Yesterday, I wrote this post regarding a Wall Street Journal article which harkened back to GeoCities, the very first online networking site, and discussed today's landscape in that product space.
I suppose the timing of Dennis Berman's piece was no accident, appearing, as it did, as Microsoft is in talks to buy up to 5% of Facebook for a reported $300-500MM.
Tuesday's Journal carried a front-page article describing Microsoft's many, failed attempts to break into online businesses, from browsers to ad placement businesses. As I wrote here, in May of last year, I think the only way Microsoft will realize consistently superior returns for its shareholders is to break itself up into three pieces, each focusing on one business: applications software, operating software, and internet-related businesses. As it stands now, and for some years, Microsoft's diversified structure has simply led the software giant to become a veritable Gulliver, tied down in competition with many, more nimble adversaries in each of the niches in which it does business.
According to the Journal article, this time around, Microsoft is pinning everything on one Brian McAndrews, an executive whom it acquired in the deal to buy aQuantive, Inc., an online ad company, for $6B.
Of course, as the article also details,
"Just 17 months ago Microsoft hired Steve Berkowitz, from Internet search company Ask.com, as a vice president in its online group. Much as Mr. McAndrews is seen today, Mr. Berkowitz was positioned as the outsider needed to lead a cultural change at a company strong on technology but short on experience in the advertising industry.
A lack of political chops in working within the huge company and a clash with a highly respected engineering manager have hampered Mr. Berkowitz, say people familiar with the matter. Several of Mr. Berkowitz's duties were recently ceded to Mr. McAndrews."
So, once more, Microsoft has thrown money at a business in which it lags, without really re-orienting the company to address the fundamental strategic shift such actions implicitly acknowledge.
As I've written before, I don't think Microsoft truly understands, nor is currently capable, of competing totally all-out to win in the online business arena. It's still a software company trying to re-ignite growth by viewing online as a distribution platform, rather than a do-or-die business.
It seems to me, per Mr. Berman's article, that Facebook is the big winner here. Microsoft will, as usual, pay up but cede control. It won't seriously change to address the new business. And Facebook will reap a huge payday simply for carrying Microsoft ads.
If there's any downside for Facebook, it would be these: it's not selling enough of itself while the premium is stratospheric, and; it may, as Yahoo did with its payments from ATT years ago, grow fat and lazy on the passive revenue stream, only to wake up in a few years behind its competitors.
Time will tell. However, I cannot help but think that, once again, Microsoft's unfocused, half-hearted attempts to 'beat Google,' simply to do so, will enrich third parties, further impoverish its own shareholders, and continue the software giant's slide into relative unimportance as a leader in the technology product/market.
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