Microsoft's Alliances And Acquisitions

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Forbes: Nokia’s Smartphone Chief On Microsoft Alliance, Future Windows Devices: the Finnish giant’s transition from its homegrown Symbian platform to Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system ....... The future of Nokia and, to a certain extent, of Microsoft’s mobile ambitions largely hinges on the success of the two companies’ alliance. ..... several Nokia devices were already running Mango, the latest version of Windows Phone software. ...... the first batch of Nokia Windows Phones will be a “small portfolio” of multiple devices. ...... Nokia was an early advocate for NFC, which enables phones to wirelessly exchange data such as payment information, mobile tickets, business card contacts and website links. ...... Early Nokia Windows Phones may also include a China-specific device.

Microsoft allied with Nokia, the number one name in mobile phone hardware. Nokia was struggling under the onslaught of smartphones and it looked like Android was about to take over the world. And Microsoft was largely missing in action. The Windows phone was widely considered a joke.

Bing - But It's Not Google - used to be an industry joke as well. Search was best left to Google.

Windows and Office looked passe. Chrome was coming. Google Apps were all over the place. The smart crowd was into Google Apps.

But Bing plus Facebook is one hell of a ride. And Nokia plus Windows could still deliver on two fronts.

And I still think Steve Ballmer bought Skype for media attention.

But Microsoft does feel like it has some of its mojo back. And add to that its 3D computing moves. This giant will still run a few more laps.

Microsoft's Second Act?
Could Skype Be Microsoft's YouTube?
Microsoft's Gesture
Image via CrunchBase

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• Nokia's Smartphone Chief On Microsoft Alliance, Future Windows Devices (blogs.forbes.com)
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• Nokia: Our first Windows Phone will run Mango (slashgear.com)
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Microsoft's Second Act?

Image via CrunchBase
(Article first published as Microsoft's Second Act? on Technorati.)

Microsoft buying Skype could still fail, and we will know in a year, but something tells me this purchase that was pushed behind the scenes by Bill Gates himself might help Microsoft become a post PC company, a player also in the smartphone and tablet spaces. Skype's deepest possible integration with the Windows phone just might work wonders.

Bigger than that has been Microsoft's teaming up with Google arch rival Facebook on search. Bing now has access to Facebook stuff that Google simply will not have. Stuff that individual users of Facebook might choose to make public to Everyone would still land in Google's lap, but Bing has been given special treatment. This is big. For the first time Google Search has competition.

Before that Steve Ballmer made some moves in 3D computing. That is another space Microsoft might look good in.



The fog on Microsoft has not dissipated yet. But Microsoft was fast becoming the metaphor for big companies where innovation stops. That might start to wind down now. But it is still early to tell. And companies like Google are no sitting ducks. The immense sizzle in the mobile space is bound to throw up new names with exciting products. But I think it is fair to say Microsoft is now back as a player in the game.

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• Video: Microsoft's Ballmer Explains His Purchase Of Skype (paidcontent.org)
• Microsoft Buys Video & Messaging Company, Skype, For $8.5 Billion (reelseo.com)
• Personalised Search Through Bing Can be Beneficial to Brands, Says Punch Communications (prweb.com)
• Microsoft purchased Skype to keep it out of Google's hands (edibleapple.com)
• Ballmer Would Not Let Skype Shop Around For A Better Deal (MSFT) (businessinsider.com)
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• Microsoft's Qi Lu Talks Future of the Web: Look Out, Facebook, Groupon, Apple, and (Oh Yeah) Google (xconomy.com)
• Microsoft said tricked into overbidding for Skype by $4.5b (electronista.com)

Watch Out For Steve Ballmer

Image via WikipediaStepping into Bill Gates' shoes was going to be a tough act to follow for anybody. It just was not possible. Bill Gates ruled the industry for a decade and a half. 1995 was the high point. Windows was the only game in town. And then the guy went into philanthropy where he has been as amazing as he was in software. It has been a second career to him.

Microsoft pretty much missed out the smartphone and tablet trains. But then competing with Steve Jobs is as hard as succeeding Bill Gates. Steve Ballmer has had to do both and I feel for the guy. He was an Economics major at college. And there is a cultural bias against fat, bald people. So people end up thinking he is less smart than he actually is. And he is a non coder in a coding business.

There is this story from the mid 1990s. Ballmer returned back to Redmond from one of his trips visiting with customers. And he got a group of his engineers together and said, "I don't know what TCP/IP is, I don't want to know what TCP/IP is. Just make the pain go away." Everywhere he had gone people had been talking about TCP/IP.

