A few days ago my attention was caught by a message communicated via the verified Google Twitter account, that introduces the role of Google as an engine of economic growth: 

“We’re not just a search engine, we’re an engine of economic growth. Our U.S. economic impact in 2009 was $54 billion“ 

Introduction

On the official Google Blog you can read a related article, posted by Claire Hughes Johnson, Vice President, Global Online Sales @ Google. 

“This week is National Small Business Week, and Ross will be with me on Capitol Hill in Washington today to share his story and help unveil something that means a tremendous amount to me: a new report detailing, for the first time ever, Google’s economic impact in all 50 states.” 

Let me be clear that the financial number of $54 billion is pretty impressive, but still I find the first time ever part remarkable. I’m pretty sure that the quantification on a state level is the first time ever in a public available document. Google is a public traded company, so you should be able to find estimates of the economic impact in the annual reports. 

But what does the financial number of $54 billion, represent? If you download the Google’s Economic Impact -- United States, 2009 -- report, you can read that: 

“In the pages that follow, we describe Google’s economic impact across the U.S. This impact is reflected by the number of advertisers and website publishers in every state, the non–profits we provide with free advertising, and the real–life stories of small businesses that have benefited from using Google.” (Google’s Economic Impact, 2009, p.3) 

What I really like about the report, is that start-ups, entrepreneurs and small business are included in this report. I recall the statement of Professor Pieper on the title slide of the opening speech presentation of the vision on the future symposium: “Value creation, nothing else matters.” 

This task of value creation is perfectly suited for the entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, since entrepreneurship is an engine of the economy especially in the current hard economic times. Personally I think this is a highly interesting area to look into more detail.

Google Search, AdWords, AdSense and Google Grants

Google is well known for its search engine activities, but with regard to the economic impact let’s have a look at the business side where the money flows! In the the Google’s Economic Impact -- United States, 2009 -- report, you can read that: 

“Aside from being a well-known search engine, Google is also a successful advertising company. We make most of our revenue from the ads shown next to our search results, on our other websites and on the websites of our partners. Through these ad programs, we help many others make a living too. This booklet presents a conservative estimate of Google’s economic impact on businesses across the U.S. based on three core parts of our business: Google Search and AdWords, AdSense and Google Grants.” (Google’s Economic Impact, 2009, p.4) 

As you can see all three advertising related core parts of the Google business-side are closely tied to Google Search, which is the key resource (control point) in the Google Business Model. 

Google Adwords

The first advertising pillar the generates Google revenue is Google Adwords, that shows ads next to the search results based on the keywords that you have entered in the search field. In other words these are more or less “targeted” advertisements. 

Google AdSense

The second advertising pillar that contributes to Googles Economic Impact is Google AdSense. On the Google AdSense product page you can read the following description: 

“Google AdSense is a free program that enables website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads and earn.” 

Almost everyone I know in online publishing is using Google AdSense to some extent, since Google AdSense can place advertisements in: (1) content, (2) mobile, (3) search, and (4) feeds. In fact it is a mutual relationship, since Google needs websites and online publishers to sell advertisements, while online publishers can use Google AdSense at no costs, and start earning money. 

The most interesting part of Google AdSense is the multiple channel characteristic, each with different financial business (model) parameters. 

Google Grants

The third advertising pillar from that contributes to the Google revenue is Google Grants. For me personally this was a pillar I don’t know that well, however if you look at the description on the Google Grants website, it is nothing more than Google AdWords for non-profit organizations: 

“Google Grants is a unique in-kind donation program awarding free AdWords advertising to select charitable organizations. We support organizations sharing our philosophy of community service to help the world in areas such as science and technology, education, global public health, the environment, youth advocacy, and the arts.” 

Calculations of Google US Economic Impact

In addition the financial number of $54 billion as the total of Google’s US Economic Impact in 2009, it is interesting to have a look at the underlying calculations. 

