About face

 

In about 326 b.C. Alexander the Great reached India after having created the mightiest empire to date. He had built that empire based in his will and determination together with the support of his military commanders in less than10 years since he succeeded his dad as King of Macedon.

After having overstretched his resources and capabilities beyond any conceivable limit, he had to face that India was too much, too complex, to far away, too powerful per se.

Alex did not realize this, and in fact he launched the invasion.

But his up-to-then-loyal commanders understood better their own limitations in front of India, and made their own U-turn and headed home.

This lack of support forced Alex to head back too… and in less than three years, he was actually dead.

His generals ripped the Empire, split is into fiefs and Macedon’s ruling on the mightiest empire on earth was over for ever.

The once almighty empire of RIM has reached India… and commanders supporting yesterday’s success are realizing that their India is too much for their Alex…

 

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At least they bark…

 

Casually seeing in a sidewalk or in a park a small dog standing up at a bigger one, actually challenging it with a lot of noisy barking is not something readers are unfamiliar to, we’d say…

So here we have the small dog standing up…

But…

Where dos the small dog go when the big dog blows back?

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Flies against windows

 

Springtime is a lovely season… flowers, trees, weather…

Insects and bugs pop up in Spring too, don’t they? So it is not really strange to see flies behind windows (precisely!) glasses bumping once and again their heads not realizing there is a thick glass barrier which prevents them from getting out.

“Bump”… “bump” again… and so it goes until some monstrous human ends up smashing them precisely against the barrier they could not overcome.

And here we have our Perspiration Champion once more bumping and bumping… and not really able to get out of the windows …

Even after trying, in a desperate move, to engage with his former fellow Elop at Nokia, still he bumps and bumps once, twice… and still not realizing what is going on.

Probably it is a matter of time that the fly swat in the hands of the market’s common sense will be wielded mercilessly… Hopefully by that time, Apple, Google, and even Palm (sorrysorrysorry, HP) are strong enough by themselves to prevent WWF declaring flies a protected species…

 

 

Luke 6:39 in the Bible

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Arrogance? Responsibility, we think

 

Toppers generally generate two diametrically opposite feelings. People either love them, or hate them.

Our worries come when we think that usually there are far more haters than lovers, when it comes to toppers. Or not? Human nature, they say… and for the good and the bad, we are humans. Even toppers are.

We have read and heard lots of comments that are perfectly valid samples of this. About successful companies, about successful people, about successful products… and all the negative comments come usually from those who would like to be part of whatever success we are talking about, by the way.

One of the most clear examples is the success story of Apple’s.

Just google “Apple Arrogance”, and your screen will be filled up with several pages of links about that supposed arrogance from Apple’s.

Now… how much of that arrogance is pure desire of being part of Apple’s success?

Let’s put a recent and practical example.

We could select any of the millions of occurrences of Steve Jobs presenting anything to God-knows-what-audience. But those are not new, driven by marketing masters, and have many conditioning facts that do not make them natural.

This week, Steve Jobs presented a project to the City Hall of Cupertino about what they would like to do regarding their new HQ.

 

This time it was not really about a new product, a new marketing message. This time it was not about technology. This time it was about one of the inhabitants in the town looking for a new home because his current one had run out of space.

And this guy was not looking for the best manor. His focus was on how his new manor would actually generate progress for the community. It was a win-win project. Or not?

Talking arrogance, we could highlight some specifics from Jobs’ presentation:

1. Can anyone imagine any CEO of any company remotely comparable to Apple taking the time and the passion to present the project to any City Hall in the country? We mean, can anyone visualize Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Stephen Elop, Leó Apotheker or Michael Dell spending time that way? Would this guys not be delegating the task to someone of their staff at least?

2. Can anyone imagine any of those biggies really caring about making sure, to the last detail, that they made the best-in-class working site besides their own personal office? Would they not delegate that task to someone of their staff at least?

3. Would any of these biggies really get a spontaneous applause just for the fact of appearing in the room? (Well, to be fair, we must consider we are talking America, and Americans are really fond of applauding… they even do when a plane lands…).

4. Can anyone imagine any of these biggies really caring about the impact and the benefit for the community?

Where’s the arrogance? Whatever it is that they might call it arrogance, we would rather call it responsibility. The responsibility on behalf of the community that could naturally be expected from the biggest tax-payer in it. The same responsibility that you would expect from a man towards his family, from a teacher towards his pupils, from a doctor towards his patients.