Could Skype Be Microsoft's YouTube?

The Skype purchase might still go down the tube, and we will know in a year or less. On the other hand this might be Ballmer's way to finally "get" smartphones and tablets.

And bringing Facebook integration to Bing is a super smart move. Social is the next frontier of search and Mark Zuckerberg still has memories of Google wanting to buy or bury him early on.

ReadWriteWeb: Bing Debuts Social Search with New Facebook Integration: Microsoft's search engine is about to tie its search results to the Facebook social graph in a move that will come as a blow to Google and its +1 initiative. Where Bing will be able to take existing "likes" from friends and integrate them into search, Google +1 has to be added from within search results before someone even clicks on a page. Google's biggest rivals are teaming up to try and make the Mountain View giant irrelevant in the future of social search...... there will be a new Bing Bar with a "universal like button," the first of its kind. Users will now be able to like any page on the Web from anywhere, regardless if that site has a like button installed or not...... Bing search results will now show "liked results, answers and sites" by showing contents that friends have liked. It will also show personalized results by surfacing content that friends have liked from "deep within" search results to the top page. Around 33% of users click on the top link of search results with click-through results dropping precipitously going down the page and to subsequent pages. So, if your friend liked something that was buried on page 89 of the search results, Bing will in theory bring it to the front page...... Bing also apparently will have the ability to crawl Facebook Pages for what brands and companies are posting online. ..... Bing can crawl profiles too. ..... "Now when people search for a specific person, Bing provides a more in-depth bio snapshot, such as location, education and employment details, to help them find the person they're looking for more quickly." ..... Google cannot do this because Facebook does not allow it. ...... Bing gets to integrate Facebook basically as much as it wants. ...... Other features include "shared shopping lists" and flight planners that help friends share ticketing information to look for the best deal. It will also help you find friends in different cities when you are traveling with a function called "friends who live here."

The Twins Were Rowing Boats
Facebook Could Do Well In Search

For the first time Google has competition in search, and the credit goes to Mark Zuckerberg. Nixon went to China. Roosevelt met Stalin.

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The Enterprise Consumer Great Wall Meltdown

Image via CrunchBaseSteve Jobs, that most iconic of tech CEOs, absolutely has refused to take his eyes off the consumer to offer something also to the enterprise, and that has been his Apple story from the beginning. And he is winning. The iPad has been flooding the workplace. What is good for the consumer is also good for enterprise.

Mark Zuckerberg absolutely refused to let people have more than one identity when all the talk was that you are one person to your boss, another person to your college friend. He argued it should not be that way. You ought be the same person to everyone.

Could Skype Be Microsoft's YouTube?

Gmail is another example. It is good enough for the informal individual, it is good enough for the knowledge worker.

Skype, that has been hogging the news as of late, falls in that same category. A flagship consumer product has just been bought by the ultimate workplace software company.

ReadWriteWeb: 5 Reasons Why Skype Will Be an Office Hit: The new generation of great enterprise services have a common thread. People use them all the time. An iPhone is for work and for play. People use GMail in both their personal and work lives, too. Skype is in that same category. You may use it one day to call your Mom and the next minute to chat with a colleague. We named Skype our enterprise conferencing tool of the year in 2010 for its moves towards providing business-grade communications with the ease of use of its consumer product...... Combined, Microsoft has invested about $9.5 billion this past year in communications through its partnership with Nokia for $1 billion and the $8.5 billion Skype deal. What that means is millions of smartphones with VOIP. ...... The idea of the fully immersive video experience begins to become reality with Skype in the play. Combine it with Kinect and you have the makings of an immersive video experience that is far more natural than the desktop model that has been popularized over the last 10 years.

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• How Microsoft Will Change Skype (mashable.com) momentum is shifting from the PC to smartphones and tablets. The lead that the software giant has on the desktop won’t magically translate to these emerging platforms –as the success of iOS and Android and the relatively poor start for Windows Phone 7 proves. ..... Skype instantly gives Microsoft a better foothold into platforms and ecosystems that it doesn’t control, in a market where it is not a leader. ...... While it is virtually unrivaled in the consumer space, Skype is hardly a key player in business. Skype’s infrastructure is less secure and less stable than offerings from competitors like Cisco. ..... Microsoft is entrenched in enterprise and has developed its own tools for internal corporate communications. ..... today’s Skype will likely differ significantly from the Microsoft Skype product aimed at enterprise users in the future.
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