You can find a pretty detailed description of the calculations in the Google’s Economic Impact -- United States, 2009 -- report, as shown in the picture above. (Google’s Economic Impact, 2009, p.6-7) Furthermore you can find a video of Claire Hughes Johnson, Vice President, Global Online Sales @ Google and Google Chief Economist, Hal Varian, who provides additional background information on the underlying calculations: 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiGn8HPGrMM

When I first watched the video, I heard the word estimates a few times, which raised some skepticism. Of course I do understand that it is  hard to make the calculations with a mathematical accuracy on two digits behind the comma, that are 110% reflecting the real world situation. However in  the Google’s Economic Impact -- United States, 2009 -- report (p. 7) you can read: 

“This is a first attempt to estimate the economic impact of Google’s core search and advertising business. In search and advertising, we’ve derived a conservative estimate of the impact of our tools on businesses, website publishers and non–profits, but we’ve left out such estimates as the cost savings for consumers now able to find the information they need more easily than before. We also have not estimated the economic impact our employees provide, or that of other major products like Google Maps and YouTube. So while we’re reasonably confident in our estimates, consider them a lower bound on Google’s true economic impact.” 

As you can read in the “what is not included” section  (Google’s Economic Impact, 2009, p.7) there are some limitations and constraints. For example the is purely focussed on the core search and advertising businesses. YouTube is excluded despite it has become the second largest search engine online, is another example. 

“For more information about our methodology and to download the two cited studies, please visit: http://www.google.com/economicimpact/methodology.html“ 

Final thoughts and overall conclusion

At first I think the Google’s Economic Impact -- United States, 2009 -- report is a highly interesting one, especially since there are some real-life examples included from each of the 50 states. I think both this report and the total economic impact, represent quite an amount of entrepreneurship.The report furthermore shows some core aspects of the Google business (model) side, where the search technology is an enabler for the advertising revenue model. 

However there are certainly also constraints and limitations in this report about Google’s Economic Impact. You could also phrase it differently: the report has a clear focus on search and advertising, and it is a first attempt with recommendations for further research. It would be interesting to do some math and compare the numbers from the Google’s Economic Impact 2009 report, with the Google Annual Report 2009. 

Last year I was fortunate to visit Microsoft TechNet_Live, an event for IT  Professionals and Technical Decision Makers, that started with a keynote “Join the New Efficiency” from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. If you have a look at section 1. and the included picture, you can see that Steve Ballmer is performing a similar exercise with the slide “IT More Critical Than Ever”: 

“Steve Ballmer describes the impact of the Microsoft Ecosystem in the Netherlands in terms of hard numbers:  for example jobs, revenues, new business opportunities and even as percentage of the  GDP.” 

It is not only Google, Microsoft or Apple who have a significant economic impact, but I think you can extend this reasoning and generalize that every (major) company has strategically build ecosystem that directly or indirectly includes other “surrounding” companies in the ecosystem. 

Google AdMob in Google’s Economic Impact 2010 report ?

Do you remember the article on the Official Google Blog, in which Google closed the acquisition of AdMob. Mobile Advertising has become a central part of the Google Advertising business with the AdMob acquisition. 

Combined with the growing global market-share of the open source Google Android mobile operating system, I’m really curious to find out what percentage of next year’s Google’s Economic Impact is generated from Mobile and Mobile advertising. …. and with these last thoughts I would like to finalize this article ! 

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Wednesday I was fortunate to be invited to the local Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 launch event in the Netherlands. As you can read in the press release “Microsoft Delivers the Future of Productivity With Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010“:

“Microsoft announced the worldwide availability of Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010, as well as Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010, for business customers worldwide.”

This has two implications: (1) the consumer launch and -availability will be later this year, and (2) Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010 are launched as well today, in addition to Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Due to my background in business administration these are both applications I use often, and I’m happy to see that with the 2010 release of Microsoft Office, -SharePoint, -Visio and -Project, the ribbon is available troughout the Microsoft Office Suite.

Introducing Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 within “the smart working better living” framework

The local Microsoft Office 2010 + SharePoint 2010 launch event starts with a presentation that briefly introduces the new products within the boundaries of “smart working better living” framework, which consist of three components:

1. Technology;
2. People;
3. Physical (location);

With the announcement of Microsoft Office 2010 + SharePoint 2010 the technology component is refreshed within the framework (that however has underlying relations with the other components). If you have watched the keynote you will hear Wolfje van Dijk, Strategist of KPN /Getronics refer to this framework as well.

The introduction to Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 furthermore addresses the underlying reasoning  and background information on devlivering the best productivity suite available on the market. These items are also part of the keynote below, and you will furthermore see some the productivity improvements demo-ed !

