6 business trends 2007: combining with care
Complicated partnerships are outdated: mergers and acquisitions are not necessarily thick soup
Once technical companies relied on their research and development units. Corning spent 16 years stubbornly researching fiber-optic cables before putting the product to market. Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Intel have long supported self-created ethics: “Sell what you invented last year, while your engineers are constantly looking for the next cash cow.”
But the products became more and more complex, and new business models began to force out the old ones, which made both the development and the release of their own products more and more risky. So tech companies began to form long-term alliances.
Example # 1: Wintel (Windows + Intel). Then, during the Internet boom, companies with crazy ambitions just bought themselves a place in new markets when promising technologies reached critical mass - like eBay bought PayPal.
But when some of these billion-dollar mergers collapsed (Terra and Lycos’s 12.5 billion transaction) or alliances were unable to pay dividends (eBay-Skype), the calculations changed. Today, labor-intensive formal activities of mergers and associations have ended, especially for large players who want to enter new markets. Now the characteristic move for smart companies is a quick, tactical agreement for filling promising niches or experiments with unoccupied market segments. Call it virtual mergers and acquisitions - deals without wars over spheres of influence, costly investment by bankers and unpleasant divorces.
')
Ahead of the whole planet
Apple: iPhone + Google Maps
Verizon: Wireless V Cast + youTube videos
Garmin: Mobile GPS services + Blackberry
Intel: Xeon processors + Solaris OS
In recent months, a whole bunch of temporary alliances, marketing agreements and strategic partnerships have emerged between Wired 40 companies operating in different markets. When Apple announced the iPhone in January, Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive and member of Apple's board of directors, appeared on stage with Steve Jobs. Why? Google Maps and Google search were included in the stylish device. And Schmidt made it clear that the Vulcan joint mind of big brains Apple with big brains Google is just beginning to act. “In reality, merging without merging is possible,” said Schmidt.
Later in January, Intel announced its support for the Sun Solaris operating system and its distribution to customers, while Sun said it would develop servers on Intel Xeon processors and encourage software vendors to increase the number of Solaris systems running on Intel hardware. The two companies, neighbors in Santa Clara, California, did not just exchange compliments. This is an alliance, the essence of which companies describe as “joint efforts in the areas of development, design and marketing“. Unlike Microsoft and Intel, however, this partnership is non-exclusive.
For creators of information resources and wireless service providers, this type of alliance means a lot. Creators get distribution channels for their own works, and providers get proprietary content that can help make decisions to undecided buyers. Both sides get a chance to experience in practice the game in new markets without opening their own sacral technologies.
Of course, acquisitions still happen. But wait for more than what happened in December, when Verizon and YouTube, a division of Google, signed a “strategic agreement to distribute mobile content.” Verizon buyers will access certain YouTube videos through their mobile phones. And last September, Garmin made a deal with BlackBerry under the terms of which Garmin Mobile, an application that provides cartographic services, information on fuel prices and traffic, will be available on certain models of BlackBerry devices.
These short-term collaborations can lead to amusing results. For example, the conservative automobile industry has experienced love at first sight with manufacturers of computer games, having decided to supply top cars for racing simulators. Last summer, Cadillac, the most seditious of all car companies, made a deal with Microsoft and Bizarre Creations to turn the V-Series cars into a downloadable extension to Project Gotham Racing 3. To solve similar problems in the past, General Motors would probably create its own huge internal a team to develop a strategy, and then the hard work of advertising departments would follow to achieve a result in the form of a significant increase in sales.
Problems in these new corporate alliances will be solved the same way they are solved in strong long-term families. During the presentation of the iPhone, the executive director of Google, Schmidt, suggested that the joint company Apple and Google could be called “Applegoo” (literally - apple viscous mass, approx. Lane). This first date on a weekend has every chance of becoming a long romance for life.
Daniel Gross, Wired 04/15/07
Once technical companies relied on their research and development units. Corning spent 16 years stubbornly researching fiber-optic cables before putting the product to market. Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Intel have long supported self-created ethics: “Sell what you invented last year, while your engineers are constantly looking for the next cash cow.”
But the products became more and more complex, and new business models began to force out the old ones, which made both the development and the release of their own products more and more risky. So tech companies began to form long-term alliances.
Example # 1: Wintel (Windows + Intel). Then, during the Internet boom, companies with crazy ambitions just bought themselves a place in new markets when promising technologies reached critical mass - like eBay bought PayPal.
But when some of these billion-dollar mergers collapsed (Terra and Lycos’s 12.5 billion transaction) or alliances were unable to pay dividends (eBay-Skype), the calculations changed. Today, labor-intensive formal activities of mergers and associations have ended, especially for large players who want to enter new markets. Now the characteristic move for smart companies is a quick, tactical agreement for filling promising niches or experiments with unoccupied market segments. Call it virtual mergers and acquisitions - deals without wars over spheres of influence, costly investment by bankers and unpleasant divorces.
')
Ahead of the whole planet
Apple: iPhone + Google Maps
Verizon: Wireless V Cast + youTube videos
Garmin: Mobile GPS services + Blackberry
Intel: Xeon processors + Solaris OS
In recent months, a whole bunch of temporary alliances, marketing agreements and strategic partnerships have emerged between Wired 40 companies operating in different markets. When Apple announced the iPhone in January, Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive and member of Apple's board of directors, appeared on stage with Steve Jobs. Why? Google Maps and Google search were included in the stylish device. And Schmidt made it clear that the Vulcan joint mind of big brains Apple with big brains Google is just beginning to act. “In reality, merging without merging is possible,” said Schmidt.
Later in January, Intel announced its support for the Sun Solaris operating system and its distribution to customers, while Sun said it would develop servers on Intel Xeon processors and encourage software vendors to increase the number of Solaris systems running on Intel hardware. The two companies, neighbors in Santa Clara, California, did not just exchange compliments. This is an alliance, the essence of which companies describe as “joint efforts in the areas of development, design and marketing“. Unlike Microsoft and Intel, however, this partnership is non-exclusive.
For creators of information resources and wireless service providers, this type of alliance means a lot. Creators get distribution channels for their own works, and providers get proprietary content that can help make decisions to undecided buyers. Both sides get a chance to experience in practice the game in new markets without opening their own sacral technologies.
Of course, acquisitions still happen. But wait for more than what happened in December, when Verizon and YouTube, a division of Google, signed a “strategic agreement to distribute mobile content.” Verizon buyers will access certain YouTube videos through their mobile phones. And last September, Garmin made a deal with BlackBerry under the terms of which Garmin Mobile, an application that provides cartographic services, information on fuel prices and traffic, will be available on certain models of BlackBerry devices.
These short-term collaborations can lead to amusing results. For example, the conservative automobile industry has experienced love at first sight with manufacturers of computer games, having decided to supply top cars for racing simulators. Last summer, Cadillac, the most seditious of all car companies, made a deal with Microsoft and Bizarre Creations to turn the V-Series cars into a downloadable extension to Project Gotham Racing 3. To solve similar problems in the past, General Motors would probably create its own huge internal a team to develop a strategy, and then the hard work of advertising departments would follow to achieve a result in the form of a significant increase in sales.
Problems in these new corporate alliances will be solved the same way they are solved in strong long-term families. During the presentation of the iPhone, the executive director of Google, Schmidt, suggested that the joint company Apple and Google could be called “Applegoo” (literally - apple viscous mass, approx. Lane). This first date on a weekend has every chance of becoming a long romance for life.
Daniel Gross, Wired 04/15/07
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/30974/
All Articles