Finally the first one!! Microsoft vs. Accenture

I had resigned from Accenture sometime back and last friday (13th June) was my last day. In all this time, once I tell anybody that I am joining Microsoft, they would not ask why I am leaving Accenture or try me to convincing me otherwise. This was the case, even though I would have to move from Bangalore to Hyderabad. Not even one person. Not my labmates, my seniors, or even managers. Everybody said that it is a good move. Amazing!! I talked to other people from different walks of life.
But today, finally, my movers & packers came over for the survey of the house, and this guy asked from which company I am moving from. And once I told him that I used to work for Accenture, he was very disappointed. He was asking me all sort of weird questions as in why I am moving and going to Microsoft especially from Accenture. And then he went into details that they also work for Accenture and they move people from every part of India to Accenture location. He held Accenture in very high esteem as compared to other companies like Microsoft, Cisco, or IBM. Accenture's tag line "High Performance. Delivered." was written all over his face. Meeting him, makes you feel proud that you had worked for a marquee brand. Secondly, such cases make you realize that achieving 100% is just not possible. There is always somebody who will have an common-sense defying opinion. Lastly, these companies have been able to create brand value at the lower strata of the Indian society.
Does it really matter if these companies are American (by control) when the people feel it is their company? Maybe, given a few decades, the control of these companies will belong to employee dominant countries. For example, if in a typical MNC Company X, 25%-40% of its employee base are Indian. If all of the employees are involved in ESPP programs and the stock (by some fortunate circumstances) gets listed on the Indian stock exchange, then by the shear number of the employee base mass can make the Indians major shareholders, and if the number of employees in the company X is large. But, if the companies shareholding pattern defy geographies, then the shareholders assessment & voting will also defy the geographical boundaries. Or in other terms, the management choosen by the shareholders can come from any geography and not just the employee dominant geography which is the current trend in the industry.

Does Microsoft need Yahoo or Yahoo needs Microsoft??

Lately, I have been avidly following the merger of the century "Microsoft bidding for Yahoo" and failing to acquire because of price negotiation. Following that and not so great results quarter results from Microsoft, there were reports that Microsoft needs Yahoo. The reasons given were that Microsoft cash cow is drying up and it needs Yahoo to create credible presence on the internet. I tend to think otherwise and believe that Yahoo needs Microsoft. This merger would be more in benefit for Yahoo than for Microsoft.

What does Microsoft gain by acquiring Yahoo. There are four reasons, firstly the 16% of the digital advertising market. Secondly, the number of eyeballs yahoo commands, and thirdly the web infrastructure (such as Hadoop). Lastly, the engineers at Yahoo. Microsoft already commands 10% digital advertising market, and commands substantial eyeballs too. If Microsoft pulls its weight than it might not be still able to tackle "Google the internet giant" but it can definitely rival Yahoo. As far as infrastructure is concerned, Microsoft will be releasing its cloud (Ignite) platform. If it throws money than its platform might not be the best but it can deliver the goods. The last point is about engineers at Yahoo. Microsoft is what it is today just because of its engineers. Unfortunately, Microsoft has great engineers but their expertise is not internet based technologies and search engines. So, one the biggest assets of this merger would be acquiring the yahoo engineers. With that pool of people, Microsoft will be able to move much faster. So if I were to prioritize the benefits to Microsoft from this merger would be (a) Yahoo Engineers, (b) Eyeballs, (c) 16% digital advertising, and lastly (d) its web infrastructure.

What does Yahoo gain my going by this merger. Firstly, YAHOO GETS NEAR 70% PREMIUM over its fair valuation (before 30th Jan). Secondly, Yahoo does not have weight or cash to challenge Google or Microsoft. Yahoo has been or very soon will be relegated to the 2nd tier internet company comparable to AOL, at best. Microsoft with its offer brings a huge cash warchest to burn. Microsoft brings its near complete dominance in home and business user PC market. Its software is running on each and every computer in the world. Even though Yahoo engineers use FreeBSD on Apple Powerbook they use Microsoft Office for Mac. The sheer size of PC users and the leverage that creates for any company is phenomenal. If and when Microsoft is able to integrate its PC software with the internet then the success is assured. A mushroom user growth!! What Microsoft needs is one killer PC software to internet integration app along with integration SDK and the valuation of Microsoft is going to increase substantially. On the other hand, Google, AOL, Yahoo are dependent and restricted to the browser application. Their valuation can increase to a certain extent and will hit a glass ceiling sometime, not soon though. The PC software to Web integration would have been the key differential that yahoo could have bought.

