
Microsoft’s 4 Real Problems that Gates, Nadella, and Ballmer Can’t Fix
I just finished the Vanity Fair piece on Gates, Ballmer, Nadella, and whether Microsoft can be rebooted to its former glory. It’s a good article, but it’s all about the past mistakes and there’s little about the future there. Mostly, it is the account of how two best friends (Gates and Ballmer) broke up over […]

MSFT loss, Changing the Rules of Engagement
What’s the world coming to? Microsoft lost money in the software business last quarter, the first loss in a decades long string of positive earnings from the world’s biggest software company. Sheesh! Yes, there were extenuating circumstances that you can read about here, but the loss signals the breadth and depth of the impact that […]

Microsoft Buys Enterprise Social Network Vendor Yammer for $1.2B
The much anticipated and highly rumored announcement finally hit the wires today. One of the biggest questions was where would the company reside in the Microsoft organization, a question that was also answered today, the Microsoft Office Division under Division President Kurt DelBene. Yammer will continue to be lead by founder / CEO David Sacks […]

Monday’s Musings: Mastering When and How High End Brands Should Use Daily Deal Sites Such As Groupon
Daily Deal Sites Claim To Bring New Customers Chicago, Illinois based Groupon, is a consumer oriented commerce site that brings consumers looking for the ultimate deal to businesses seeking new customer bases. Local based targeting, fun cheeky copy, and a reach in almost 600 cities powers the frenzy behind the “daily deals”. Customers pay upfront. […]

A Tale of Two Laptops
I try not to get too political on this blog, though if you follow me on Twitter where I tend to be a bit less reserved, you know I’m just a wee bit skeptical on this ’deflation’ thing. But after checking out today’s deal on Woot, I can see why Microsoft ($MSFT) and Hewlett-Packard ($HPQ) might […]

PL’s Forum Chicago Dispatch 2: Harley Davidson Revs Up Supplier Management and Procurement Skills
Earlier this week, Procurement Leaders’ Chicago Forum managed to attract a panel of high-profile CPOs: Dr. Volker Pyrtek, CPO, Deutsche Telecom; Tim McBride, CPO, MSFT; Michelle Kumbier, VP and GM, Materials Management and Corporate Quality, Harley D…

Tech in 2010 – Growth with a Quality Bias
Tech is poised for growth in 2010 but it’s increasingly looking like a much better year for the well-established and well-respected tech companies, and a challenging environment for the second-tire companies.

Should $RIMM sell?
Lively debate going on this morning regarding whether it’s time for $RIMM to find a buyer, as Dan Frommer argues that they have become an enterprise dinosaur in an increasingly consumer-driven market. So should they sell?
As I argued here recently, $GOOG is rapidly ascending and $AAPL has quickly become the leader in attention if not […]