Horizontal Versus Vertical
Understanding the difference between horizontal and vertical strategies is critical to making smart strategic decisions.
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Cable TV created a world where differentiated content could profit from everyone; that is why it will be hard for Disney to make the choices streaming will force on them.
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My well-chronicled frustration with Microsoft’s corporate strategy comes down to one point: I don’t think any company should have both horizontal (i.e. services) and vertical (i.e. devices) businesses. It creates conflicting incentives: a horizontal business…
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Two Microsofts
My well-chronicled frustration with Microsoft’s corporate strategy comes down to one point: I don’t think any company should have both horizontal (i.e. services) and vertical (i.e. devices) businesses. It creates conflicting incentives: a horizontal business should be great on every platform, while a vertical business should be differentiated. Thus, I was quite pleased when Satya […]
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Daily Update: More Amazon Bear Signals; Dropbox Hacked, Sort of…; Snapchat Too
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Losing My Amazon Religion
Benedict Evans asks a good question: If you were running this business, why would you slow down to take profits? pic.twitter.com/mbMNfbyZT4 — Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) July 28, 2014 The growth curve is impressive enough, even before you notice that the scale is logarithmic. And to be sure, Amazon has had doubters from the beginning: few […]
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It’s Time to Split Up Microsoft
To understand why so many serious Microsoft observers were encouraged by Satya Nadella’s week-ago memo Bold Ambition and Our Core,1 it’s useful to go back 10 years and read Steve Ballmer’s 2004 memo Our Path Forward. It was around this time that cracks were first starting to appear in the Microsoft machine: the stock had […]
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Amazon’s Whale Strategy
A week before yesterday’s launch of the Fire Phone, Amazon sent all of the attendees a copy of the children’s book “Mr. Pines Purple House” with a note from Jeff Bezos stating: I think you’ll agree that the world is a better place when things are a little bit different. Beyond the book, the first […]
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Daily Update: Apple Announces Beats Acquisition, Beats Music to Remain on Android, Square Launches Cash Advance
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Daily Email (2014-04-22): Microsoft, Cloud Services, and Amazon
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Another Nokia Explanation; The Same Tragic Conclusion
While I remain convinced that Microsoft’s Nokia acquisition was largely driven by fear of losing Nokia as an OEM, either to Android or bankruptcy, there is something else curious about the timing. (The following scenario is conjecture, but not the analysis that follows) ValueAct, who is opposed to Microsoft’s push into devices, was dissuaded from […]
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In Chrome Versus Android, Chrome Wins
John Gruber: So this is weird. Back when Chromecast was announced, I wrote that it doesn’t do something that Google made it seem like it did — stream video directly from your phone (or tablet) like AirPlay. But then it ends up it was capable of something like AirPlay, but it required a third-party app, […]
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Amazon’s Dominant Strategy
Jonah Keri, on Mike Trout, the baseball player: “You always look at player comps in this business,” Bane said. “None of our guys wanted to put down the comp that you’d expect in this case, because it’s just too much pressure. We should have done it, though. We should have put down the comp that […]