LeapFrog Enterprises (LF) was last left off in this blog with the March 2007 analysis of a possible turnaround strategy. Unfortunately, if you compare the stock charts then and now, they are eerily similar. To understand what is going on over at its Emeryville headquarters, I sat down with CEO Jeff Katz (great guy) last
SM: Jeff, let’s start with your background. Where do you come from, where did you go to school, and how did you get into technology? I know that you went to MIT, and I have to say that it is a pretty good school! JK: Of course! We always referred to Harvard as the best
Introduction Founded in 1994 by Stanford Ph.D. students David Filo and Jerry Yang, Yahoo! began as a hobby and has evolved into a leading global brand that has changed the way people communicate with each other, conduct transactions and access, share, and create information. Today, Yahoo! Inc. has become the world’s largest global online network
SM: What is Elevation’s investment thesis regarding positioning? Is it still a prosumer play? EB: The Elevation thesis is pretty simple. It basically says that smartphone market is at its very infancy, and the arrival of the iPhone is expanding the opportunity, making it more real to more people. It is very clear that it
Palm’s Elevation Partners deal is a smart move to give the cmpany its best shot at a turnaround. Jonathan Rubinstein joins as Executive Chairman, as part of the deal, and the transition is due to happen soon. SM: What about the CEO though? EB: What was critical was to be able to add this talent
SM: So services as a key strategic initiative you think is still in beta! EB: Well, this was a core opportunity. In the Spring of 2005, at an annual strategy board meeting, it was decided that a key goal for the company would be in the subscription area. We had not been able to execute
I just got off the phone with Eric Benhamou, with whom, as you know, I have been discussing 3Com and Palm recently. I said earlier, that 3Com is trying to take on Cisco with its Chinese JV H3C in my Online Video Beneficiaries series, and that Cisco is a fat company that deserves to be
SM: The big opportunity that I felt Palm missed out on was on the software side. There was a huge opportunity for enterprise integration. RIM was very good with the email, but that was it. They didn’t push it any further. Palm had good implementation of the Windows OS, and they could have gone in