Don’t lose ground: Steve Jobs was not presenting in front of millionaires looking for investment opportunities. Nor was he talking in front of powerful press communicators that can make or break a company’s reputation; nor was he talking in front of politicians or celebrities, nor in front of brilliant academics.

He was simply talking to third line local politician apprentices (will all due respect to the Cupertino City Hall, but we honestly do not believe any of them will appear in any book of History any time soon. He was talking to mere civil servants… mere administrators of the town resources. Mere temporary employees of the community they represent.

And… sadly enough, these politicians had the guts to request “favors” in return of their approval of Jobs’ project!!!! Favors like free WIFI infrastructure or free iPads whatsoever.

Where’s the dang arrogance here? Who are this low-ranked civil servants to attempt this bargaining? For God’s sake… had they not realized the enormous milestone Jobs’ project can mean to their town to try to save a few hundred bucks each?

Fortunately for Cupertino, it looks that Jobs is going away with his plans. Unfortunately for him, it could very well be that he is not going to be there by 2015 to cut the ribbon…

 

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Faust 3.0, cleverly disguised.

 

So finally the eternal promise will make it to mere mortals… Oh, yes, Palm will finally put his tablet in the market, and make it available to mere mortals.

Palms tables, under Palm’s OS, will be sold starting this summer, at $499.

Cleverly disguised as HP’s, naturellement, as mortal sin was cleverly disguised as an apple (precisely!) when the Devil, cleverly disguised as a Snake, offered the fruit to Eve (“bite it, and you’ll be like God”)…

We can figure Léo Apotheker, cleverly disguised as Faust 3.0, handing on a tablet to a mortal sinner… (“buy it, and you’ll be like Jobs”)…

What makes us think that the apple in the logo should go to HP more than to Apple actually…

 

And… who is talking about the great loser? We mean, of course, Todd Bradley… SVP for Personal Systems Group, declining… against the rising star, Palm head, Rubinstein… Was Todd not a former CEO at Palm?

 

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Ballmers in the mist

 

Humans are not that far from apes, Charles Darwin said… so close apes are to humans, that they can even be trained to imitate human behaviour.

We are sure any reader might recall dozens of examples or jokes about this.

It is nice to see, however, that now readers may enjoy one more example… though, honestly, we cannot imagine Steve Jobs carrying Ballmer in his arms as Sigourney Weaver did with her trainee…

 

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Really!?

 

In the 17th Century, Sir Isaac Newton laid the foundations of Universal Gravitation in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Tradition tells us that he realized evidence after having been hit by a falling apple (precisely) while he was sitting beneath a tree. The obvious thing, Universal Gravitation, took millennia from mankind to be understood.

Archimedes of Syracuse, sometime in the third Century before Christ, suddenly realized the principles of buoyancy while having a bath. He had been for a long time trying to figure out how to calculate how much pure gold was contained in a crown, without melting it. And suddenly, inspiration hit him, and something evident was fully understood.

Copernicus as well realized the evidence of heliocentric cosmology in the 16th Century… and so we may find dozens of examples of obvious things realized after years or centuries of study.

All these guys would have been awarded Nobel Prizes should these have existed when they were alive.

Today we have discovered a new potential candidate for Nobel Prize awards in the figure of SAP co-CEO McDermott, who offers his company for alliance with HP.

Leaving aside his obvious comments, it’s the reading between the lines that catches our attention, as we see there a certain willingness to achieve that alliance. What certainly means there is some sort of motivation, and some benefit.

Probably still hurt by the not so old trial about Intellectual Property (IP) that ended in the biggest defeat in the industry, according to the result, SAP is still trying to inflict some kind of damage to its arch-enemy Oracle while granting some kind of “protection” for the future.

 

 

 

 

Facts:

Léo Apotheker served as CEO for SAP. Today, he still is CEO at HP.

SAP execs have moved to HP since Léo Apotheker, aka Faust 2.0, was hired as CEO at HP:

- Marge Breya, new General Manager for Software and Solutions at HP.

- Martin Homlish, new Chief Marketing Officer at HP.

- Bill Wohl, new Chief Communications Officer at HP.

Oracle owns Sun Microsystems, direct rival of HP.

Oracle is in quarrels both with HP and SAP.

