Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

wreck — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 20:11:50 -0000

@44,

It was a knee-jerk reaction IMO, but Google is far less evil than MS. MS loves to embrace and extend its technologies for lock-in. Since they have 95% of the desktops already, they've achived it, but they've started to bleed loyalty with customers. Vista sucks. Full stop.

Google is beatable. I just don't have to use them or their services. I block ads anyway, so I don't have to see their tripe or anyone elses while online. Personal battle won.

Very few players really innovate anymore. Opera ASA is an innovater. Apple is an innovator. BSD innovates with networking, the open source crowd innovates quite a bit with kernelspace coding.

Most stuff is just a rehash of something else with a few twists and new gizmos.

I'm patiently waiting for the new players in the search arena; someone who's search stuff is better than Google's. It's only a matter of time.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Mr. Robinson — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 18:03:44 -0000

I thought it was pathetic when Microsoft goes into reactive mode wrt Google (spending 2 billion to try to compete in ad/search/etc). I still do.

But lately, it seems that Google is constantly in reactive mode wrt Microsoft. Microsoft floats the idea that they're interested in DoubleClick, and Google panics, and breaks the bank, not because they give a damn about DoubltClick, but just to keep it out of Microsoft's hands. Same thing happened regarding other Google acquistions. Pretty pathetic.

Google doesn't innovate much "in house" either. Seems all they do is buy, buy, buy.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Brian — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 12:59:20 -0000

The fact that Robert's question about *business strategy* in the online space devolves into a hoary OS war is more than a little indicative of the main challenge Google faces: they are a tech company still run for the most part by propeller heads with grand ambitions trying to evolve into a diversified business with more than a single revenue stream. Can the suits win the internal war?

Their business strategy has been scattershot to this point (YouTube being the most expensive example). DoubleClick makes much more sense, though the pricetag suggests panic to me -- keep out of MS hands at all costs and make a deal now because once the Dems take over in 2008 the regulatory environment might not be as friendly to such consolidation in the ad business.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Robert Scoble — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 10:33:47 -0000

Ken: I agree with you but so far Web offerings are pretty meek when compared with Office 2007. Also getting people to switch to a new brand and a new approach is going to be more difficult than expected. I still see a lot of people using Windows 2000 and Office 2000.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Ken Gardner — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 10:11:36 -0000

Robert,

I want to question the "moat" around Microsoft Office. MSFT should be very worried about the web based office products. Products like Jotspot (now Google), editgrid and Zoho have some work left to catch up on features but they are getting close.

It may seem funny but information woker products (spreadsheets, documents, presentations should be "web native". Products like RSSbus, Yahoo Pipes and Plagger make sharing and collaborating very easy. It is easier and far cheaper to use an online spreadsheet for reporting on the web than it is to use Excel.

This is the Office of the future and MSFT isn't playing. They should be very worried but I don't think they are. BIG companies never worry.

-Ken Gardner

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Robert Finlayson — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 06:30:05 -0000

wreck: "MS doesn’t really innovate"

Did you watch this previous video?
http://www.podtech.net/home...

Where do people come up with such statements from?

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Edwin Khodabakchian — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 03:20:16 -0000

The problem is that most execs in larger software companies are under tremendous pressure to continuously grow their business buy 20-50%, quarter over quarter. When you reach 500M-1B revenue, the new incremental business you need to generate gets very significant, significant enough that buying and growing small companies does not make "business sense".

Specially given that there are important integration costs (both technical and sales related costs).

This is probably why YouTube and DoubleClick are easier deals for Google than Microsoft and one can only hope that Ray Ozzie is working on a miracle plan because by not trying anything, Microsoft seems paralyzed.

-Edwin

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 02:08:17 -0000

Doesn't sound like it: http://www.nytimes.com/2007...

