Going After The Ballmer

Google presents the economic/technology world with a very interesting question: How does a company benefit by making its key products available for free to consumers? And, does that company benefit more than a company following the traditional model of selling its products for a profit? Consider this latest article from the NYTimes Tech Blog:

Google Goes After Another Microsoft Cash Cow - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Now, most of us know that Google Apps has a way to go before it will really be able to compete with Microsoft on an enterprise level. The tools offered are not quite comprehensive enough.

However, we have seen Google put something out there that - to the average consumer, at least - is adequate. Google Docs is completely adequate for the average consumer, who in most cases would consider the powerful tools offered by Microsoft Word to be overkill. What average consumer really needs to write VBA macros into their Word docs?

So, Google is good for the average user, especially when one considers the price Office. But what about all those enterprise users?

However big Google's plans are, the reality is that there have been free competitors to Microsoft's Office Juggernaut for several years (Don't forget Sun's OpenOffice), and they continue to be suites that ...nobody uses. Oh, I know - you can give me a few token names of companies that have taken the corporate stand against Microsoft and refused to use their products. But on a global scale, no one competitor has been able to unseat Microsoft from their throne yet, even when they give their product away.

What makes Google think they will be able to?

Yahoo!: Bigger, Better After The Great Escape?

We have to wonder what Yahoo! is up to, after they turned down a buyout that was going to give them a 60% bonus over their market cap. Turning down the offer was one thing, but labeling it as "undervalued" leaves me with some expectations. Are they actually going to put feet under this claim, or are they just going to be content with the value they've gained from this arbitrage?

Enter company CEO, Jerry Yang:

Yang Breaks Silence on Microsoft Takeover - Techland | FORTUNE.com
Jerry Yang offers sneak peak of Yahoo’s future: Life! | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

It looks like they were indeed working on something. Yahoo claims it is on the verge of unveiling "a next generation user experience that unites its various services in a social context". The web portal is also announcing the opening up of its search engine results, so that webmasters everywhere can offer users more options from the Yahoo! SERP.

Now, we have to assume that these developments were in the works before Microsoft made their offer. Could the Microsoft offer have been a signal that they knew what was up? Probably. However, could it also be a sign that Microsoft not only knew about these developments, but knew that they would vault Yahoo! to the top of the Internet world? Was that the basis of Microsoft making a $44 billion wager on the value of Yahoo?

Very interesting questions, indeed, which none of us can answer until we actually see all of Yahoo's cards.

Pandora Rocks, Apple Scrooge, and Other Thoughts...

I know - it's been almost 3 weeks since my last post. OK. I know, I'm an SEO junkie, and I ought to know how detrimental this is to my blog's prospects for visibility. But, alas, as I have failed so far in my attempts to make this blog into a net money-maker, my time has been used up with more profitable ventures.

Back to blogging, I must take a short minute and say something about one of the things I like. Pandora is amazing; if you've never tried it, take a quick detour right now (and then come back). If you don't know what Pandora is yet, just think "Internet radio" - except much, much better than our normal concepts of radio. The site is so user-friendly that spending any more time explaining it would be overkill.

Now for today's first news item: Apple’s cash: It’s one sour cider - Financial Week

It seems Apple is following a troubling cycle, and it goes like this:

1. endure steady, light criticism from tech blogs everywhere for several months;


2. announce an upcoming product release; ride an incredible wave of rising hype as the release date draws nigh;


3. reap big profits from initial sales;


4. endure steady criticism about the new product's shortcomings.

So, it appears we're in the interim period between #4 and #1, a familiar "dead zone", where Apple can't seem to do anything right, and we all wonder about the merits of their closed model of production.

SEO - It's in the (domain) name

I have to say, if your company is big enough to have offices in multiple metro areas or in multiple states, and your company runs commercials on television, then you're also too big to ignore the importance of optimizing your website.

Case in point - Morgan & Morgan Law Firm. It's one of those random TV commercials that you rarely seem to notice, especially if you're a young, healthy American with no traffic tickets. However, I noticed the commercial because the URL for their firm's website seemed a bit odd to me - www.forthepeople.com.

I finally got around to typing the address into my browser and seeing what's there. But my first thought about the website is, "why don't they have the company name in the URL?"