Oracle hurt HP by hiring former HP CEO Mark Hurd after his scandalous exit from HP.

HP recently gave up Oracle’s Siebel CRM to move on to Salesforce.com’s CRM.

HP’s tradition to hire top execs from other companies and ending up acquiring, merging or absorbing them. Was not a certain Todd Bradley former CEO at Palm, now the jewel of the crown at HP wth all the WebOS buzz? (by the way… where have the HP pre-Palm smartphones gone?).

Some months ago, when SAP was fighting at court with Oracle, SAP’s market cap was at about $50B, HP was beyond $100B, and HP had plenty of cash to be in an even stronger position to force a take over. Today market caps of both companies are at parity… which may ease a “natural merger”…

We spoke about this, which seemed obvious, even when McDermott’s speech was totally different from what we read these days…

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Limbo Dance

 

Limbo dance is the art or ability of dancers to go below a bar that gets lower and lower without using hands or any other support than bare feet…

how low can you go?

It normally turns into a contest, and the winner, naturally, ends up being he or she who is able to go lowest without falling nor breaking his or her back.

We are starting to think that the guy with the “accent aigú” at HP has some fondness of limbo dancing, and is seriously willing to win sooner than later. So far, he has beaten his predecessor, Mark Hurd, and has gone beyond the lowest level (38) after the former fell in love with the Pontifex Maximus at the Oracle when Jodi said “no”.

At this moment common shares are traded below 36 and falling… in fact, there are trading at their loweest level in the last two years, at least.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=HPQ+Interactive#chart8:symbol=hpq;range=2y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

 

How low can you go in this limbo contest, mein Herr?

 

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Faust 2.1

 

Angels were created, according to Christian and Hebrew tradition, before men and women. Angels were far more perfect, and certainly less tied to human limitations.

However, in the beginning of times, one of them rose against his creator. Against God Himself.

He was the most beautiful of them all, and claiming his own merit based on that, he led nothing less than one third of the angels supporting his rebellion. He would not accept to bow down to mankind after having discovered God’s plan of salvation. He would not accept being second best to creatures not so perfect as him, to Sons and Daughters of God.

Men and women were not perfect, after all.

Now we have our own version of Faust dwelling into these troublesome and difficult waters… and moving one step ahead. After all, he is not unfamiliar to Hebrew traditions, we suppose.

He will not launch a product which is not perfect…

Leaving aside any definition of what perfect exactly means in his mind, should we understand that when WebOS is out there it will really be perfect? Will the tablets or smartphones that run there really achieve that?

Several million people all over the world may have something to say about that… and the same wrongly understood sense of pride which ultimately led Lucifer to rebellion floats in the atmosphere, as Satan’s shadow floated over Faust through Mephistopheles, according to the German legends that our dear 21st-Century Faust is probably not unaware of.

Lucifer is also know as The Fallen Angel… if he continues the trend of the stock value of the company he is leading, he will soon match the same “perfection” as the former.

 

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Selling bearskins

 

Years ago, when we started or professional career, a wise mentor of ours told us something which has been invariably true.

“The most difficult task in a company like this is selling”, said he, and added “but the second most difficult one is to get the invoices paid for. And you need both to succeed".

At that time we were not old enough to really understand the importance of this teaching, and we were happy juniors that took all that for granted, and presumed fair play end to end.

After so many years, it is still surprising to notice companies which seem not to have learnt from their elders… and even more surprising to note that one of these companies is based in a country whose traditions and culture specifically teach respect and appreciation to their elders, and to all the experience and knowledge they own.

Interesting to note that it has been in EMEA, in their overseas operation, that the issues have popped up precisely. What makes us think that Europe still has a lot to learn from the Far East, and eventually European culture still clashes with Asian.

Particularly shameful for Spaniards… who seem fond of selling bearskins far too easily.

 

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Faust 2.0

 

German culture and traditions are an intrinsic part of Europe’s History. As Europe may not be understood without Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, Tolstoi, Dostoievsky, Balzac, Macchiavelli, Dumas, Locke… it could not either without Goethe, one of whose latest works was the story about Faust.

This is the story of a deal… an agreement, if you will… or in modern language, a Strategic Alliance. Faust was given 24 years of unlimited happiness by Mephistopheles in exchange of his immortal soul for eternity.

Immortal souls are often represented in art like auras or halos around their owners… Immortal souls which constitute the essence of their owners, like state-of-the-art products constitute the souls of leading technology companies.

