microsoft

Why is Steve Ballmer excited about Skype?

May 10, 2011
Thumbnail image for Why is Steve Ballmer excited about Skype?

Microsoft and Skype just wrapped up the official press conference announcing the merger.  Steve Ballmer led the discussion, followed by Tony Bates from Skype, and then Microsoft CFO Peter Klein talking about the deal. Microsoft is understandably enthusiastic about this deal. They’re getting a great company, and a great brand with 170 million users, all [...]

Read the full article →

Does Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype change anything?

May 10, 2011
Thumbnail image for Does Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype change anything?

So Microsoft has acquired Skype for $8.5 billion.  Whew!  It’s a breathtaking sum, especially for a company who’s bread and butter is the prepaid telecom business. Of all those rumoured to have been in the hunt for Skype, however, Microsoft was the suitor most able to take advantage of Skype’s network, ecosystem, and technology.  Their [...]

Read the full article →

Playbook: Maybe just right on target.

April 15, 2011
Thumbnail image for Playbook: Maybe just right on target.

There have been a rush of negative reviews for RIM’s Playbook over the last few days.  It’s been called half-baked, rushed to market, unfinished, and worse.  I haven’t seen it yet, but in my opinion, Playbook might be just right. What? Yup.  You heard me. No product team has ever produced a fully realized product [...]

Read the full article →

Deathmatch: Ostrich versus Troll

March 22, 2011
Thumbnail image for Deathmatch: Ostrich versus Troll

We shouldn’t feel a lot of sympathy for Barnes & Noble, Foxconn and Inventec.  These are the creators of the Barnes and Noble Nook e-book reader, and they’re also the folks that Microsoft sued yesterday, alleging infringement of a series of Microsoft patents in that same device. The patents are listed below. 5,889,522: System provided [...]

Read the full article →

UniBrows solves the IE 6 upgrade problem for IT

March 14, 2011

Later this week, Browsium Inc will officially launch UniBrows.  I feel tempted to make a joke about cosmetic eyebrow products, but I’ll refrain.  In fact, UniBrows is the IT department’s answer to Microsoft’s refusal to support the millions of enterprise line of business applications that were built for IE6, and won’t run on IE8.  This [...]

Read the full article →

Apple revives long dead marketing practice

February 10, 2011

When I first started in the technology business, the practice of marketing differently in various geographies was common.  The same product might be sold in Canada for 10% more than it cost in the United States.  And watch out if you were European – 100% mark-ups were common.  Ostensibly companies localized products for various markets, [...]

Read the full article →

Which phone manufacturer will team up with Sony or Nintendo?

August 17, 2010

Image via Wikipedia Microsoft has finally announced the Xbox Live titles that will be available on Windows Phone 7, and according long time Microsoft watcher Mary-Jo Foley, the company has said that games will be front and center for the Windows 7 platform.  Marrying the successful XBOX franchise to Windows Phone is clearly an attempt [...]

Read the full article →

Zuckerberg vs Ballmer: approaches to the media

June 4, 2010

The last couple of days have seen a wonderful contrast in approaches to the media. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer have both appeared at the D8 conference and been interviewed by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. By all accounts, Mark Zuckerberg botched his interview by being evasive on answering key questions [...]

Read the full article →

Hiring top candidates the Google way

June 2, 2010

In Google VP: ‘It’s all about having the best people’, The Ottawa Business Journal reports on a speech given by Google SVP (and Carleton University graduate) Shona Brown at Carleton’s Spring Leadership Luncheon last Monday.  Her theme was recruiting the best people. Most often, the recruitment process is managed by a team of people – [...]

Read the full article →

Apple’s naked self interest

April 12, 2010

Any vendor in the platform business knows that their primary product is programming interfaces – the so-called APIs that developers depend upon in order to deliver applications.  The API exposes features of the platform, and differentiate applications running on that platform from all others.  Lose control of the API, and you will lose control of [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →

Alec on LinkedIn Alec on Twitter Alec on Facebook Calliflower on Youtube RSS Feed Contact me