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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Understanding Google
The surest route to befuddlement in the tech industry is comparing a vertical player, like Apple, with a horizontal one, like Google. Vertical players typically monetize through hardware, only serve a subset of users, and any services they provide are exclusive to their devices. Horizontal players, on the other hand, monetize through subscriptions or ads, […]
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Services, not Devices
Microsoft needs to first understand the type of company it is, and choose its strategy accordingly. That means focusing on services, not devices.
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The Dropbox Opportunity
Benedict Evans, in Glass, Home and solipsism, one of the most insightful posts I’ve read in some time: Your customers’ relationships with you are the only relationships you have as a business and you think a lot about them. But you’re one of a thousand things your customer thinks about in a week, and one […]