Recently one German-led company has allowed its German head to sell off a significant portion of its immortal soul, or halo, in exchange of having its new partner serving as exclusive agent to HP for certain Universal Communications (UC) solutions. Probably the same way as Mephistopheles was the agent of Faust to grant the latter the appropriate deliverables for his ultimate happiness.

We do not really know what is included in the definition of happiness for our new version of Faust, but in fact it has not proven any kind of happiness to HP shareholders so far, as much as Faust’s original happiness did not really mean any happiness at all to poor Gretchen.

And we do not know either for how long this so-called happiness will last… Despite the original legends stipulated 24 years, our personal bet is that Faust 2.0 may enjoy 24 months, or eventually 24 weeks…

 

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Back

 

We have been busy for a while… different reasons have kept our attention to matters other than our blog.

We are back. And we hope we can catch up quickly.Which is more, by the way, than what Big Ape and the Potion-maker could say, we think…

Stay tuned if you’d like.

The oracle at Compiegne

 

The even forces, at least on paper, that were standing in late 1939 at either sides of the Maginot Line, would not imagine that less than 6 months later, the initially outnumbered German army would inflict the French the worst defeat ever.

22 years earlier, Germany surrendered to the French. The French required the Germans to sign off the Armistice in a train wagon at Compiegne. The French kept the wagon as a monument to the French Victory and as well to the German Defeat. Fro the French, the German surrender of 1918 was a revenge to the German victories in the 1870s, and so it was carved on stone near the place where the train wagon was exhibited.

When in June 1940 the German flags were unfurled in Paris, the French High Command still had to formally sign its surrender, and they were called to do so at, precisely, Compiegne, and precisely in the same train wagon that the French had kept. Fro the German Leader, as important as the victory itself, the Germans were seeking revenge to the limit of humiliation. He instructed specifically his generals to set the ceremony that way. Anecdotally, the Germans made and intentional stop in front of the stone carving before the actual surrender signing.

We have witnessed recently the Oracle-SAP case verdict. It states that the latter has to pay the former the highest ever penalty in copyright infringement cases. Oracle’s victory sounds pretty much like the worst defeat ever inflicted to SAP.

It looks, however, like the Pontifex Maximus at the oracle is looking after his own Compiegne… Not really necessary, not fundamentally changing the lawsuit case, appearing more as a token gesture than a fundamental part of the trial, is this really something beyond a simple wish of humiliation?

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Legacy’s cost

 

“Number 2 is just the first one of the losers”, says a very famous motorbike racer who has been World Champion many times (still not retired) who loves being the fastest one.

This would be too radical a view when we have a look to any market, where there is not just one winner. It would actually be impossible under antitrust regulations.

However, the quote from Valentino Rossi (which is the biker’s name, as many bike fan’s might have guessed) can be understood in the context of what is currently going on in the smartphone market (and eventually in the tablet’s too), where old kings are running the serious risk of being phased out from their former positions.

Of course there can be space for them, and we actually believe there will always be, in fact. But it is really hard to accept being below second rank after past history dominance.

RIMM, Nokia, though still hitting very important volumes, might well be in that situation. The issue is the trend, clearly decaying, and the chance that they still base their current results on legacy. .

Legacy of corporate business and systems that have an enormous cost of change. Legacy of users who are provided a phone by their companies that might be used for personal purpose. Legacy from past experiences and resistance to adapt to new phones from previous ones.

But legacy has a deadline and does not last forever. History proves legacy is not enough, and costs empires. Ask the British about India, ask the French about Indochina, ask the Dutch about their Indies, or ask the Russians for the “xxxstan” republics. there is still a Britain, a France, Netherlands and Russia… but where did their empires go?

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The sound of silence

 

It is common to hear that no news equals good news… but it does not really seem the case for the guys at Microsoft regarding their mobile phone story.

Silence, as in that famous tune by Simon and Garfunkel, can be really loud, even more than the cheerful reporting when success is there, like it happened with Kinect.

Silence as well about the potential upgrades that are badly needed does not help either. When will the famous “cut & paste” basic feature show up?

The more they wait, the smaller chunk of the pie they’ll get, though they still have the potential benefit from the corporate and enterprise market, that to much extent has a Microsoft based IT. But even there, RIMM and Nokia can be too far it they keep on slowing down, or if they fail to move fast. Even the slowest of the slowest, that is, Palm, might move ahead of them if they ever start. Particularly if they deliver a confusing message to this segment.

