Steve Ballmer Presents Microsoft Cloud Strategy

Published February 21st, 2011 Under Conferences | Leave a Comment

Steve Ballmer made a presentation in Switzerland this week and I had the chance to be selected as an attendee for his conference. Its topic was the Cloud opportunities offered by Microsoft. His talk was followed by a more technical presentation on Azure by a Microsoft consultant. Read more

Eleven 2010 Conferences Videos Web Sites That You Could Explore to Be Smarter in 2011

Published January 11th, 2011 Under Conferences, Videos | Leave a Comment

We don’t have the time or the budget to go to all software development conferences around the world. Fortunately, more and more conferences offers now on the web videos of their past sessions. You will find here a selection of web sites that you can visit to improve your software development knowledge.

European Javas

If JavaOne was absorbed by OracleWorld, you can however still find some pure Java conferences like Jazoon held at the beginning of June in Zurich, Switzerland. I had the chance to be there and recommend you to check the “97 things every programmer should know” presentation by Kevin Henley. All Jazoon’s videos are hosted on Parleys.com where you could find other Java videos and you could also watch the Devoxx 2010 videos for 79 euros.
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JavaZone 2010 promotional video

Published June 25th, 2010 Under Humour | Leave a Comment

The very very very funny story of a young Java developer growing up in a .NET family.

http://jz10.java.no/java-4-ever-trailer.html

Microsoft Withdraws Proposal to Acquire Yahoo!

Published May 5th, 2008 Under News, Software Development | Leave a Comment

Microsoft Corp announced on May 3rd that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo!. “We continue to believe that our proposed acquisition made sense for Microsoft, Yahoo! and the market as a whole. Our goal in pursuing a combination with Yahoo! was to provide greater choice and innovation in the marketplace and create real value for our respective stockholders and employees,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo! at $31-per-share offer in February. Microsoft had then upped its bid to $33, but then withdrew from the talks when Yang asked for $37.

Many think that Yahoo! refused Microsoft offer because the company thinks that it could conclude a better deal with other partners. Yahoo has just tested an advertising partnership with Google. A tie-up with Google should help boost Yahoo’s operating performance in the near term, the company focusing only on content providing and no more on advertising management. But in the long term, it sounds like abandoning a very promising source of revenues to a competitor. Yahoo could also consider a deal with another Internet media and advertising major, such as Time Warner’s AOL.

The clear winner of this battle is Google, because the Microsoft-Yahoo! alliance could be the only current thread to its online advertising market dominance. It has to be said however that beyond the plain market share numbers, the integration of Yahoo! and Microsoft employees was considered less than easy.

Microsoft is left alone to find a substantial new growth engine. The company has done in these recent years a lot of “me-to” initiatives (XBox, Zune, Silverlight, MSN), trying to emulate the success of other companies, but it had never reached the success it was looking for, despite the vast amount of cash that it could invest in each new area. Its on-line division is currently loosing money.

If however Yahoo! doesn’t find rapidly a good strategic fit, Microsoft could still come back with a new offer. And as Yahoo! stock price could drop back to the $20 level; investors will watch it with a different eye.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/may08/05-03letter.mspx

What is Next for Yahoo! ?

Published February 12th, 2008 Under News | Leave a Comment

Yahoo! announced yesterday that “the Yahoo! Board of Directors has carefully reviewed Microsoft’s unsolicited proposal with Yahoo!’s management team and financial and legal advisors and has unanimously concluded that the proposal is not in the best interests of Yahoo! and our stockholders. After careful evaluation, the Board believes that Microsoft’s proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo! including our global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as our substantial unconsolidated investments. The Board of Directors is continually evaluating all of its strategic options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry environment and we remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all stockholders.”

What could be the different evolution from the current situation? There are three main solutions for Yahoo:
* looking for a higher Microsoft bid
* staying independent
* looking for another ally

It is true that Yahoo and Microsoft cultures are different and those Yahoo founders still own around 10% of the company. They are reluctant to turn over control to Microsoft in case of acquisition and we don’t see Steve Ballmer buying Yahoo without taking full control of it. The initial rejection is also part of the negotiation tactic for unsolicited proposals. There are many important institutional investors that own a large share of Yahoo’s capital and that will be happy to cash some money in uncertain market. This is even truer when Yahoo operational track record has not been very good these recent months. The cost cutting measures announced recently are not the sign that the company looks confident with its future strategy. Names for other allies like AOL have been mentioned in the press, but I don’t see any company that could significantly improve Yahoo’s Internet business. Only Microsoft and Yahoo combination could create today an important opposition to Google. My prediction is that either there will be an acquisition based on maybe better financial terms or Yahoo will try to continue to control its own future but will face a difficult 2008. Not only it will have to continue facing a strong Google opposition, but the overall advertising context should become negative with the slow-down of the US economy.

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