Microsoft's Competitive Strategy as I see it

Ten years ago, when Internet was booming, Netscape came up with the Netscape Navigator, Microsoft (MSFT) did too. Subsequently, MSFT killed Netscape by bundling its Internet explorer with its Windows O/S Licenses. History speaks, "The Anti-Trust Lawsuit that lasted for 10 years", which obviously hasn't harmed MSFT a bit, except for the fall in share prices for that period, a penalty to pay and a small change in the way it sold licenses. The major losers were the MSFT employees under the stock option plan, which MSFT managed to somehow mitigate, but the ultimate losers were the customers who did not have another choice for the net explorer as MSFT had succeeded in killing its rival Netscape. MSFT has been involved in a lot of such antitrust lawsuits and has a special cell to take care of such things, under its corporate governance structure. Today, 2005, when google is the search king, MSFT has now its own search engine MSN. And fortunately for MSFT, it is supposed to launch the newer version of its Windows named "LongHorn", scheduled for release in 2006, which would probably be bundled with the MSN Search Engine. The Interesting fact is that the MSN Search is tagged with "Encarta Encyclopedia Software", which gives answers to direct questions like, "Who won the 1994 Stanley Cup?". Encarta, tagged with MSN search bundled with the Longhorn, could take MSN's position in the search market way ahead. The present scenario of search market is: Google - 35%, Yahoo - 27.1% and MSN - 15.4% market share. MSFT's long-standing strategy has been the announcement of the release of newer versions/upgrades of its softwares even before the beta version is ready. This strategy actually helps MSFT retain its customers in between the version enhancement periods, in a way that the customers expect and wait for an enhanced version rather than switching to another branded promising software. The way MSFT has been strategizing its product releases and competitive practices, the seemingly interesting questions as a researcher are "What would be the repercussion of such bundling (Encarta+MSN Search bundled with Longhorn) again?", "What could ultimately happen to google in the coming years?", "Would there be another such lawsuit filed against MSFT in the near future?", "Would MSFT be again able to walk away with style without major scars?", like it did with most of its antitrust judgments, and ultimately killing its rival (google/yahoo). And at what cost, just the penalty for anti competitive practices... WILL MSFT GO BACK TO ITS OLD STRATEGIES IN THIS NEW ECONOMY? wait and watch...

Just in for first day

This is the first time in my life that i am writing any kind of a log. I felt the necessity for the log to understand patterns if any...and also to use this as an archive platform.. I had been recently reading business world when i came across a few technology updates..which go as follows: First the Magic Ink from Magink (Manufacturing partner with Mitsubishi for Mitsubishi Sign), an Israel based company now in US has developed an ink (a blend of organic molecules) that produces a paste consisting of tiny structures resembling the DNA helix. Each helix is about one micron long and responds in a predictable way to signals from a control grid, when applied on plastic or glass substrate. Under white light, the helixes normally look red. But send a certain signal from a computer to a specific grid junction, and the helixes there change shape slightly and turn blue. Other signals produce green, yellow, or other hues. The screen can be repainted 70 times a second -- double the speed for full-motion video -- or an image can be frozen for months without fading. This makes it possible for transmitting real time information in railway station displays, weather displays on the roads, bill boards any where while all are connected to some central systems. The messages on the billboards can be changed/manipulated with the help of wireless systems. Earlier systems used LED's (Light Emiting Diodes) and LCD for such interactive displays which are cubersome and not very interactive. Second..BBN of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has come up with and delivered a technology codenamed "Boomerang" where in it can tell the soldiers the direction, elevation and range of the sniper location by hearing the shock waves created by the rifel shot. This device was designed, developed and tested for realtime conditions in 66 days and the only objective was to use it for street patrol in wartime e.g like in Iraq. The Boomerang has a radio interference shield and will hear rifel shot shock waves, its mounted on a single van and all these can be done on the move. The further enhancement the agency is looking at is to integrate this sniper detection system with robotic guns which can take inputs from the device and fire back at the sniper locations. Ravi.