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Microsoft’s Growth Strategy Revisited

Posted on Thursday, Mar 8th

On April 10, 2005, almost immediately after I started this blog, I had written a piece called Microsoft’s Two Should-Be Acquisition Candidates, from the point of view of addressing the growth trends in the SME markets. The two candidates were: Autodesk (ADSK) and PayChex (PAYX). I have to pay close attention to Microsoft, since my

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Should Dell Acquire Palm?

Posted on Tuesday, Mar 6th

I wrote two pieces recently discussing potential turnaround strategies for both Dell and Palm. :: The world is moving to a place where the laptop needs to become much more than just a laptop. An integrated mobile device is in the cards, that is the combo PC-Phone-Music Box. May be, even Camera. Dell needs to

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CNet’s Savvy Steps

Posted on Tuesday, Jul 25th

CNet buys baby site, car site, and expands beyond tech, reports Rafat Ali. Earlier, they bought food site Chowhound. I conjectured in a previous post how a next generation new media empire would be built. Well, CNet could roll up a lot of great micro-media web properties, including Rafat Ali himself, to become the next

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India, Inc.: Wake up!

Posted on Tuesday, Jun 21st

What the Chinese are doing is doing leveraged buy-outs on big, fat, powerful American brands reeling under margin pressures, and applying what they do really well: low-cost manufacturing to shave the fat off, while at the same time gaining access to brand power and distribution channels. This leads me to wonder how long India, Inc. will remain asleep at the wheels?

Microsoft’s two should-be M&A considerations

Posted on Sunday, Apr 10th

Microsoft has stagnated, much to the chagrin of its investors. The powerful vision of the eighties and nineties – of putting a PC on every desktop – no longer seems like a big, hairy, audacious goal. Instead, they are looking for greener pastures – mobile handhelds, digital homes, internet telephony – so forth and so

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Saba, Aussi!

Posted on Wednesday, Apr 6th

Meaning, Saba as well. The blue-print for Epiphany and that for Saba are quite similar. The space is different, and hence the nuances are different. Saba is about a $35M company, with a $75M market cap and a leader in the Corporate e-learning space. Enterprise Learning Management Software (LMS) is used to create e-learning solutions,

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E.piphany should change its Business Model to survive

Posted on Wednesday, Apr 6th

What does an erstwhile star company, with a stock price now stagnating between $3-$6 and a ~$250M market cap do next? Revenues have fallen from $125M in 2001 to the $80M 2004 sales number. Maintenance and Professional Services account for more than two-third of the company’s sales. If you look around in the CRM space,

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