It is all but impossible to beat an Aggregator head-on, as Walmart is trying to do with Amazon. The solution instead is to build a platform like Shopify.
AMD Launches 7nm Chips, Sony Partners with Microsoft, Apple and AWS
AMD leapfrogs Intel thanks to modularity, Sony partners with Microsoft thanks to scale, and Apple balances both.
Apple’s Services Event
Apple’s Services Event generally made sense, even if most products weren’t ready to launch. It’s fair to wonder, though, if something important is being lost.
The Value Chain Constraint
Companies succeed or fail not based on technology but rather according to their ability to integrate within their value chains.
Walmart’s Earnings, Walmart’s Grocery Business, Amazon’s Grocery Stumbles
Walmart’s earning suggest that the company’s online grocery business is doing well, even while Amazon struggles. This is not a surprise, given the two companies points of integration.
BuzzFeed Followup, The Future is Niche, Atlassian and Bing
BuzzFeed’s relative scale problem, and why venture capital doesn’t make sense for content, because the future is niche. Plus, important follow-up on Bing and Atlassian.
The BuzzFeed Lesson
The lesson of BuzzFeed is that dominant Aggregators like Facebook have no incentive to act against their self interest and support suppliers.
CES and the Unification of Computing and Consumer Electronics, Google Assistant and Integration, The Modular Competition
Google Assistant has a structural advantage when it comes to the user experience of digital assistants, which should influence the strategies of Amazon and Apple.
Netflix’s Earnings, Netflix’s Marketing Choice, Additional Notes on Netflix
Netflix’s earnings had both good news (subscribers) and bad news (spend); the latter might signal a positive shift in how the company acquires customers. Plus, how Netflix is integrating.
AMD and Modularity Follow-Up, Trump and Tech, Tech’s Vulnerability
The problem with AMD’s modularity approach; then, Trump attacks tech. The claims are baseless but that hardly means the industry is in the clear.