Can not build it, Acquire it: Microsoft back to the fore front !

Microsoft is the behemoth and the ideal example of an IT pioneer. They weer not able to build a voice plateform around their MSN-Live Messenger, so they acquired Skype. They tried to compete using Bing but were not able to achieve what they want, so they have been trying to acquire Yahoo.

It is interesting to see the competence dynamics within the biggest information systems players.

1. Microsoft has been accumulating cash for the past two decades out of its Windows and Office divisions. This money is being spent now to diversify as organic diversification did not work.
2. Google has been accumulating cash from its Ad-words program and now using that cash to expand in all possible random directions. 
3. Apple stands far from this electronic hysteria by pulling all its cash and depends heavily on its organic innovation and growth.
4. Oracle tried the first first of all and then to acquire potential competitors and destroy the acquired target culture (the mySQL case)
5. IBM is partially quitting the soft competition and concentrating on almost everything around without pushing itself to the headlines as much
6. Red Hat has mades its first billion dollars in sales. What is next? Fight Ubuntu or CentOs?

It will be a quick and nice game to watch. However, the winners of the 2000 teens might not make it to the 2000 twenties most probably.

Google in the Entreprise: Postini and Sugar??

Official Google Blog: Welcome, Postini team

A lot of analysts felt the threat that Google is brining into Microsoft main segment (Desktop Applications). With Postini Google got 10 million enterprise users for $625M only which means $62.5/user which less than 20% of what TD bank is paying to acquire a new individual client.

Is this a real threat to Microsoft? Not currently because this company is very small compared to the behemoth that Microsoft represents. However this is a sign only that Google has been working into this market for a while shopping for correct targets. Based on my experience when I was following the IT acquisition of Google, I expect that the huge shot is on the way and we would see Google putting at least $2 billions to acquire one of the most successfully enterprise management startups.

Why?
Google put $1.5 for Youtube which did not have a clear revenue model. So imagine how much they would pay for a company that would bring at least a billion dollar yearly.

Why I expect Google to acquire Sugar CRM?
Simple, Google is supporting a lot of the open source activities and Sugar has established its position is the throat cutting market of CRM applications. The beauty of CRM is the coherence with Google in the development culture and the coincidence that it is aligned with the line of business Google is targeting.

When this might happen?
I expect it to jump up around early 2008.