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Robert Scoble — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 01:44:14 -0000

Carter: that's a really tough question. I'd meet with both. Then if you get offers from both (very rare) you'll have to decide what's more important? People you like working with, technology you want to play with, or just the dollar amount? I've heard, for instance, that Flickr turned down a larger offer from AOL because they preferred the team at Yahoo.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Robert Scoble — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 01:42:09 -0000

James: you might have a point there. But any of Microsoft's executives' email is pretty much an open book anyway due to various lawsuits and I didn't reprint the email or give any details that would harm Microsoft's position. But, gotta read over my NDAs some more.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Carter Harkins — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 01:41:43 -0000

So my question (somewhat tongue-in-cheek, perhaps) is which company should I approach about buying out my company, Google or Microsoft? We're in the audio/video arena, at the very unique place where content and community intersect. Our technology makes perfect sense for socializing Windows Media Player, but it has amazing search implications as well.

Would someone take a look at one of our current implementations, and please tell me who should buy us? It's keeping me up at night!

Carter Harkins
http://crowdabout.us

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Christopher Coulter — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 01:40:34 -0000

And in other equally important news, Prince William confirms to a stricken Kate Middleton that their romance, is like, totally, like, so, like, over, like, total.

Google and Microsoft comparisons and Mac/Linux/PC wars are so overwrought...pointless geek soap operas.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Patrick — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:39:34 -0000

Ah, the PC wars. So tiresome.

It doesn't matter. An individual should use what they like and that is all that matters.

With that said, my daughters, my wife and I have Mac laptops and no viruses.

My stepson has a PC that gets riddled with Spyware and viruses and he has to wipe his drive every six months. He's switching to a Mac when he enters college.

That's it from the trenches!

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

LayZ — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:23:26 -0000

@22 "No matter what anyone says, MS will be slowly losing marketshare to Linux/Macs."

More likely Linux, but not Macs..at least in the F500 enterprise space. And a fair amount of those companies already have Linux/Unix servers in their environment. Key word in your statement is "slowly". Sort of the same argument as global warming.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

James Hill — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:22:31 -0000

I am surprised that you feel comfortable divulging correspondence between yourself and Steven Sinofsky. It seems strange that you aren't compelled to keep such correspondence private. Have you been released from any and all confidentiality agreements? Did you sign any such agreements?

Curious ...

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Marc Beharry — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 23:59:00 -0000

I definitely think MS is sneaky enough to bid up doubleclick and others, but they also are scrambling to get a decent acquisition.

They are the "george bush" of software companies: if the flaws with their software are not enough, then you can tell they are stupid by their acquisition strategy so far.

go linux, beat windows

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

John C. Welch — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 23:50:34 -0000

.If the Xbox Marketplace and Zune Marketplace can gain some marketshare - it would be a blow for Google as they do not have access to those zones.
Wouldn’t it be prudent to invest those billions there?

Same goes for the iPhone, etc.

Um, Google has *plenty* of access to the iPhone.

It’s a proven fact that a Mac or Linux network takes far less trained sysadmins/network people to run them. Times those people by possibly thousands and you save even more by no needing them.

Nonsense. It takes a lot more WORK to get a Windows network down to a small number of administrators, but the idea that you can't do it is silly. YOu can indeed do it.

Hint: it doesn’t matter if Macs were actually cheaper than many PCs. Most PC marketshare comes because of businesses who want the advantages of sticking with a single ecosystem brings them

Robert, your ignorance of modern IT thinking is showing. That kind of thinking is dying, and about time. Businesses are realizing there is real value to heterogeneous networks above what *any* homogeneous network can provide. There is also a level of safety from platform-specific malware you get for free in a heterogeneous network that you cannot replicate in a single-strain network.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

wreck — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 22:29:22 -0000

@22,

Then I guess people enjoy dealing with the virii/worm outbreaks, the horrible sysadmin requirements, the constant RMAs, etc.

Every big Mac deployment I know of has FAR fewer problems than similar-sized PC ones.

Mac may be more proprietary because of the hardware lock-in, but I'd rather take my chances with that problem.

No matter what anyone says, MS will be slowly losing marketshare to Linux/Macs.

T'Pol will be my personal assistant long before MS can turn the tide of losing customers.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Mike Abundo — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 22:29:19 -0000

Google AdSense is ready to to globally leverage and improve DoubleClick. Microsoft AdCentral is not. You don't spend billions to buy something you don't really know how to use.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

LayZ — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 22:14:07 -0000

@18 "MS is currently king of the desktop, but you will start to see that change in a few years. I’m seeing it already in certain circles. I won’t say who out of privacy concerns, but a certain very large company is about to drop its almost huge MS installed user base and switch to Linux and Macs. You’ll read about it soon enough, I’m sure."

