Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts

Friday, May 3, 2013

B And E This Month

share price
The world in thrall of Apple’s magical success
Nothing succeeds like success and the stratospheric rise of Apple’s shares in recent months defy the laws of business gravity. Its share price has been on a steroidal sprint ever since Apple became the world’s most valuable public company back in August, elbowing out long-time rival Microsoft from the tech pedestal. After the company announced its earnings for the first fiscal quarter of 2012, its share price picked even greater velocity, climbing 22% over the past three months, and sending its market cap gyrating above $650 billion. The past few days have seen its share price ascend to heart-stopping vertiginous heights, climbing over $700, in large part hopped up by the blockbusting sales of iPhone 5. Estimates say Apple would have sold between six and eight million units of iPhone5 in its first weekend on the shelves. So maddening has been the demand that over two million units sold out in the first 24 hours of its launch and they has been vanishing faster from shop shelves than would woolen sweaters from Antartica. Some analysts are predicting that the iPhone5 could eventually drive the price of Apple stock to a staggering $850 in the weeks to come. Apple’s stock price will have to to climb to $1067 for the company to hit a trillion dollars in market cap. If the success of its iPhones are an indicator, Apple can well keep marching ahead and sew up 30-60% of the mobile computing market, which seems like the easiset and fastest route for the company to touch the one trillion dollar milestone. If Apple becomes the first company on the planet to reach that goal, it would indeed be the most befitting tribute for its legendary former CEO and founder Steve Jobs.

on the hunt
Brazil could be its next big playground
China’s Lenovo Group, the world’s second-largest PC maker, will be buying out Brazil’s largest domestic PC manufacturer CCE. The deal is estimated around $150 million. Brazil is a promising consumer market where Lenovo will also be able to retail mobile phones and televisions as part of its growing product line. The company recently announced plans to build a $30 million factory there. The acquisition will also help Lenovo climb to third spot in PC sales in Brazil from the current seventh position. Many Chinese tech companies have set up base in Brazil like Foxconn, which has installed a local manufacturing facility to make phones and notebooks. Lenovo also plans to invest $100 million in research and development in its Brazilian facility over the next five years. The Brazilian technology market for smartphones, TVs, notebooks, PCs et al is worth roughly $124 billion. China continues to be Lenovo’s biggest market with 42% of sales coming from there, but due to slowing growth there, the company is rapidly scaling its operations in the fast growing and promising BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) markets.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
 
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
 
2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year
BBA Management Education
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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

YAHOO! INC.: QUESTIONING ITS PRESENT AND FUTURE

From misjudged partnerships to acquisitions of misfits, Yahoo! has done all to curdle its business model & jeopardise its future. Time is less & dollars are precious. Can Carol Bartz fight inevitability? by Steven P. Warner
 
Where Bartz lacks most is where Yahoo! continues to lose out to Google: online-advertising. Its revenues from search-based ads for Q2, 2010, was $331 million – a y-o-y fall of 8%. Credit Suisse estimates the revenue from this stream to dry-up further – a 9% y-o-y fall for FY2010. As Jason Helfstein of Oppenheimer tells B&E, “Yahoo! search continues to suffer from search monetisation issues. Yahoo! is the leader is display ads and is the #2 search player, but it has lost share in both businesses...” Translation: advertisers have started doubting Yahoo!’s competence as an effective web engine, thanks to its confusing mix of product pedigrees. And for this, Bartz (along with her predecessors) can take as much blame. Since 2007, the company has spent $2.81 billion in acquisitions, higher than its aggregate income of $2.70 billion – most of the targets proving wrong chords for its yodel. And the prized catches? Rivals.com, BlueLithium, BuzzTracker, Zimbra, FoxyTunes, Maven Networks, Inquisitor, Xoopit, Maktoob.com, citizensports.com, Associated content and Koprol. Yahoo! could have bought a stake in Facebook for $2.70 billion instead!