Stephen Elop, President, Microsoft Business Division, launches Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 in New York

The second part of the launch-event was following live the Microsoft 2010 and SharePoint 2010 launch keynote with Stephen Elop, President, Microsoft Business Division. Very nice to see Wolfje van Dijk, Strategist of the Dutch company KPN/Getronics kicking of the Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 product launch by telling the story of KPN/Getronics.

Steve Ballmer explained the Microsoft Ecosystem, the vision of Microsoft and The New Efficiency, during the keynote at TechNet_Live in the Netherlands last year, when Microsoft Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 were announced! In the introductary story of Wolfje van Dijk, Strategist of KPN / Getronics, you could hear that the new efficiency reasoning underlies their decision to roll out Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.

Microsoft Office 2010 – Numbers, Math & Financials

An interesting part of the Microsoft Office 2010 launch that matters from a business perspective is some of the math and financials. At first however I would like to look back at some impressive numbers of the Microsoft Office 2010 beta program:

“Microsoft’s Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 beta programs were the largest ever, with three times the number of participants compared with the Office 2007 beta program. As a result, 8.6 million people are already using Office 2010 and related products. In addition, more than 1,000 partners are already building solutions for the 2010 set of products.”

As part of the Microsoft Office 2010 beta programs you could sent feedback to Microsoft about improvements you wanted to see in their software. With 8.6 milion people already using Microsoft Office 2010 products you have a nice pool to user crowdsourcing techniques to improve your products.

Lets continue with the math and financials, that show similar calculations on for example return on investment (=ROI) like in The New Efficiency approach during the launch of Windows 7. Remark that the case study in the Windows 7 scenario was also from Getronics. The Microsoft Office 2010 productivity and efficiency improvements have been research by Forrester Consulting:

“A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, “The Total Economic Impact™ of Implementing Microsoft’s Integrated Office Productivity Platform,” May 2010,¹ evaluated the 2010 releases of Office, SharePoint, Exchange and Office Communications Server 2007 R2. The Forrester TEI model employs four fundamental elements including costs, benefits to the entire organization, flexibility and risk. Based on the customer interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework for a composite organization and found the ROI to be 301 percent with a payback period of 7.4 months after deployment. The study also found that the composite organization would see more than $13 million in savings over a three-year period and on average, a savings of more than two work weeks per year.”

The payback period of about 7 months is impressive in the current competitive landscape. I wonder however if this the optimum result or the average result of a few case studies. The latter approach would provide a more realistic result in my honest opinion. 

In this context I would furthermore like to recommend the Mary-Jo Foley article “Forrester: Google still a distant Office competitor” on the All About Microsoft ZDNet Blog, that provides some additional Forrester consulting insights and compares Google Docs and Microsoft Office.

Stories of Microsoft Partners implementing Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010

Stephen Elop, President of Microsoft Business Division, discusses the stories of a few close partners from all over the world, who already implemented Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 in their enterprises.

• Wolfje van Dijk, Strategist, KPN / Getronics;
• Stephen Wilson, Chief Information Officer, NSW Department of Education & Training;
• David Glenn, Director Enterprise Operations, Del Monte Foods;
• Mark Mastrianni, Manager Global Technology Aquisition & Licensing, General Electric;

I think this is a great approach to share real life practical stories, as a significant part of a product launch keynote. Especially since Microsoft Office is one of the company’s bestselling products. Very cool to see a great role of a Dutch company KPN/Getronics in here.

Microsoft Office 2010 Demotime with Chris Caposella, Sr. Vice President, Microsoft Business Division

Chris Caposella, Sr. Vice President, Microsoft Business Division, provides an excellent 20 minute demo that shows some of the new features and capabilities of Microsoft Office 2010, across the three-screens-and-the-cloud.

