Bravo Google: well played, indeed

You really have to hand it to those Google boys, they are smart.  And they really know how to play the game of business, don’t they?

Let’s recap just a little, but we have to think way back to the very beginnings of the presidential primary season.  Google was humming along as usual, with no end in site to their dominance in the online advertising world.  Yahoo, the distant number 2 in the industry, was fading quickly.  Amid mounting pressure to change the downward trend, Yahoo was presented with a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” proposition from Microsoft, to become part of the perpetual evil empire.

Google wasted little time in parrying this potentially formidable threat to the company’s dominance.  A combined Microsoft-Yahoo would still have laid claim to less than a third of the market share that Google commanded, but it would have aligned the coffers of Microsoft (which is still trying to figure out how to spell Internet) with the braintrust that practically invented web portal and search.

Now, it’s true that a Microsoft-Yahoo merger would have been an utter failure.  But, the potential for a sea change was there, and Google didn’t hesitate to act.  Through incredibly adept maneuvering, Google positioned itself as the white knight saving the poor damsel in distress from the clutches of the dragon.  Google and Yahoo struck a deal for Google to serve search advertising for Yahoo. And, the world rejoiced!

But, Google had to know that a Google-Yahoo deal to corner 90% of the online advertising market would come under intense scrutiny from federal regulators, didn’t they?  Of course, they knew.  They knew because  the main sticking point in the Microsoft-Yahoo merger talks was the scrutiny that the new entity would come under for controlling less than 80% of the web email market.

And now, Google has pulled out of the deal with Yahoo citing concerns from federal regulators.  So, what did Google get out of all this?  Well, before the Microsoft offer, Yahoo traded at about $20 per share and Microsoft traded at nearly $35 per share.  Today, Yahoo is even weaker at $14 per share, while Microsoft is at $22 per share, making a merger politically difficult for both companies.  So, Google is secure in the knowledge that it will continue to own online advertising for a very, very long time, and it didn’t even cost them a penny to do it.

Bravo!

iPhone: joining the subsidized pack

While the masses praise Apple for the new iPhone 3G, one should remain mindful that this release is actually a giant step backwards for the US cellular industry. Let me be clear, the iPhone 3G is another stunning design encapsulating new, cool features into a superior form factor. The problem is not the handset itself. The problem is the way that the handset will be marketed and sold.

Previously, Apple garnered praise for championing the movement to a more open mobile ecosystem. But, since that time, Apple has continuously acquiesced to the pressure from AT&T to play by the carrier-centric rules of the game. Yes, as has been explained in an earlier posting, the carriers in the US rule the mobile world with an iron fist.

While professing to support consumer-benefiting progress, the carriers have no intention whatsoever of actually loosening their tight grip on consumers. But, let’s not let the consumer off the hook too easily. US consumers are suckers for anything “cheap” or “free”, to their own peril. This deadly combination results in the continued practice of carriers subsidizing handset sales in exchange for consumers signing up for long-term contracts. From that point on, the consumer has no real option to switch carriers and therefore the carriers have no real incentive to improve their offerings, or provide new and innovative services.

Remember the old rhyme:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Except, in our case, for the want of a free cell phone, the whole US mobile kingdom is lost.. or, at least, is 2 generations behind mobile service in Asia.

Openness in Mobile: depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away the mobile universe was all abuzz and basking in the radiance of openness. You remember it well, don’t you? The date was November 27, 2007. Verizon, the long-time stalwart finally drank the koolaid and agreed to open their network to any device and any application. Remember, in October 2007, when Apple relented to public pressure and agreed to allow third-party developers to build applications for the iPhone? Remember, in January 2008, when the declaration, “First and foremost, the wireless industry does not block text messages of any type,” was made by Steve Largent, president of the CTIA, the wireless industry association?

Well don’t look now, but that flash you’re seeing out of the corner of your eye is the mobile operators backpedaling faster than a BALCO-fueled sprinter, although I doubt they will ever put on a similar public display of repentance for their transgressions.