The market does not wait for sound names and brands if they do not really deliver.

 

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Losers needed

 

Everybody likes a winner. In America, for example, “loser” is often used as an insult…

As well, and probably for the same reasons, everybody likes winning.

The problem with winners, however, is that to have a winner, you need losers. Winning is a relative situation. No losers mean no winners. When you win, you win against someone. Victory goes always at somebody else’s expense.

We have been wondering for a while about what is going between Oracle and HP. After the latest “victory” Oracle enjoyed, the well known trial against SAP for copyright infringement, which in fact involved indirectly HP through its current CEO Léo Apotheker, we have read about new aggressive arguments from Oracle’s Big Mouth Larry, aka the Pontifex Maximus at the oracle, targeting HP.

These last comments from the Pontifex indeed sound to us like a formal war declaration that finally comes up, after the de-facto war status so far, at least from the oracle’s side. Since the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by the latter, the once good partnership between Oracle and HP has degraded into a bitter relationship between the two companies that could mean in a closer relationship between HP and SAP, for example. SAP might really be all for it. As a matter of fact, we do believe this would be a logic step to take, and would certainly put a strong opponent in front of the Pontifex.

The Pontifex Maximus at the oracle, however, has a strong reputation after his manners, boastings and eventual bluffing. Not precisely an example of a New England British-like traditional gentleman, though effective and results-oriented. In fact, he is the real foundation of his company’s success. Personally, as well, he has fared pretty well, being considered the sixth richest man on earth. And the question remains open: Why HP in particular? What has this Pontifex Maximus against HP?

We do not have the full record of Oracle’s history, nor any insider information source. We don’t from HP either. But still, from the public information we might have had access to, we think we have an idea of what might be the reason.

Big Mouth Larry is probably no exception from the opening statements in this post. He loves winners, and he loves winning. Therefore, he sees any activity he steps into, anything he does, as a competition, as a battle, as a contest… that he ultimately has to win. To prove himself and the rest of the world he is a winner, and the world should love and admire him the same way he adores and admires himself.

Running his company is for him nothing different from any other kind of competition, and he takes it as something where he must win. He would not stand himself if he wouldn’t. Recall the way his PR is managing the fact that a cluster made of Sun Micro servers is the fastest one managing databases: They talk about this the same way they talk of the Oracle boat winning the America’s Cup.

And there is where the matter lies. To become a winner requires him to find a loser, Otherwise, there is no winner. So considering his options, there seem to be three possible opponents: Cisco, IBM, and HP. Cisco being the weakest, in reality it’s already behind Oracle.

Both IBM and HP are phenomenal references. IBM being the master company in the IT industry, a reference for decades, and HP being the largest IT company by revenue. But from the two, HP is weaker, compared to IBM, and certainly within range for Oracle’s artillery.

In other words, HP is a “beatable” foe in the eyes of Oracle, weak enough in certain areas, like software, and big enough for any victory on them to be regarded as brilliant. Beating HP would be a triumph the industry would recognize.

IBM would still be out of reach for Oracle. At least, farther than HP. And despite the Pontifex’ ultimate wish to beat them too, the guy is probably still intelligent enough to declare he does not intend to “tease them too much”. We do not think Oracle is not going after IBM because Big Mouth Larry likes IBM; we think he realizes he would probably not succeed if he tried, and wants not to appear as a loser should anybody think he wanted to fight IBM.

So the Pontifex is looking for losers to beat so he can feel recognition for his victories, so he can feel a winner. And HP’s problem with that is just being in range. That is, in our opinion, the underlying cause in the Pontifex’ fixation with HP. The risk now for the Pontifex, however is not really being able to make it. Having the speed record of database processing does not necessarily mean winning anything.

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It goes without saying

 

Predicting the future has always been one of the strongest wishes man has had throughout times. Either to benefit from anticipated information, or to prevent eventual bad news, it’s sort of a constant throughout human history.

History is therefore full of examples about predictions, some of which became true (probably by chance), many more of which turned out completely wrong.

One of the most recognized visionaries in the IT world is, no doubt, Steve Jobs at Apple. In fact, his leadership within that company made it possible to actually contribute to define the future of that industry, for the good or for the bad. Apple’s influence is actually tangible in our opinion.