A.  Microsoft Outlook 2010

• Preview pane of your calendar, when a meeting request is sent to you;
• Someone can leave a voicemail to your inbox in Microsoft Outlook 2010, based on the great updates for Windows Phone in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010;
• Conversation view, gives you the ability to manage conversations in-stead of e-mails. The clean-up feature lets you easily delete the non-unique e-mails in conversations, providing focus on the information that matters;
• Quicksteps, reply with a meeting gives the ability to set-up a meeting with all people in a conversation with one single click;
• Mailtips, provide really helpfull information about the receivers or distribution lists before you have sent an e-mail. Via the mailtips it is really easy to change these items;
• Outlook Social Connector for Microsoft Outlook 2010, transforms Outlook 2010 into a social hub and connects with networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, or SharePoint inside the enterprise;

B.  Microsoft SharePoint 2010

• Sharepoint 2010, better work together via the social network inside the firewall of the enterprise, improved search scenarios on Sharepoint 2010, enhaced viewers inside the browser;
• SharePoint Workspace is the new name for Microsoft Groove and provides “offline use” of SharePoint data on your computer;

C.  Microsoft Excel 2010

• Sparklines in Excel 2010, give you the ability to create an in-cell-chart of specific data and avoides complex and hard to interpret graphs;
• Powerpivot in Excel 2010, facilitates easy sorting and filtering of huge datasets in mermory, that give instant results !
• Slicers in Excel 2010, create a visual dashboard of your powerpivot dataset and graph. You can easily user the slicers as filter, with instant updates of the powerpivot chart;

D.  Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

• Use of rich media like video in PowerPoint 2010 becomes really easy. Editting is really easy, without the need of third-party tools;
• Broadcast slideshows directly from within PowerPoint 2010, to easily share your slideshows online no matter if you use a browser, a pc or a Windows Phone with real-time updates across the three-screens-and-a-cloud;

E.  Microsoft Office 2010 Webapps

• Backstage view in Microsoft Office 2010, gives you enhanced capabilities for the file you are using and let’s you easily share, publish or print the specific file and even “purge” high definition video’s into a lower quality version that saves data;
• Microsoft Office 2010 Webapps provide enhanced Microsoft Office 2010 capabilities inside the browser with the same consistent interface and functions;

F.  Microsoft Office 2010 on Windows Phone

• Office Mobile 2010 applications for Windows Mobile 6.5 are directly available from Windows Marketplace for Mobile;
• Windows Phone 7 features the Office hub that facilitates notetaking via OneNote on your Windows Phone 7 device, creating Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents on your Windows Phone 7 device, or simply connect the Windows Phone 7 directly to the SharePoint 2010 environment;

While I used the Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus-, Microsoft Visio 2010- and Microsoft Project 2010 beta on my desktop and reviewed the Microsoft Office Mobile 2010 beta application for Windows Mobile 6.5 there are quite some features that I haven’t used yet. The demo-ed new features in Microsoft Excel 2010 like the Sparklines, Powerpivot and Slicers are simply brilliant improvements. I’m looking forward to the final version Microsoft Office 2010 Webapps as well, in addition to the recently announced Microsoft Docs for Facebook.

Concluding thoughts and wrap-up

It is not a big surprise that Microsoft Office is one of the best selling products in the Microsoft product portfolio. Microsoft has pushed a lot of new productivity and efficiency features into the new product design of  Microsoft Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010. 

Furthermore you can see the awesome results of the three-screens-and-a-cloud-strategy that directs Microsoft, specifically taylored to the Microsoft Office productivity- and efficiency scenario’s.

• Stephen Elop, President, Microsoft Business Division: “The productivity solutions delivered in the 2010 release of the Microsoft Office and SharePoint, help our customers, end-users and IT professionals to save, grow and innovate !”
• Chris Caposella, Sr. Vice President, Microsoft Business Division: “We strive to build the best productivity experience on your pc, phone, browser and deliver the cloud on your terms!”

I think these quotes clearly show the commitment and strategic goals of the Microsoft Business Division. I personally like the consistent user interface across the three-screens, for example with the introduction of the ribbon in Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010.

Windows Phone 7, Windows Mobile 6.5 and … Symbian S60, MeeGo ?

As a Windows Phone enthusiast I’m really looking forward to experience the Microsoft Office 2010 Mobile applications in the Office Hub on Windows Phone 7. I have already updated my Windows Phones (HTC HD2 and HTC Snap) to the Microsoft Office Mobile 2010 applications, that really foster huge improvements over the past mobile versions.

Who of you remembers ”Microsoft and Nokia form Global Alliance for Mobile Productivity Solutions” last year. I’m really curious to ind out if some of the Microsoft Office 2010 goodness will find its way on Nokia devices as well (in addition to Windows Phone). Nokia still ships an impressive ammount of phones, so I personally would expect such a strategic move within the Microsoft Office 2010 context, however this is pure speculation from my side.