Wireless operators have been working long and hard to roll-back the hands of time and hold on to their outdated ways. Given the threat of truly open spectrum that was forced by the efforts of Google, Verizon and AT&T shelled out a combined $16 billion in the 700-MHz spectrum auction. And, while publicly maintaining support for openness, the carriers have been working behind the scenes to stop any mandate for such openness. The latest hits to the openness movement were inflicted by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who drew applause from mobile industry stalwarts when he announced:

In light of the industry’s embrace of this more open approach, I think it’s premature for the commission to adopt any other requirements across the industry. And thus, … I am going to circulate to my fellow commissioners an order dismissing a petition by Skype that would apply Carterfone requirements to the existing wireless networks.

Doesn’t the FCC realize that the only reason the operators have “embraced an open approach” is because the FCC mandated that a large swath of the 700-MHz spectrum be open? No major US carrier made any declarations in support of openness before that mandate was announced. And, even after the auction, AT&T still believes that spectrum is more valuable when it is tightly controlled, as is evident from the statements of Ralph de la Vega:

The results of the auction bidding demonstrate that the B Block was the most attractive the most valuable spectrum available, and it was the best investment for AT&T and its customers. The lower 700 MHz spectrum that AT&T acquired from Aloha Partners is not subject to the same strict regulations imposed on the upper C-Block spectrum the FCC recently auctioned. With fewer costly and complex regulations we have the certainty and flexibility needed to move faster in rolling out new mobile technology and more customer choices in devices and applications.

I’m sorry, is Mr. de la Vega living in a different, parallel universe where the grass is blue and the sky is green? In this world, the US is far behind Europe and Far East Asia in mobile technology… about 2 generations behind! (Even wireless broadband in Japan and Korea is an order of magnitude faster than the fixed-line broadband, cable or DSL, that is available in the US.) The reason for this lag has been the long-time in-fighting within the US cellular industry (e.g. AMPS vs. TDMA vs. CDMA vs. GSM). Rather than work together and let the “rising tide lift all boats”, the operators fought to maintain control of their own little fiefdoms, and they continue to do so!

Apple’s recent about-face should not go unnoticed either. After swimming in praise for creating an SDK to allow third-party developers to build applications for the iPhone, Apple is apparently showing that those old stripes don’t change so easily after all. Apple has apparently rejected the application of nearly all third-party developers to join their program. That’s right, the iPhone is actually only open to the anointed few select partners.

Mobile Industry, you either welcome the movement with (pun intended) open arms, or fight to hold onto your walled gardens. Thinly veiled lip service won’t cut it. Open is open… regardless of what the definition of “is” is.

Sun-MySQL: they don’t get no respect

Sun, the little engine that could, has actually made the smartest acquisition of the past few months, but the story has been relegated to page C-14 behind the front-page headlines of the mega-deals being done to bolster mega-egos and little else.

Sun’s acquisition of MySQL is one that resonates on every level: technologically, culturally, philosophically. Over the past year and a half, Sun has fully embraced the open source movement, going as far as to open source Java, its single greatest asset. As part of this initiative, Red Hat has signed on as a contributor. With this collaboration, Sun and RedHat together offered a full open source stack, except for one key piece: a database. Sun and RedHat together provided an open source operating system (actually 2 of them: Linux and Solaris), a first class development language and tools, and an enterprise-grade application server (JBoss). The addition of MySQL completed the puzzle!

Sun, after years of wandering aimlessly and fighting against fate to recognize that it is a software company, finally seems to just get it. Sun knows that the company lost out on the high-end enterprise software market. But, rather than continue marching to the same beat, (to mix metaphors) they changed their stripes. Sun has recognized the power of the open source movement and knows that that’s the only path left for it to survive and possibly even thrive.

What did Sun accomplish with this move? It acquired a highly recognized, highly respected product to fill out its suite; and in the process welcomed a whole new set of zealous users and customers, and strengthened its relationship with existing customers.

By contrast Oracle, which already had a competing middleware suite, only gained a better brand in the same space: BEA. But, unlike MySQL’s current trajectory, BEA’s market share is on a downward trend. While the Oracle-BEA union is destined to fall short of even conservative expectations, Sun’s addition of MySQL can only have a positive effect on the company’s long-term prospects.

