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P-A-L-M to the boonies?

Posted on Tuesday, May 24th

Wall Street Journal reports that the two Palms are showing signs of wanting to getting back together. “PalmOne Inc. said it is acquiring full rights to the “Palm” brand name and will change its name to Palm Inc. later this year. Milpitas, Calif.-based PalmOne also said Tuesday that it has renewed its license of the

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Well done, Microsoft!

Posted on Saturday, May 21st

This is why, Microsoft is still an impressive company … they don’t get it, they don’t get it, they don’t get it … and then, one day, they get it. And they get it right. Remember the browser war of the mid-nineties?

Netflix, look elsewhere!

Posted on Thursday, May 19th

Netflix and Walmart have decided to partner, turning over all of 100,000 Walmart DVD rental customers to Netflix. Not bad, but probably, also, not great! This is a good block and tackle strategy for Netflix, and it IS good news that at least one of the competitors becomes an ally. But the threats of the

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Yahoo! Beats Google in this round

Posted on Thursday, May 5th

Key Rhetorical Question: Who understands the content game better? Semel or Schmidt?

Monetizing Video content is inherently more difficult than Text because the KeyWord AD phenomenon that has served Google well in the Text-centric search world, will not be as effective in Video. The simple and “algorithm” oriented Text-search paradigm does not work in the Video world. Google’s strength is in algorithms. But as it grows up, algorithms will not suffice.

Key thought-provoking question: What will?

Good. Next Apple should buy Adobe!

Posted on Monday, Apr 18th

Apple should buy Adobe …

Should Netflix own proprietary content?

Posted on Wednesday, Apr 13th

Tiffany does. HBO does. Jewelry designer Paloma Picasso designs exclusive pieces for Tiffany. It gives consumers a reason to come to Tiffany and only to Tiffany to buy designer jewelry by Paloma Picasso, Elsa Peretti and others. Roger McNamee writes: “If you are a content owner, proliferating distribution offers lots of opportunity for incremental profits.

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Mentor Graphics: Target for SilverLake?

Posted on Monday, Apr 11th

Mentor Graphics is No. 3 in the Electronics Design Automation (EDA) market, after Cadence and Synopsys. The EDA market itself is not that large, roughly $4 Billion, declining rapidly to $3.5 Bilion due to its tough price-wars. Such a market cannot support 3 major players, and Mentor ought to be a classic acquisition target for

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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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