SharePoint – Opportunities for the Ecosystem

I haven’t taken a deep-dive into the technology part of SharePoint, however I can understand the great business opportunities for the Microsoft Ecosystem that are supported with some impressive financial numbers.

“The SharePoint integration services opportunity for Microsoft partners and developers today is $5.6 billion and is expected to grow to $6.7 billion in 2011, according to Microsoft data.”

It is really a no brainer to see how Microsoft invests in new developments that drive the IT ecosystem and indirectly become the driver of economic growth, like you could see Steve Ballmer back-up with hard numbers during the TechNet_Live keynote.

Finally I don’t visit the headquarters of Microsoft Netherlands that often, so it was great to be there, experience the corporate culture, and most important I have met some awesome, creative and committed employees from different parts of the Microsoft organization. I would like to thank Microsoft Netherlands for inviting me to the Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 launch event.

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I was fortunate being invited to attend the highly succesful first edition of the Android Experience, an event that adresses the Android ecosystem from different perspectives.

In this article I will briefly summarize some of the highlights of Android Experience 2010 @ the Amsterdam Convention Factory.

On the MobilityMinded website I have written an extensive event report, inline with the following structure:

1. The importance of openness for innovation – Vincent Everts, trendwatcher;
2. The mobile future is bright and open, the impact of Android – Ed Achterberg, founder, CEO  and senior research analyst at Telecompaper;
3. The power of Android:  User experience is key – Mark Moons, Regional Director Benelux HTC;
4. Developing Apps: Doing business making money – Raimo van der Klein, Chief Exectutive Officer of Layar;
5. Banking with apps – David-Jan Janse, Manager of Rabo Mobile, Rabobank Netherlands;

The highlights of Android Experience 2010, in my personal opinion, are marked in itallic in the list structure above.

The mobile future is bright and open, the impact of Android – Ed Achterberg, founder, CEO  and senior research analyst at Telecompaper;

I really liked the objective scientific approach of Ed Achterberg, founder, CEO  and senior research analyst at Telecompaper. While some very interesting facts about the competitive mobile landscape were presented, Ed Achterberg also made some points that really make you think.

• The misuse of the term personal computer for a desktop computer at home, while you take your smartphone with you all the time. A smartphone, which has taken over a lot of computer capabilities, is probably the most personal electronic device. Also the impact of other devices, like the netbook, e-book readers and devices like the Apple iPad will change the landscape;
• Ed Achterberg presented a graph with the indexed results of the simplicity of device configuration at first use. Honestly I didn’t expect this measurements. However with the average age of the Dutch society rising, fast and easy configuration for the Joe Average end-user becomes critical, with increase of complexity among mobile electronic devices;
• The Android operating system has got a very explosive growth curve with rapid development cycles. From the launch of the HTC Dream, which was the first Android device several versions of the Android OS have been released, 1.5 , 1.6 , 2.0 , 2.1 and a variety of handset manufacturer customizations. The open source nature has driven the growth of the platform, but it also fragments to Android OS at a fast rate. An interesting question is if Google should step up and close the open source model a little. Ed Achterberg suggests that a more uniform quality and user exprience could help the Android OS.

Especially about this last bullet I had some discussion about, among mobile friends and on Twitter with for example JeanPaul Horn (Planet Android / iPhoneclub) and Arnoud Wokke (Tweakers). I’m also curious if and how Google tries to manage the Android Marketplace with an explosive growth of developed applications (indexing and categorizing applications vs. sending in new applications) ?

The power of Android:  User experience is key – Mark Moons, Regional Director Benelux HTC;

Mark Moons, Regional Director Benelux HTC, builds further on the market figures from the previous session of Ed Achterberg by sharing the HTC marketshares and the position of the Android OS in the Dutch mobile market.

A significant part of the session is about the Android ecosystem. Mark Moons explains the necessity of a healthy ecosystem in which the different players challenge each other and drive true innocation. In this light both open- and closed ecosystem are addressed, as well as the opportunity to educate end-users and create a competitive advantage for retailers.