So, then why haven’t we heard more fanfare about Sun-MySQL? Because, Sun is the Rodney Dangerfield of the tech world: they don’t get no respect.

Microsoft-Yahoo: lessons from Oracle-BEA

Given the timing of events, it’s hard not to compare the current Microsoft-Yahoo takeover battle with the recently concluded conquest of BEA by Oracle. Some of the parallels are quite obvious with large, stalwart, traditional software organizations making bids on younger, (some would say) cooler targets in areas tangential to the core of the would-be acquirer. But rather than focus on the relative business domains of the participants, it’s much more interesting to dissect how the Oracle-BEA drama has impacted the strategies for both Microsoft and Yahoo.

Oracle originally offered BEA a 21% premium. In retrospect, this offer was a mistake that allowed the deal to linger far longer than was necessary. Ernst & Young has determined that the long-term takeover premium is approximately 24%. Given BEA’s position as the #2 vendor of enterprise middleware software, Oracle should not have expected to get a below-average price for such a target. By contrast, Microsoft’s initial offer to Yahoo provided for a 63% premium. Microsoft did not entertain the idea of getting Yahoo on the cheap. Microsoft realized that Yahoo is prime real estate and made a compelling offer.

Given the offer price, BEA had the luxury of time to negotiate with Oracle. BEA only had one very vocal investor, Carl Icahn, applying pressure on the BEA board to accept and offer or sell the company off in pieces. However, with a 63% premium dangling in front of them, a good many more of Yahoo’s shareholders are applying pressure on the company to act in one way or another to increase their investment.

On the flip side, Yahoo has a good many supporters, particularly within their user community, who have implored the company to avoid “going over to the dark side.” This groundswell of support, which did not exist to nearly the same degree for BEA, has given Yahoo the ability to push back and actively seek out a white knight strategy, seeking partnerships with either NewsCorp or Google as a way to bolster the company’s flagging stock and remain independent. This has forced Microsoft to take the fight directly to the shareholders, which is a much more cumbersome process.

In addition, Yahoo has taken the bold step of acting like a strong company instead of the weakling that BEA portrayed. Yahoo continued to acquire companies themselves, and to restrategize their core business. These moves can only work to improve Yahoo’s position.

Much of the Microsoft-Yahoo drama is yet to unfold, and there will undoubtedly be at least one significant plot twist ahead. Will Microsoft be able to dangle a big enough worm in front of Yahoo shareholders to set the hook? Will Yahoo find shelter in a nearby reef? Will a bigger fish come by and steal the prize first?

My gut tells me that eventually Microsoft will get what they covet. The only real unknown is how much it will cost.

Record profits: it does not bode well for the Oil industry

Should an industry continue to receive government subsidies and tax breaks when its members are posting record profits? Apparently it should, when it’s the oil industry.

Not only did both Exxon and Chevron, on February 1, post record profits for the quarter, but Exxon posted the highest-ever quarterly and yearly profits for a US company. Let’s take a second to appreciate the magnitude of this last statement. Exxon is the most profitable company that the US has ever seen!

But, such historic success is hardly attributable to internal prowess on the part of the industry players and much more due to the structure of the industry itself and external factors. The overlaying, reinforcing components are many but boil down to artificially high oil prices and the structure of the industry.

Oil prices are at historically high levels, with a barrel of oil averaging about $90 over the last quarter with a high over $100 per barrel. This was due in large part to the law of supply and demand. With the increased demands of developing nations and the growth of the economies of India and China, demand has risen steadily over the past decade. However, supply has not kept pace. In fact supply has been kept artificially low by OPEC, which operates as an international cartel, outside of the constraints of US anti-collusion laws. (A similar situation exists in the diamond industry, where DeBeers uses what might be considered strong-arm, anti-competitive tactics to keep the price of diamonds artificially high.)

The structure of the oil industry in the US is that of an oligopoly comprised of only a small number of participants. But, as opposed to the airline industry, where the industry structure leads to fierce price wars, triggered by attempts by one firm to gain marginal market share from the others, which ultimately keep consumer prices low, the oil industry does not succumb to the same pressures.