How long have people been saying this? 25 years now at least? Sure there will the odd company that says they are switching. But in the long run Scoble is right in his response to you. The benefits of switching have to FAR outweigh the costs. Until that happens, you won't see the sea change you predict. Call me when even 30% of the F100 have "switched". Then you might be on to something. Until then.....

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

wreck — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 21:56:11 -0000

Mike,

What model did you buy, and if you bought a MacBook, did you get the white one?

Then, tell me, pray, what in the world are scientists in the thousands doing buying them? Research centers are buying into Apple in droves, schools. too.

So 1993? Macs are far more pricier for similar specs than PCs. Been reading Doctorow or Pilgrim anytime in the last year? Mac Mini aside, I recently bought a Toshiba Satellite for just under $800 that a similar MacBook spec would have been at least $1600. MacBook Pros are ridiculously priced, when a Lenovo or Toshiba offers more for almost a thousand less. I'm an Apple fan, but let's face it, they charge more because of the "experience" not because the hardware is any better. It's largely the same stuff, just in a non-elegant commodity PC laptop package.

I can get a complete PC desktop system for less than a Mac Mini. Is it great? Not necessarily, but for the average home user, which you claim Apple should be aiming for, it's great.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

Dirk Gently — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 21:37:39 -0000

I spent a year dead for tax purposes.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

mike — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 21:32:19 -0000

Hint: it doesn’t matter if Macs were actually cheaper than many PCs. Most PC marketshare comes because of businesses who want the advantages of sticking with a single ecosystem brings them

First of all, this Macbook cost me a grand. Macs aren't expensive. Get out of 1993. Next, it's the opposite of what you said, PC marketshare is about having various suppliers, not ONE ecosystem. If anything, what makes OS X great is that Apple can control the whole widget, but that same aspect makes it BAD for businesses, becuase they have no recourse if Apple jacks up the price on hardware.

Since the closed-architecture model works so well, Apple should just focus on the home market and forget about the overall marketshare. Macs are of people. PC's are for...banks.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

John Ebbert — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 21:17:32 -0000

No doubt it's hard to say whether the rock 'n roll approach or conservative approach is the way to go. But, I know that MSFT is sitting there with 3.1 billion dollars more in cash and securities than Google is today. Google has made its gambit. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft responds... if it does.

Re: Is Microsoft bidding up acquisitions on purpose?

wreck — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:19:07 -0000

Scoble,

I'm not as clueless as you would believe.

You're thinking like MS now, and that's the reason why the computer industry is somewhat stagnant in terms of OSes, for example.

Yes, MS brought the cost down and enabled people to get into computing reasonably cheap in the early years.

Macs are starting to come back more than you would believe. For example, in areas that matter, such as real scientific research, Macs are really starting to come into their own. Harvard has switched over to Macs, MIT uses zillions of them, the Palo Alto research facility, more schools are moving back to Macs than ever before (or even Linux).

Macs have the distinction of being able to run Windows apps, Linux apps, etc, and if the programmers wrote standardized code, which they should have, it's trivial to port stuff over. Take your example of $200. Take that $200 and times it by tens of thousands of computers. Remove the need for spyware and antivirus.

It's a proven fact that a Mac or Linux network takes far less trained sysadmins/network people to run them. Times those people by possibly thousands and you save even more by no needing them.

Less crashes in OS X/Linux than in Windows. Far less.

It's sadly true that porn drives a lot of net-based innovation, and I think in time, a lot of people, despite the money, will come to regret that affiliation.

Imagine telling your granddaughter or possibly new wife you made your fortune as a direct result of porn. Not a very moral story there.

MS is slowly becoming less relevant -- and they know it. Linux is gnawing away at the enterprise server space, Apple is king of consumer gadgets as well as school/education deployments, and is taking away from big Unix scientific deployments.

MS is currently king of the desktop, but you will start to see that change in a few years. I'm seeing it already in certain circles. I won't say who out of privacy concerns, but a certain very large company is about to drop its almost huge MS installed user base and switch to Linux and Macs. You'll read about it soon enough, I'm sure.