The main conclusion is that an operating system with a healty ecosystem and an excellent user experience will be sustainable on the long term. According to Mark Moons, “Android will become the second operating system in the Netherlands within two years“.

Picture used with permission of Daphne Channa Horn, Independent Photographer

Developing Apps: Doing business making money – Raimo van der Klein, Chief Exectutive Officer of Layar;

Raimo van der Klein, Chief Exectutive Officer of Layar, is the fourth speaker on the Android Experience, and shares the challenges, opportunities and reconfigurations of business model and strategy in time of Layar.

Layar now aimes at becoming a platform (in contrast with the initial content focus) on top of which other developers can build their services, and in which Layar more or less takes care of a stable platform/environment, the distribution, the installed userbase and pre-installation on Android smartphones, for example the Samsung Galaxy S.

Raimo van der Klein explains the different business models and some specific business details in an interview with Vincent Everts (in Dutch and remark that Android World = Android Experience, Ed Achterberg is from Telecompaper not from Telecomworld)

THE FACTS

• Layar had 3-5 business models from the start about a year ago and now;
• Layar was one of five concepts the Layar team planned to do, however now there is fulltime focus on Layar only;
• 32 people are working on Layar;
• Layar is funded (with venture capital) for E2.5 milion euro;
• 2700 Layar developers worldwide;
• 450 Layars published already and 1700 Layars in development;

THE BUSINESS MODELS

1. Content Layars, payment for hosting;
2. Opening the platform, payment when content is published, for example with a monthly fee;
3. Analytics, premium payments for advanced analytics;
4. Currently Layar focusses on building and expanding the brand, distribution and things like the pre-installation deal with Samsung;

AND ALSO

• Games and tourists guides will become available in Layar in the near future (remark business model 2 in the list above);
• Currently Layar has more end-users on Android devices than on the Apple iPhone devices;
• The release of every Android device caused some change in the Layar code. Upcoming year about 90 handsets, and 2 people working fulltime on a stable Layar experience on all these devices;
• Looking at a collaboration with Nokia (Symbian, Meamo). Nokia is stil the largest handset manufacturer that ships 400 milion handset per year;
• Nokia plays the retail game very strong and pushing the distribution among stores;

Raimo van der Klein illustrates the Layar platform startegy with a new venture: TAB worldmedia, who connect augmented reality with outdoor advertising. I was fortunate to talk with Remco Vroom and Johannes la Poutre in the late afternoon, which was highly interesting.

At first I’m glad that Raimo van der Klein is willing to share these details on a business model level. It is very interesting, and these facts simply illustrate that business model innovation and the constant search for new strategic opportunities and exapnding competitive advantage are a necessity for every entrepreneur.

I’m curious if the Layar team used a business model design tool, like the business model canvas proposed by business model expert Alexander Osterwalder.

Final thoughts and wrap-up

I would like to compliment everyone who has been involved with the organization of the first edition of the Android Experience.  The great industrial atmosphere of the Amsterdam Convention Factory was excellent for a technology event like this.

In addition to the excellent presentations above, Android Experience was also about meeting old friends (developers, press, bloggers, handset manufacturers, distributors) and meeting new friends. During and after the Planet Android App Challenge 2010, I had a few drinks with Patrick de Laive of the Next Web. A great guy with an exceptional entrepreneurial drive.

Other examples of this creativity and entrepreneurship are my discussion with the guys from TAB Worldmedia, or the described presentation of Raimo van der Klein, Chief Exectutive Officer of Layar, and Koen Krijns of Hardware.info with the barcode scanning application for Android.

The conclusion is simple, first edition of the Android Experience was a huge success !!

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On March 18th I was able to attend an open VentureLab Twente training about entrepreneurial strategies with professor Michael Hitt.

In this article I will try to cover some of the highlights of the VentureLab Twente Open Training, without unraveling the complete details of the training, that was taylored at the entrepreneurs in the VentureLab program. :)

Generic Strategies – A startingpoint to develop your competitive strategy

Michael E. Porter, a Bishop William Lawrence University Professor and leading the Harvard Business School Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, described these three generic strategies in the book  Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analysing Industries and Competitors back in 1980.

While this startegic theory is already a few decades old, it still is a very valuable startingpoint for developing your own competitive strategy as an entrepreneur.