But why not? First, because the cost of raw materials (the oil) is set artificially high and is made uniform by the international cartel. So industry participants can do little, if anything, to differentiate themselves based on this primary resource. This, in turn, provides a disincentive for oil companies to innovate. They continue to turn the same crank the same way they always have and the rising tide of increased demand raises all boats.

Second, the industry avoids price wars because it is so vertically integrated that there is no place in the value chain that the oil companies don’t control, which might allow a new entrant to gain an advantage or even compete on the current field. The incumbent oil companies control it all: the exploration for new oil fields, the pumping of oil, the refining, the delivery to fueling station, and the final sale to the end customers (be they automobile driver, airline, or electricity generation plan).

Gas station owners have even protested the amount of control that the large oil companies exert over their “independently owned” affiliate stations.

This level of vertical integration harkens back to the great monopoly of Standard Oil or reminds us of the old company towns associated with the mining and lumber industries of years past.

Even at the pinnacle of business, with all-time record profits, industry analysts are claiming that the oil industry is in huge trouble because they can’t grow production. But, rather than address the issue head on, and encourage an evolution of the industry, government seems content to give big oil a bonus for doing business the same old way, in the form of heightened subsidies for oil exploration and production.

Unfortunately, this strategy of clinging desperately to the current business and fighting against innovation has been proven time and again to eventually fail. Companies in all industries throughout history have learned the lesson that they either need to evolve or perish. Railroad companies were stuck in their railroad business mindset and failed to see they were part of the larger transportation industry. Eventually they were relegated to second-class status with the rise of trucking.

So too must oil companies reinvent themselves as part of the larger energy industry or else suffer the fate that certainly awaits them: irrelevance.

Implosion 2.0

Don’t look now but 2008 is poised to be the year of the Web2.0 implosion. In brief, consumer confidence is low, retailers are projecting a slow holiday season, Web2.0 is all about advertising… this all leads to one big crash. (Ok, actually, I believe it’s going to be a relatively soft landing in mid-late 2008, but crash just sounds better. Besides, if I didn’t join the hype, I wouldn’t be able to link to this terrific video.)

Retailers have been running scared this entire holiday season. The first Xmas advertisement appeared just a week after Labor Day! The first special holiday season sales were held the weekend after Halloween! Even with Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), retailers reported a slow start to this shopping season. And the latest sign is that 8 Macy’s stores in New York stayed open around-the-clock from December 21 through Xmas Eve. Other retailers were holding 64-hour sales hoping that last minute shoppers would save the season.

I think it’s time that we all accept it, with the subprime mortgage problems and the staggering increase in the number of defaults on credit cards, the consumer has carried the economy as long as he/she could. And, the companies that will pay the most are going to be Web2.0 ventures.

What’s scary about Web2.0 is the homogeneity of business models across all companies. Everyone is fighting for advertising dollars. Web2.0 is, more or less, all about user-generated content. This euphemism just means that a few intelligent people built some cool new tools that all the rest of us use to fill the internet ether with our opinions without having to know any of that technical stuff. And, because the typical person has been spoiled with free access to more and more online, it’s just not possible to get end-users (you and me) to pay for these tools. As a consequence, people just won’t pay to produce (which they never should be asked to do) or consume content. So, everyone is jumping on the advertising bandwagon.

Haven’t we seen this all before? Now we’re talking about “unique visitors per month” and “duration of page views”. This sounds like the old “eyeballs” metrics from the dot-com days, doesn’t it? Wikis are the new newsgroups, Blogs are the new personal websites, Social Networks are the new Web Portals: Facebook = Yahoo, Wikipedia = Usenet, WordPress = Geocities, Yelp = CitySearch, MyPunchbowl = Evite, Viewpoints = Epinions, Glam = iVillage.

This raises the question: Can’t anyone actually sell anything anymore? And, unfortunately, the answer is: We don’t know, because nobody’s even trying. An unfortunate rule of all economic belt-tightening is that the marketing budget is the first one cut. As a consequence, those companies that rely on advertising revenue are hurt the worst.