So, I decided to look up a few related to see if this firm had registered any of them. I tried the following:

• morganlaw.com
• morganmorgan.com
• morganandmorgan.com
• morgan-morgan.com

Somehow I wasn't surprised to find that none of these had been registered by our law firm in question.

The point of all this is, if you're a mid-sized business or firm and you want to register some idealistic URL for your company website, then go ahead. But, for goodness sake, also register a URL with your company's name in it!

If a potential customer hears about you, then goes home and blindly tries to guess your website's name, he's going to be unsuccessful in finding you. Fortunately for this firm, they have captured the #1 rankings on SERPs for their company name.

You don't see firms like Orkin or Terminix (pest control) with URLs like www.WeHateBugs.com!

Google's Campaign Against Microsoft

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Official Google Blog: Yahoo! and the future of the Internet

Above is a link to a recent post on Google's official blog that puts forth a very interesting viewpoint from one of Google's senior VPs, Alan Eustace. Here we have someone from Google's camp who is appearing to speak for the company, speaking out against their rival Microsoft.

This post is incredibly interesting, because it is not very often that we get to here one company voicing a profound distaste for another company on such a fundamental, philosophical level. Google is not just Microsoft's competitor - Google believes that Microsoft is actually bent on destroying what Google believes is great about the Internet, and even the world.

I imagine the guys over at Microsoft don't actually carry pitchforks when we're not looking. But I think they do see financial profit as their firm's foremost reason for existence. And who can blame them? This is Economics 101. Firms exist to make a profit.

Now, obviously, it's the way in which Microsoft makes its profit that Google finds deplorable. Google sees Microsoft as ensuring future profits by damaging the markets in which it competes. The obvious result is the current near-monopoly that Microsoft enjoys in the PC operating system market. Especially from Google's perspective, it seems like Microsoft doesn't just seek to protect its own interests, but also seeks to enforce its interests on everyone else. After all, it was just about one year ago that Microsoft decided to launch a massive attack on Google over copyrights.

If Google's perspective is accurate, then what kind of future would we see if Microsoft is able to buy out Yahoo! and start to work toward an Internet monopoly that mirrors its monopoly in software? Perhaps Microsoft would eventually produce an OS that would show heavy "preference" for websites in the Microsoft network of sites. Is it that hard to imagine a Windows message saying something like "You have attempted to access a website outside the Microsoft network. You may be opening your computer to unwanted security risks." Maybe below that box, we'd see a link to a quite imaginative list of advantages of working within the Microsoft network.

Would this be an accurate visualization of what Google is picturing?

Yahoo! / Microsoft Antitrust Approval

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San Jose Mercury News - Antitrust approval for Yahoo deal may not be a slam-dunk


Just for further reading, this is an article from the San Jose Mercury News about the antitrust prospects for a possible marriage of Yahoo! and Microsoft. As I said yesterday, I believe that, unlike the Google/Double-click deal, a Yahoo!/Microsoft deal may not get through antitrust scrutiny.

I think the problem with the "Google-click" deal was that the anti-competitive results of that merger were not obvious enough to the public, and therefore there was not enough incentive for lawmakers to block such a big deal. However, Yahoo! and Microsoft have both been household names for a long time, and even if people can't rationally explain why this merger would have some anti-competitive effects on the tech market, they will probably say that anti-competitive effects exist.

Yahoo! Shares May Rise to Equal Offer By Bell

Yahoo jumps 53 percent after Microsoft offer | Markets | Hot Stocks | Reuters

Microsoft reportedly offered Yahoo! for $31 per share - a 62% premium over Yahoo!'s closing share price of $19 on Thursday. However, investors are so positive about the possible deal that Yahoo!'s stock is now up to $30.70 per share, or 60%, in pre-market trading.

By the time the bell rings to open formal trading today, Yahoo! might actually be worth what Microsoft has offered.

Yahoo!Soft? - Early reports say Microsoft to Buy Yahoo! for $44 bil

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Microsoft has reportedly made a bid to buy the struggling Yahoo! for $44 billion. Whether this goes through or not, this is the first serious attempt at formal consolidation among the major search engines.

Unlike the coming Google/Double-click merger, it's likely that average internet users will readily assume that this merger will have a huge affect on them. My guess is that, if this goes forward, this merger will get more anti-trust attention than Google's.