating system, set for release this year, will draw people to the Microsoft suite.

And there’s the Surface tablet, which viewers of America’s most popular sport see every Sunday.

Key test case

The strategy has a test case in the latest Surface, a tablet with a ton of horsepower and relatively hefty price tag. Its natural fans? Think graduate students, creative types, people with an hour to get a pile of work done, Microsoft says. And people like Wilson, the budding Seattle icon.

In a recent interview at the Seahawks’ practice facility, the third-year quarterback rattled off the ways he uses the Surface, from jotting notes to send to his offensive line and receivers after practice to listening to music and chatting with friends.

“I’m a pen-and-paper type guy,” Wilson said. “But the fact that this new generation is taking over in terms of technology (in the NFL), it’s going to be (there) for a long time.”

Any thoughts about the fact that the Seahawks’ chief rival, the San Francisco 49ers, play a few miles away from Microsoft rival Apple’s Cupertino headquarters? It was Apple, of course, that helped stamp the public image of Microsoft as a stodgy office worker with its “I’m a Mac” commercials.

“That’s kind of funny,” Wilson said. “Hopefully, Microsoft keeps winning. Seahawks, too.”