Just as the dot-com bust helped us figure out the right number of online pet stores, Implosion 2.0 will trim the number of social networks and useless Facebook widget builders. And that’s not a bad thing! Everyone’s gotten fat and lazy off of advertising for too long now, and it’s time for entrepreneurs to innovate around other business models.

eBay: quiet redemption

I’ve been tough on eBay in the past, but it’s now necessary to give eBay its due.  Not because I feel that my earlier criticism was in error, but because I don’t think eBay has gotten nearly enough credit for what amounts to a brilliant strategic move.

To what am I referring?  Nothing less than eBay’s foray into microfinance with MicroPlace.  This is such a smart maneuver that it’s surprising that it’s been all but ignored in the media.  So, let’s take a moment to analyze what makes this so smart.  First, microfinancing is one of the “hot” movements of today, on par with social networking.  As a feel-good story, microfinancing is second only to environmentalism and the fight against global warming in the promise of worldwide benefits that it can reap.  (If you’re not convinced, just do a search on Muhammad Yunus or Grameen Bank.)  Think about it, the promise of microfinancing is the elimination of poverty in the developing world.  What could be more worthwhile?

Second, like the acquisition of StubHub, eBay waited until someone else proved the market.  In this instance, the groundbreakers were companies like Prosper, Kiva, Zopa, Lending Club, and others.  Yes, this reinforces the notion that eBay should no longer be thought of as an innovator, but it is the smart strategy for a mature company, which eBay is.

Third (and most important) this move is a logical extension of what eBay is.  EBay is a marketplace for connecting people to conduct transactions.  The foundation was in the purchase of used goods, for sure.  But, eBay can leverage its brand equity to expand into all kinds of transactions, with financial services being just the latest such type of peer-to-peer transactions.  eBay can become the “un-social network”  for transactions of all kinds.

Fourth and finally, the timing was impeccable.  Just a week or so after eBay launched MicroPlace, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke praised microfinancing for its promise of economic development domestically and globally.  EBay seems to have caught the wave right at the perfect time.

Yes, eBay deserves a gold star for this latest move, or at least a little media coverage.  This could more than make up for overpaying for Skype.

Google has cellular industry caught in a pincer movement

While Apple utilized a frontal assault on the cellular carriers, Google is attacking with a classic pincer movement. Let’s explore the underlying differences between these companies and how that drives the different strategies.

Apple is the preeminent consumer electronics brand today. No consumer goods company carries the same cachet that Apple does. No other brand has such a rabid, fight-to-the-death following. And nobody gets more out of their consumers than Apple. Steve Jobs use of the stage and the buzz ever-surrounding Macworld conferences is enough to draw the spotlight away from CES and the entire rest of the consumer electronics industry.

With Apple’s strengths being in designing consumer devices and the fervor of its devout followers, Apple’s foray into the mobile space was, of course, from a strictly consumer-facing, handset manufacturer angle. Apple wanted to create a device the way it wanted to create it. And, Apple knew absolutely that their device would sell to a significant number of people.

The carriers are always looking for a competitive edge against their oligopoly-brethren, and their tried-and-true approach to gaining such an edge is through the use of exclusive agreements. Knowing this, Apple played a game of “let’s make a deal.” Apple offered an inside track on cheap and easy acquisition of legions of the most loyal consumers in the world. In exchange, Apple wanted the power of control over the platform. There was no way a carrier would give up control over handset requirements without getting exclusivity in return. This deal was first offered to Verizon, which declined. AT&T, which as Cingular had been one of the more conservative of the carriers, wanted to inject new life into AT&T Mobility, so they grabbed for the brass ring. And, as I touched on in an earlier post, AT&T must have expected that Apple, owing to its history of maintaining tight control over its technology, would keep the platform closed. So, for AT&T, this probably didn’t seem like such a huge risk and came with a big upside.

Google’s strengths and history led it down a different path. While Google has a brand that takes a backseat to nobody, Google does not manufacture physical goods. Google provides web-based software services. So, it’s too big of a stretch to think that people will flock to use a phone that is running a Google-OS just for the sake of it. But, what leverage Google does have lies mostly in its substantial war chest. Through the threat of entering the 700 MHz auction, with the very real prospect that it could win such an auction, Google can force the carriers to the table.