Professor Michael Hitt illustrates the generic strategies with an example of the history of priceline.com who developed a pattented reverse auction system. However due to the lack of adapting the competitive strategyto the changing environment and competitive landscape,  competition like Microsoft Expedia with an excellent skillset, knowledge and deep financial pockets, could neutralize the priceline.com competitive advantage  by developing an almost perfect imitation of the reverse auction system without violating the pattents.

How to gain a competitive advantage ?

According to Professor Hitt, Competitive Advantage can be defined as providing customers a product/service superior to that of competitors.

The reasoning to answer the question how to gain a competitive advantage folows the line of thinking presented in the article “Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage” by Jim Barney (published in the Journal of Management in 1991). Both internal- and external analysis can help to answer the question of how to gain a competitive advantage and help you to know more/be smarter about products, resources competition, markets, etc.

A possible answer to how to gain a competitive advantage (which covers just a part of the model) is having resources and capabilities that are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate or non-substitutable. Closely related is the strategic management of your resources in terms financial, human or social capital. Remark the article of Groen et. al (2002) “Creating and Justifying Research and Development Value: Scope, Scale, Skill and Social Networking of R&D” published in Creativity and Innovation Management.

Of course there is no single right answer to answer the question in the title of this paragraph. Some hints are provided above, but entrepreneurs need to develop their own strategy and build further upon their entrepreneurial alertness.

I would like to finalize this paragraph with a quote used by Professor Hitt, that really covers the dimensions of the term strategy. The quote is taken from the book The Art of War, a  Chinese military treatise that was written by Sun Tzu in the 6th century BC.

“If we know ourselves and know our enemy, we will win” (Sun Tzu, The Art of War)”

Overall thoughts and final conclusion

At first I would like to compliment the people of VentureLab Twente for bringing such excellent high quality speaker into the program, which reminds me of another great session on the topic of Effectuation with Professor Saras Sarasvathy,  Associate Professor at the Darden Graduate Business School at the University of Virginia.

You can really experience the exceptional quality of the speaker, Michael Hitt, and please have a look at his resume in the about section below. While during the session the term strategy and the underlying internal relations and external relations with different “actors” in the highly complex competitive landscape  are oversimplified, the content and knowledg provided give entrepreneurs of start-ups a real head-start resulting in their first competitive advantage.

During the cofee break I was fortunate to ask professor Hitt a question about the relation between strategy and business model, and the opportunity of conducting early experiments to aggregate knowledge about different variables that help a business to perform superior to competition. It was an awesome experience to have a short and open discussion about this topic, and hear the thoughts and insights from a worldclass strategic management expert !!

If you are interested in the topic of strategic management I would further recommend the video report of a session professor Michael Hitt at the University of Groningen on the topic “Strategy & Entrepreneurship through times of Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities”

About VentureLab Twente

“VentureLab Twente is a community of entrepreneurs, scientists, managers, and experts from industry and the financial world, brought together with one aim: assisting high-technology, high potential start-ups to develop and reach their full potential.”

About professor Michael A. Hitt

“Michael A. Hitt is a Distinguished Professor and holds the Joe B. Foster Chair in Business Leadership at Texas A&M University.

He has more than 260 publications including 26 co-authored or co-edited books. He has been recognized as one of the ten most cited scholars in management over a 25-year period in an article published in the 2008 volume of the Journal of Management.

A more extensive resume of professor Michael A. Hitt’s publications, books and activities can be found on the profile page on the Texas A&M University website, or the following PDF file.  ”

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Yesterday I received some interesting news about HTC, which for a change isn’t about one of their latest devices, like the sponsorship announcement of Team Columbia-HTC just before the start of the Tour de France 2009 earlier this year.

However HTC now teams-up with Wallpaper* and sponsors the Wallpaper* design awards 2010, as you can read on the Wallpaper* website. An intersting move since Wallpaper* isn’t about mobile technology, but about design interiors fashion art and lifestyle as you can read in the subtitle of the Wallpaper* logo.

Perhaps this collaboration isn’t as strange as it seem to be at first sight, since the common denominator is design and functionality. You all probably know examples like the eye catching design of the “chin” on the HTC Dream and HTC Hero devices, or HTC is the first to use capacitive screen technology on Windows Phones with the HTC HD2.