Yahoo has been flirting with danger. It has been courting Google for digital advertising and has been sourcing the advertising from Google. Sure, it makes sense that Yahoo will be better able to target the revenues from its page. But, then what is Yahoo doing?? Just hosting webpages!! It is just a zillion times my site?? What will be your business model. Create the best pages for the users?? Why would I be interested in such a thing? Or are they banking on new apps such as Flickr and its search engine to drive the business model and source for cash flow would be google advertising? Or outsource the primary cash flow channel to its competitors. Does Yahoo think that with its few employees (as compared to Microsoft & Google) it will be able to dominate the killers apps on the internet? Somehow, I have a feeling with this option Yahoo has already accepted its fate and relegated its identity to lower valuation in longer time frame just because it is outsourcing its core business and does not have the manpower or cash to attract users by creating killer apps. 

Why is Microsoft playing desperate? Its comments on Yahoo merger were somehow left the stakeholders with jitters and feeling insecure. Moreover, the acquisition spree of Microsoft has been tremendous. It made multi billion dollar acquisitions like aQuantitative and Fast. And now it has not even gotten over the Yahoo hangover that it wants to court Facebook. It takes time to absorb any company and statistically large mergers fail. 

At the end of the day, both the companies face challenging time ahead. Microsoft has the strength to face the rough weather ahead where as yahoo does not have it and taking short term view to scuttle the merger. This merger is more a important for Yahoo than it is for Microsoft.

Is Google what it used to be??

Should putting a beta on a product for 2 years be acceptable. In my view, Noooo!! Why do we blame Microsoft if it realeases a product one year late if a product can exist in beta for 2 years??
The case in example, are most of the Google Products. For example, I like finance.google.com. But, though I like the product when is it going to come out of beta. If Google has stopped developing on it, then google should just pull the plug on it. Or is it that Google does not have the time to monetize the site, so why it has developed on this product??
Whatever is the case, I hate finance.google.com now. For years, I have wanted that

1. Indian & other country scrips on this site. But alas it would list only US scripts!! Okay, maybe india is not the most IT friendly country, but then there are european coutries.
   
2. They just changed the layout of the site (2 days back). This layout is worse than the previous layout. What does it say that Google UI is going down hill??
   
3. Then, I just dont understand this!! I simply just dont understand this!! Maybe I am stupid and somebody can take the pains and explain me this!! Everybody knows the currency conversion. Then why do I need to see finance.google.com always in Dollars???? How much does it take to do one multiplication/division to convert it to local currency and local time??? Any moron should be able to do it, right?
   

Yeah, Google has started taking the users for granted. They launch something, keep it in beta for years, dont develop anything on it either.

Resignation & empty head

Yeah, in the last post I was mentioning that my head is empty after resigning.
It did not last too long. Somebody needed some clarification on a particular task and that shook off all the feelings of resignation. At least it has pushed it to the back of the mind.

Anyway, back to earning my pay!!

Resignation & life thereafter

I just resigned from my current job in the morning.

Over the weekend I was thinking that so much has to be done in context of work. I had imagined that this week will also be a crazy week, full of meetings, lot of negotiation, and soothing some roughed feathers. But, today in the morning I resigned from the company and told a few close group of people. Having done that, I thought I will focus on the work that I had portrayed for myself, but now I wondering what do I have to do today. Suddenly, my brain is empty at least in context of work. I think it is just empty which rarely happens to me. Maybe, it is because the sentiments expressed by some people, maybe it is because I am thinking that I should just do some knowledge transfer and chill out. But also knowing myself I know that is not possible. Either I am involved or I am not!!

And maybe, I am aggressively wondering how people's behavior changes as they realize that I am leaving the firm? Or maybe it is just self realization (that has been there for some time is now concrete) that I will loose so many good friends that I was fortunate to have. Anyways, my head is surprisingly empty and needed to express it somewhere hence this blog.