CFed

Blodget Blasts Ballmer: 'Face Reality'

While the criticism is justified due to poor execution, the issue MSFT faces is where to find growth, so their intent to enter these markets is really justified. Doubling down in the enterprise business, where the growth is in areas where MSFT is absent, or severely lagging just won't do it. They have an imperative to enter, and succeed, in meaningful growth markets. Unlike Sony, which finds itself in the right markets, but with poorly performing products, MSFT's key growth options involve 'eating their own babies' in huge markets that are showing themselves to be incredibly vulnerable arenas as technology is moving away from the desktop. In their core business, the choice is to embrace open source, commoditize the pricing of their apps, or (heaven forbid) liberating the OS to do well in a cloud world (see Tim O'Reilly's great piece on Google Wave bit.ly/16vpHM).

Three Israeli Baby Googles

Nice spotlight on a few interesting Israeli based companies.


Michael, don't you think a bit of a 'discount' is appropriate for equities that are so thinly traded that volatility around any particular day's posted price can be neck breaking?

Yahoo Reloaded: New CEO, New Strategy?

Looking back at Brad Garlinghouse's memo of 2+ years ago (online.wsj.com/public/...), I don't think Yahoo's problems are with internet experience, or with the deal making you cite as key negatives to Carol Bartz's election as Yahoo CEO.

She was successful in navigating a chaotic situation at Autodesk by installing accountability and aligning it with authority. Just what the Dr. should order for Yahoo.

The Fundamental Problem of Newspapers on the Internet

These great points on newspapers can really be expanded to all print, and for that matter, online content. Effectively, the power of brand is minimized online where exit is a mere click away and measurement is instantaneous.

A beauty of online is that investment to subsidize non-performing assets (pages) can rapidly be measured and adjusted to fit corporate objectives. Perhaps, the NYT's moniker of 'all the news that's fit to print' no longer fits an era where micro branding, facilitated by readers/RSS seems to be of greater interest.