Bartz has to understand that Yahoo’!s search and mail platforms are its flagship revenue earners, and that she has to improve them through partnerships, the right partnerships. Its 10-year alliance with Microsoft Bing, which seems to be bringing little to Bartz’s table, is a lesson. Yahoo! expected annual earnings of $500 million from this arrangement. Four quarters later, benefits have totalled $164 million. As per Goldman Sachs, the reimbursements over the next four years will fall $630 million short of expectations. Since the deal, Bing’s US search engine market has grown by 4.30% to 12.70%, while that of Yahoo! declined by 0.70% to 18.90%.

We see a similar mistake in the making in Japan today, where Yahoo is #1 in search (57% market share). On July 30, 2010, it entered into a partnership with Google (the #2; 37% share). As per the deal, Yahoo! Japan will switch to Google’s search engine starting Q4, 2010, and will use Google’s online ad system. Yahoo! will also pass on online shopping and live ad-related auction data to Google. Market experts claim that the deal will give Google a literal 94% control over all ads in the world’s #3 search ads market. Google’s top brass is pleased. Yahoo!’s investors are not. Another year, another wrong partnership for Bartz.

Bartz has other obstacles to leap over, including an execution risk of turnaround efforts, pricing pressure on its network business, potential loss of network partners and increased opex due to competition. She can’t also try to simulate the diversification efforts of Google, Microsoft or Apple. These companies have the dollars and time. Yahoo! doesn’t. Experts around the world have started expecting less from Yahoo!, as James Mitchell of Goldman Sachs tells B&E, “We cut our future revenue estimates by about 5% on 2Q, 2010 performance, reducing our income estimates by 10-20%. Our new 2010E/ 2011E/ 2012E EPS are $0.92/ $1.12/ $1.30, down 3%/9%/5%.”

Bartz has to learn from both Google & Bing and scout for “profitable” revenue-sharing agreements with localised search engines like Baidu (China, with a 77% market share), Yandex (Russia, 94%), Seznam (Czech republic, 62.5%), Naver (South Korea, 61%) et al. Any other strategy, except a sell-out, would be fatal. [As we go to print, Bartz is planning to acquire Fwix, a local news feeds network.]


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Wednesday, July 25, 2012

“Google bullies Android Device Makers”

Florian Müller, Founder, FOSS Patents & Co-founder of Rival Networks

Munich (Germany)-based Florian Müller is an award-winning IPR activist with 25 years of software industry expertise spanning across different market segments and a variety of technical & commercial areas. Müller was perhaps amongst the first IPR experts to accuse Google of copying code from Oracle for its Android OS. He shares his opinions on the subject with B&E.

B&E: Many questions have been raised over copyright issues related to Android OS. How big are these problems for Google and the handset makers?
Floriam Müller (FM): They are a big problem for Google, but a far bigger one for its device makers. Most of the time it is the device makers who get sued, not Google. There are a few cases in which Google itself is named as a defendant, most notably Oracle’s lawsuit over seven patents and various copyrights. But for the most part it’s the device makers’ problem. Indirectly, that turns it into a problem for Google because if the intellectual property situation doesn’t come under control, some device makers may drop Android. Recently there was a rumor that Motorola is developing a mobile operating system of its own. There was some speculation that Motorola – which is being sued by Apple, Microsoft and a significant number of other companies for patent infringement – could be very concerned over the intellectual problems surrounding Android as well as Google’s heavy-handed control over Android.

B&E: You mentioned that most of the time, it is the device makers who get the stick in court. Could you explain this?
FM: By my count, 42 Android-related patent infringement suits have already been filed, and only two of them (Oracle and Skyhook) target Google exclusively, while the others name device makers as defendants. Most of the time it is just device makers being dragged to court.

B&E: With the cloud of lawsuits, can Google turn Android into a cash cow?
FM: In Google’s case, the cost of resolving all of the intellectual property issues Google faces could exceed the actual revenue opportunity, possibly even by far.

B&E: If patent claims against Android build up at this rate, what is the amount we are looking for that Google might have to pay up on order of the courts?
FM: It is very hard to estimate litigation costs, but the real strategic issue for Google won’t be one-time costs such as for litigation. They will mostly be concerned about per-unit royalties that make Android-based devices more expensive, hence less competitive.



 
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