Tech Firms Become Conglomerates ... Unsuccessfully

My colleague Michael Hickins wrote an illuminating post yesterday about big business ignoring Cisco's united computing system, which is supposed to be a data center platform that could rival those of IBM and HP. That got me thinking about a number of news items and thoughts that have been kicking around, with tech vendors missing big success in all sorts of "additional" business lines. Once again I find myself wondering whether a major mistake companies are making is diversification. Not in avoiding the strategy, but in going about it the wrong way? If you watch business history, you see similar themes reoccurring over time. The current flailing about by so many tech vendors smells a lot like the conglomeration fiasco of a few decades past.

• Jun 12, 2009

Microsoft Does "Impossible", Separates IE from Windows

Microsoft has announced a special edition of Windows 7 that won't include Internet Explorer 8. The move is intended to satisfy European Union regulators and their antitrust investigation into the company. But, wait -- there's something really familiar sounding about all of this. Oh, right -- this is exactly what Microsoft had once told U.S. regulators was impossible.

• Jun 12, 2009

Big Business Ignoring Cisco In Droves

Cisco's designs on server domination lie in tatters on the data center floor. It turns out that it's having far more trouble than reported convincing customers to even consider its plans for a unified computing system (UCS) that would rival other platform vendors like HP and IBM. Data centers fig...

• Jun 11, 2009

Angels Go Where VCs Fear To Tread

Paul Kedrosky got a lot of attention yesterday for a paper he wrote showing that venture funds are not providing investors with enough returns and suggesting that the venture capital industry should essentially right-size itself by half. The sector must shrink its way back to health if venture capi...

• Jun 11, 2009

Microsoft Out of (MS) Money

As proof that a combination of a large bank account and persistence aren't everything, Microsoft is discontinuing its Microsoft Money software. The notification has officially been released: With banks, brokerage firms and Web sites now providing a range of options for managing personal finances, th...

• Jun 11, 2009

Rackspace May Dabble Its Way Into Cloud Silver Lining

Rackspace, normally associated with server co-location and hosting services, will be using a hybrid approach to cloud computing, letting customers switch between hosted data centers and cloud computing resources. Although it may not appear as "pure" as what some other major vendors tout, the company is smart, honing in on the needs of the buyer in a way that will let enterprises move over to the new approach slowly. So long as competitors keep trying to positioning themselves as "all cloud, all the time," this approach alone could make Rackspace a major winner.

• Jun 11, 2009

Google Book Deal in DOJ Sights

The Department of Justice is showing increasing interest in the settlement between Google, book publishers, and the Authors Guild. And the way debate is shaping up in the publishing community, what had seemed a PR stroke of genius for Google -- make use of copyrighted material, wait to get sued, settle, and seem like a hero -- seems more likely to turn into an expensive and messy public black eye.

• Jun 11, 2009

Google About To Break Enterprise Dam

Microsoft fears Google with good reason. Why else would its chief software architect, Ray Ozzie, waste time trashing Wave, a collaboration application that Google hasn't even brought to market yet? Microsoft realizes that the search leader has been on the verge of ripping a big hole in its ocean ...

• Jun 10, 2009

Microsoft Security Won't Help Apple -- Or Microsoft

I have to disagree with the assessment of my colleague Michael Hickins that Microsoft changes to how it approaches network security will help Apple at all in getting into the enterprise. The problems Apple faces there are completely different, and the security issues are simply Microsoft in reaction...

• Jun 10, 2009

Tech CEOs Taking Harder Hit Than Average

Challenger, Gray & Christmas came out with the on CEO departures through May. Interestingly, while the number is lower this year than at the same time last, tech industry CEOs have left in higher number.

• Jun 10, 2009

Microsoft Securing Apple's Business Plans

Apple has enjoyed immense popularity among consumers, but has had a hard time penetrating the enterprise for a number of reasons, most notably security. As Eric Auchard noted, few employees have enough clout to demand that IT allow them to introduce an iPhone or Apple laptop into an otherwise Window...

• Jun 10, 2009

Analysts Mixed on Enterprise Software Vendors

Merrill Lynch cut its rating on SAP from buy to neutral, saying that it doesn't see a corporate IT spending recovery in 2009, so there is question as to the company's assumptions on license fees. But that hardly seems like a uniform take of the market on the software industry, which is more mixed and less certain.

• Jun 10, 2009

Google Wooing Enterprise Market, Desperately Needs Users

By releasing its new plug-in for Microsoft Outlook, Google has again signaled its interest in the business user market. It's also a signal that the company is stuck and badly needs to embrace an old tech rule: It's tough to make it in the productivity apps business if you only appeal to consumers. For Google, getting apps and services users is critical, because the company is hitting a market saturation point and needs new outlets to display ads.

• Jun 10, 2009

Mobile Advertising Hype Train on Full Steam

The number of wildly different takes on the "success" of mobile advertising is dizzying. But the big lesson appears to be that while somebody is selling something, it's probably not to consumers through their cell phones. Take a look at this array of pronouncements and findings about the state of t...

• Jun 9, 2009

4 Considerations in Enterprise Software Vendor Strategy

Bad economic times and a focus on reducing IT budgets have made this a tough market for enterprise software vendors. According to the new Forrester study, The State Of Enterprise Software: 2009, executives had better not plan on that changing in the near future. However, there is some good news for vendors, because it's not as though companies have stopped spending on software. There are also some other interesting insights, like few companies saying they're interested in SaaS or hosted solutions, and many looking for apps and app modules to use together.

• Jun 9, 2009

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