What Apple, Google & Microsoft Have To Do In 2010

What Apple, Google & Microsoft Have To Do In 2010

Two things:

1) mobile

2) acquire

Economically I think 2010 could be a much stronger year than 2009. And 2009 was a fairly strong year if you look at the stock markets worldwide and some companies that paved the way. Let’s take a look.

Glass is half full if NASDAQ is any indicator. That’s how far the stock index is up this year, up 45%. In China the glass is even fuller, with the Shanghai index up 79% year to date. London is up 23%. Hong Kong 49%. Japan, 19%.

Who’s leading the charge? What’s their outlook for 2010?

Apple – Apple makes stuff people want to use that makes their lives more productive. It’s that simple. I’ve been in tech since 1984 and sold the first Apple computers back when nobody had a computer, or a reason for one. The centerpiece of Apple is the iPhone, essentially a mobile computer in your pocket. The platform and abundance of apps make iPhone a breakthrough product.

The weakness in Apple’s approach though is signing exclusive deals with one carrier per country. It leaves an opening for a rival to come in with a wannbe iPhone (like Android) and try and satisfy the wider market.

Imagine if Dell said you could only access the Web using one particular ISP. How many Dell PCs would it sell? Now imagine if Apple allowed any carrier to sell its phone, it would have sold 10 times more iPhones and locked out any competitor.

Apple is leaving a gap that Google will try and fill. Apple needs to make iPhone available to all carriers and lock in the market completely.

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Google – Google search has become the default for many people. It has become synonymous with search. Every other area Google has tried to become the market leader it has failed so far. It ends up acquiring market leaders such as YouTube (which still isn’t a great business to be in, video streaming is expensive). Google’s strength relies on search and the more it moves away from search the more rivals can come in and compete. Google Docs, etc. are small weapons against the Microsoft Office giant and necessary. As is Gmail for enterprise, another stab at Microsoft email solution Exchange.

But imagine if Google thought more like Wikipedia and became open source for everything. Not open source as in ‘adopt my open standard’ monkey drip.

What Google needs to do in 2010: Buy anything that moves in search, mobile and advertising. The venture firms aren’t investing so Google has a great shelf full of snappy startups to look at.

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Yahoo – Yahoo was the Google of 2000. Market cap over $150 billion, great name, cool vibe. Fun place to work. The ‘could do no wrong’ company. And then it slowly lost its lead, like putting on body fat by eating one candy bar a day and forgetting how you got fit.

Yahoo’s 10% of what it was then. The user base is still large but the “need to use” factor is low. Yahoo wasted a decade not acquiring anything that moved in Web, mobile and ads. Google even shopped itself to Yahoo very early on as the team didn’t want to build a company vs. a technology.

Yahoo in 2010 needs to buy startups and companies to help it scale and regain footing, especially in mobile, ads and commerce areas. It needs an aggressive deal team to swoop in and buy, buy, buy while things are cheap. Towards the end of 2010 startup valuations and deals will probably be more expensive. Buy early.

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Microsoft – The challenge for Microsoft is one of bureaucracy. How can a whale move like a shark? Too many people stirring the soup and not enough getting done. The problem is what I call the “residual” one. Once a company becomes a market leader in any area it sits back and thinks sales will continue forever, like an annuity. Upgrades to the installed base. And for 14 years that’s what happened, since Windows 95 and Office 95. That era is over and the new one is network based solutions. Streamlined, essential functions, not bloatware.

Microsoft in 2010: Bing is a good move and I’ve been using it some of the time. It has superior results in some areas vs. rivals. However, the search game is changing and Microsoft needs more of a “game changer” in the field to dislodge Google. Some of that are deals such as Yahoo, Facebook, etc. But, again, Microsoft needs to buy and be in every network area and scale search by a huge factor. Secret weapon: cash. Has to break out and truly go global in opportunity.

Facebook – the key for it in 2010 is going to be how does it shift from being “nice to have” to “need to have?” The firm claims 350 million registered users but how many could live without Facebook if it went away? What is the “utility” factor for Facebook? What is the “must use” factor? Light reading still, nothing to compel the average person to login. Surely it’s not to play raise a pig?

Ditto for Twitter. Company has lots of press but what is the “need to use” factor? Media companies love it and the self promotion angle is popular. Twitter’s goal is 1 billion users and it’s about 3% there…Even Google doesn’t have 1 billion users after 11 years and billions of dollars spent. Twitter still feels nebulous, unsure of its genus/species. What does it do for an encore after being on Oprah?
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Above and beyond any of the above, I think we’re going to see innovation from smaller companies on stage in 2010 and the bigger names in tech will be swooping in to get their edge…!