The threat is what a Google-owned spectrum would mean to the cellular industry. First, let’s set aside the notion that Google would actually enter the cellular carrier market. That’s just too far from Google’s core and would require too great a commitment of resources to physical infrastructure. What’s much more likely is that Google would license the spectrum to one or more of the carriers, but that would come with many strings attached. In essence, Google could use the carriers’ own arguments and tactics (“It’s our network/spectrum, and if you want to use it, you’ll follow our rules.”) against them. One such string would undoubtedly be that any device running on that spectrum would have to be Google-powered.

So, in dealing with Google, the carriers are between a rock and a hard place. They are not “induced” to work with Google by the allure of advertising revenue splits, they are compelled to do so. Either they negotiate some revenue split now (with the greater portion of that split going to Google, of course), or have a worse deal force-fed to them later. Either way, the carriers are losing their tight grip on the mobile universe, which is a good thing.

Even though the unspoken Apple-Google alliance’s efforts against the cellular carriers is ultimately leading to a more open mobile network (hooray!), let’s not forget that this is in no way an altruistic endeavor on either company’s part. Apple was forced by consumer backlash to open its platform. Google is simply looking to expand its advertising reach into the emerging mobile arena. In this respect, Google seems to be setting itself up as the default advertising platform for mobile devices in a manner eerily similar to how Microsoft leveraged the Wintel monopoly to win the browser wars with Netscape.

Let’s just hope that Google isn’t using the banner of openness as a trojan horse for creating its own monopoly, but stays true to its”Do no evil” mantra, because mobile users in the US have been oppressed for too long already.

BEA: sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you

BEA is playing a high-stakes poker game right now with Oracle and it appears, at the moment, that Oracle just called BEA’s bluff. Oracle’s $17 per share offer for BEA, a premium of 21% over the pre-offer market price, has expired. Instead of considering the offer and negotiating in good faith, BEA countered with a price tag of $21 per share, an outrageous 80% premium.

What could BEA have been thinking?

BEA’s executives must have been reading the speculation that a white knight would arrive on the scene and pay upwards of $20 per share. But, despite the notion that SAP or some other company “needs” BEA to survive, no such suitor has stepped forward. As it stands, BEA has foolishly overplayed its hand, and the stockholders will pay dearly for it.

Senior management needs to recognize that the software industry is evolving and in a way that spells extinction for a dinosaur like BEA. While BEA was one of the banner carriers for enterprise Java, with its WebLogic application server once being the must-have platform during the dot-com boom, that is no longer the world that we live in. Ignoring all other technologies, the Java landscape is much different today than it was 8 years ago. The emergence of high-quality open source products has presented viable low-cost alternatives to the highly priced platforms from BEA, IBM, and others. IBM has adapted by shifting its sales model to one where the services organization drives the sale of its technology. But, BEA does not have a strong enough services organization to make that model work. (True, Accenture and the other large consulting firms will drive some sales to BEA, but they will also drive sales to other vendors as well.)

BEA has fallen into the trap of thinking that its (arguably) superior technology would win the day. This was a fatal miscalculation on the same scale as Apple vs. Microsoft, Netscape vs. Internet Explorer, and Digital Equipment Corporation vs. IBM. Apple, Netscape and Digital were, like BEA, pioneers in their fields and held strong, commanding leads in their markets. But all failed to recognize when the sands were shifting beneath them and all ultimately suffered greatly.

So, what should BEA learn from these past failures and from their own travails recently? First, things change and things change quickly. If you don’t act just as quickly to preserve yourself, you can find yourself irrelevant in no time at all. Second, 21% is a pretty darn good premium for a company with a declining market share, struggling with an outdated business model. Third, the wisdom of crowds. There is never any “secret information” that you can keep from being leaked that would give your company an 80% boost in valuation over what the market says. And, even if there were, why wasn’t management pushing full throttle to “pre-announce” an action and realize some of that gain sooner rather than later?

So now we’re left to wonder if another suitor will step forward to save this damsel in distress or if the evil dragon will escape with the prize at a discount? This is the time when the board of directors needs to do their job. Dean O. Morton needs to call up his buddies at his former employer, HP, and get them to make a $17 per share offer. The longer this ordeal lingers without some public offer, the worse it’ll get for BEA stockholders.

Yes, BEA, sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you.