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Game on!

09.16.2009

There’s a palpable change in the air this month. A year after Lehman’s collapse, it feels like the market forces have finally pushed Play, taking us out of our prolonged Pause. The steady stream of acquisitions (Disney/Marvel, Adobe/Omniture) as companies seek to broaden their businesses, the Dow and NASDAQ at highs not seen since last October, [...]

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The iLike sale

08.19.2009

iLike’s sale to MySpace, announced earlier this week merits comments on a couple of points.
First, it’s fire sale time. At roughly $20 million, this represents a new low for music-based valuations. In halcyon days, we had seen the prices climb. From Real’s $36 million acquisition of Listen.com in 2003, to Yahoo’s 2004 $160 million acquisition [...]

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The Shack vs. The Hut

08.19.2009

Two long-established brands recently took the tack of dropping the nouns from their names: Pizza Hut and RadioShack – which are now known as The Hut and The Shack. Here’s why one find success through the name change and derivative market opportunities, and one won’t.
By morphing from Pizza Hut to The Hut, the new brand [...]

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40 Years ago today

08.09.2009

Seems like it’s a summer of recollections of 1969. The Apollo 11 moon landing, Woodstock’s 40th Anniversary next week, and today, in between the two, Londoners celebrated the 40th anniversary of the iconic Abbey Road album cover shot. A moment in time, contemplated by so many music fans, recalled countless times during repeated listenings. While [...]

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MSFT/YHOO Search deal done… what’s next?

07.29.2009

From leaks last evening, it is sounding like the Microsoft/Yahoo search deal is done, as I’d suggested in an earlier post. Combined, the Yahoo and Microsoft search business will command 30% market share of search – a credible number 2. There is still, what I would term, a lack of clarity around core product focus [...]

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Tour de Lance

07.24.2009

If, like me, you’ve been following the Tour de France closely this July, you can’t help but agree that it’s been an exceptional race. While the 2006 – 2008 Tours had their great moments, Lance Armstrong’s return has made it a compelling global event, recalling his great rides in his 7 Tour victories. 2009 has [...]

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625.4%

07.22.2009

Apple’s Q3 results were announced after the market close yesterday.
For a company that traditionally softpedals its projections, this was a blowout quarter for 3 reasons. 1. We were in a recession at the start of the quarter and 2. We were in a recession at the end of the quarter and 3. The days in [...]

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bing’s Kitchen Sink Strategy

07.20.2009

Was this Microsoft’s bing strategy  all along:

Hire Yahoo Search braintrust
Rebrand Live Search
Focus on algorithms, presentation tweaks and tools.
Throw the Kitchen Sink at it. Somewhere between 50 and 100 million into a scorched earth launch and marketing strategy to see if it moves the market share the needle. Try and buy users through cashback incentives.
If yes – [...]

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Sprint/Ericsson

07.16.2009

Last week, Sprint announced a landmark outsourcing deal for mobile carriers, turning over its network operations to Ericsson. The headline number is $5 billion value to the deal and 6,000 Sprint employees wlll become Ericsson employees. Clearly this is a major win for Sprint, which can now focus its resources on customer acquisition, service enhancements, [...]

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Moonshot – 40 years ago today

07.16.2009

The anniversary of this date has nothing to do with my company – but the date, and the event recalled by this date has resonated throughout my life and I think about this endeavor in my work and training as a triathlete.
July 16, 2009. Forty years ago this morning, Apollo 11 launched from Cape [...]

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