No matter how much this influence might have been (which could be subject to debate depending on personal opinions), it seems not all Jobs’ opinions are exactly right, however. Even successful visionaries might not be completely right.

His widespread comment about mid-sized android tablets being DOA is not exactly what is happening, according to Samsung’s Galaxy tablet performance so far.

Which is not necessarily bad for Apple anyway. Competition is healthy for an industry development, we’d all probably agree.

However, as important in our opinion as what was explicitly said, it is what was not explicitly quoted in Jobs comment. Certainly not usual for Steve Jobs to criticize competition openly or so directly, his strong attack to Android-based tablets indicated his concern about its potential success. In other words, he could have been seeing what Android could achieve…

If he foresaw the results Androids (through Samsung) are apparently achieving so far, then he was not that bad a visionary at the end of the day… and a master of propaganda, the way he presented his forecast.

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Teenagers buy too

 

Political systems that determine what party holds government for a certain period of years are based on people’s votes. Every number of years, elections are set up, and the party that gets the higher number of votes holds government until next election.

If voting age starts at, say, 18, a significant portion of voters in elections happening in year 2020, for example, will include a lot of new voters who were under age in the previous polls. Let’s use the US as an example.

When presidential elections come up in 2012, all the people who are today from 16 to 19 will be able to vote for the first time in their lives. So Republicans or Democrats that prepare those elections should consider all these teenagers as prospect voters and make sure they buy in even before they become actual voters.

And here we got another smart move from Apple, according to the report here… If the information delivered in it is correct, it would be a fact that Apple is not only selling well to current customers, but as well paving the way for maintaining and/or increasing its share in the smartphone and tablet markets at least in the future. The tablet market, predicted to grow real fast, will be based on current customers, but new ones that today are just teenagers that will have resources to buy stuff in the coming years.

Maybe they have to wait long for 6-year-old kids to be real customers, but the same principle applies to teenagers that will have enough money, or that can convince mom and dad to get one iPad or iPhone for them next year, or in 2012.

It is not frequent, for example, to find teenagers longing for a regular mp3 player, a specific Android phone or even a Zune or a Windows Phone 7 phone. But they actually do for iPhones, iPods or iPads. Not necessarily because of games… but more because of all the rest of things you may do with it in a recognizably “cool” way.

Skating, for example, is not that much about moving a certain distance differently than just walking or running. Is about stepping on a fashionable board and doing weird movements on it and with it while managing to keep balance and not getting hurt. Same with tablets or smartphones. It is more about how you do things on them than the actual things you do, which could be performed in a standard laptop or netbook.

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The wrong apple

 

According to Christian tradition, Eve and Adam bit the apple from the Tree of Life and were expelled from The Garden of Eden for doing that.

That was long ago, however.

Today they could manage their bits with different apples, and mankind might fare better than it actually does. At least, it would be a more reliable world, according to this report.

More seriously, traditional PC makers like HP and Dell are losing ground in an aspect of PC business that really depends only on each of them: Service and Support. Not good news at all for a business who is losing mindshare in the market, running real fast towards (more) commoditization, and getting farther from better times.

 

 

Technorati Tags: apple store,pcworld,report,reliability,andam and eve,customer satisfaction,customer service,hp,dell

Wishing upon a star

 

Geppetto, the old toy maker from the Pinocchio tale, wished so much to have a son and has prayed so many times for it, that after having built his puppet, it was granted life. Lovely tale…

Lovely tale that came to our minds after learning that Microsoft might be seeing potential revenue in selling (licensing) their patents in smartphone technology.

It appears that the Big Ape has repeated so much his wish for “developers” that he finally has been turned into one of them. True that, after all, a software company is fundamentally a developer, but we are not that sure that the original idea was not to retain IP (Intellectual Property) for the core value of their software, and have other smaller companies developing stuff around that.

Video Games | | Steve Ballmer - developers remix

If one repeats something too many times, he might turn into that, it seems… | Nintendo Wii

Of course they can always keep on improving the patents… or making it for more patents… but others could too, and, isn’t this strategic shift revealing lack of confidence in their own product line?

Careful too about another aspect: Licensing IP via patents can be a big revenue stream, but it is too much of a one-shot business that would dry up relatively quickly, while the overall OS business through the expanding smartphone market would be more healthy and stable. Bad sign, in our opinion.

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