Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: “MSFT”) and Skype Global S.à r.l today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will acquire Skype, the leading Internet communications company, for $8.5 billion in cash from the investor group led by Silver Lake.

There will be a lot of talk about how much Skype is really worth. But central to the success of skype is something else, they are the largest P2P network around (the investor group bought back all the IP to the P2P network). The question is: If you had an enormous P2P network, with a client running all of the time, connecting every kind of computing device, what could you do with that?

The Future of Microsoft can’t be Windows. An OS is no longer the center of attention for the user. Users buy computers to get on the internet to communicate. If you can become the communication infrastructure between devices, you have the next best thing to an operating system.

Now the only question is how do you make money with that?

If I’m right, Microsoft will acquire dropbox.

It’s becoming increasingly accepted that there is real economic value to bringing a lot of smart and entrepreneurial people together in the same place. This can be tough to measure, unfortunately. Perhaps best proxy we have available is educational attainment – usually measured as the number of people in a particular place with bachelor’s degrees or higher, as reported by the Census Bureau.

http://blog.robpitingolo.org/2010/05/where-smart-people-live.html

I’m not sure that this is true, that you really need density, because density is not the way humans interact. We interact with networks of social contacts, now if you virtualize contacts or if you have a higher network density, that means less people but they are better connected you might be able to compensate a lower overall density.

Turns out, Apple’s run of incredible products (and growth) has been achieved with a staggeringly low R&D spend. How low? Apple only spent $4.6 billion on R&D over the past four years, while revenues soared from $25 billion to $43 billion.

In contrast, Microsoft spent 700% that amount on R&D during the same period, a whopping $31 billion, while growing at an anemic pace, despite flippant M&A.

I had to think of the classic Nielsen graph from 1998. The IT market now is struggling and has already changed dramatically in the last years, most of the innovation and succesful mass market products were based on user experience innovation.

The iPhone, the iPad, Microsoft Office 2007, Netbooks and Windows 7 are some examples.

The most fascinating company in this regard is Apple, the slimmest product line ever, combined with a razor sharp focus on user experience makes it insanely profitable.

Their low R&D spending is only working for them because they are focused on user experience. Microsoft is just learning their lesson, the upgrade from XP to Vista had no appeal for most users since the were already happy with XP… if a product is good enough it’s beyond the user experience transition point. To gain or hold onto market share a company has to deliver a better experience.

These are the slides I used for my ignite Munich Talk, I just added some text and some images.

Usually in the discussion ( e.g. yesterday) somebody is going to argue that only Apple can get away with this, but it always sounds like this would be a terrible mistake for other companies.

In fact Apple is probably the strongest social media example that exists, social media is not only about conversations between brands and users, it’s mostly about conversations between users that include your company or brand. So if you manage to start a conversation without being an active participant you have almost no reason to become a participant.

Imagine a cocktail party where everybody is talking about your new book, but nobody knows you are the author. Some are criticizing your book, but some others are defending it and they are doing this with a lot of enthusiasm.
You can learn a lot from this discussion, but you don’t need to engage in it and you certainly don’t have to inform everybody about your book.

Sometimes listening and watching is all that is needed for a succesful social media strategy.

Of course it doesn’t hurt to have some brand evangelists

But the hardware looks brilliant, so here is the challenge to Samsung, Sony, HTC, Asus, Acer, Dell, Lenovo and Google:  A gorgeous Android iPad in the next 6 months. Don’t forget to build a slower cheaper version.

the end of native apps

I don’t believe that the iPad threatens the openness of computing, it’s basically a web tablet and the web is open. Beside the interface I can’t see any advantage a native iPad app has compared to a web app. This is not a slow phone where access to things like geolocation or a little speed improvements can make a big difference. Without a camera I’m not even sure what advantage the picture app has compared to a picasa web app with a nicer interface.

Games certainly make a difference, but why would I use the iWork App instead of Google Docs with a better interface?

In a classic computing environment the answer would be power, but the iPad system is simpler not more powerful, it gives the user less power but simplifies his experience. Web Apps are pretty good at delivering a simple experience with better collaboration features.

There is no file system so web apps have no disadvantage there.
I think the iPad is the beginnig of the end for native applications.

Golf Mallorca