“We all enjoy a bit of flash and flamboyance now and then but we reserve our highest praise for design that does something truly useful and does it beautifully. We go ga-ga for elegant solutions and functional punch. HTC, world leaders in communications technology, are of a similar mind and operate under the banner ‘quietly brilliant’. Who better then to partner up with to present this year’s Readers’ Choice award, a celebration of the beautifully useful.”

The nominations for the HTC Reader’s Choice (Design) Awards 2010 are:

1. Bullfrog LED front bike lights by Knog;
2. Air Multiplier fan by Dyson;
3. W+W toilet and sink by Roca;
4. Up street furniture by Ewo and Norway Says;
5. The 3rd person archive book by artist John Stezaker;

This list clearly shows a great variety of products, which really makes it an interesting “competititon”. Furthermore it is very intersting to check out additional pictures and art in a gallery of the five nominations.

Concluding thoughts

In ordre to wrap this is a very interesting collaboration, and it might sound strange when you first read about it. However according to the press release the partnership expresses HTC’s focus on design and innovation.

Strategically it might even be an interesting opportunity for HTC to tap into a “new” network of fresh designers guided by great out-of-the box thinking and who are able to come-up with new designs.

If you are interested in design, which I am as a mechnical engineer, you should certainly check out the five nominations with the additional pictures and bring out your vote. I’m very curious which design will be the winner of the HTC Reader’s Choice Awards 2010 !!

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On October 21st 2009 student association Stress, from the faculty School of Management and Governance, organized a symposium with the central theme ”Vision on the Future“.

According to the symposium leaflet the goal is “to give you as a student an impression fo what the market will look like in five years. [...] most students will be looking for a job by that time [...]” In the concluding section Iwill evaluate if this goal has been met for me personally. Let’s kick-off quickly with the first part of the opening speech.

Opening speech by Professor Ir. Roel Pieper

In this first section I will discuss a few interesting topics from the opening speech of professor Ir. Roel Pieper. Professor Pieper starts his presentation with the following statement on the title slide: “Value creation, nothing else matters.”

This task of value creation is perfectly suited for the entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, since entrepreneurship is an engine of the economy especially in the current hard economic times.  

Every new idea has a hype cycle

The first topic Iwould like to hightly is the so called hype cycle. But what is a hype cycle ? This is a concept developed by Gartner Research in 1995, and a formal definition of the concept and an explenation of the different phases can be found on a special hype cycle section of the Gartner Research website.

“A Hype Cycle is a graphic representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies. Gartner has used Hype Cycles to characterize the over-enthusiasm or “hype” and subsequent disappointment that typically happens with the introduction of new technologies. [...]“

A hype cycle consists of five different phases:

1. Technology Trigger;
2. Peak of Inflated Expectations;
3. Trough of Disillusionment;
4. Slope of Enlightenment;
5. Plateau of Productivity;

Both in the “Gartner’s Hype Cycle Special Report for 2005” and the more recent press release “Gartner’s 2009 Hype Cycle Special Report Evaluates Maturity of 1,650 Technologies” give you some practical examples of using the hype cycle.

The triangle of value creation

The second topic I would like to discuss is the by Professor Pieper presented “triangle of value creation”. The triangle of value creation is a simple easy to use model, which can help you to understand some of the basic dynamics of a business (model) and the underlying relations.

Each variable in the triangle is relevent, and really understanding these variables and the relations is a huge advantage for the entrepreneur (in my personal opinion). Engineers are often trained to develop the best available technology on the market, but according to the triangle of value creation, technology only will not bring you success. Also if you just have the money and financials only, it won’t do it. If you have great market knowledge and market access only, it sometimes can work and result in success.

However the main overall idea of the triangle of value creation is that you clearly think about all the three key variables, the underlying relations, and a way to balance them (since each variable is relevant). With the triangle of value creation model you don’t think about just one aspect, and in my personal peception I can see clear links with the design of a business model, for example the design tools presented by Alexander Osterwalder.

Value stack analysis

Another important aspect in the process of value creation is a value stack analysis. The picture above gives a graphical representation of the general industry value chain, and let’s assume an entrepreneur has started the yellow company in the middle of the top row.

It is not hard to imagine that there is a distribution of the total value across the complete industry value chain (from left to right), and therefore for the entrepreneur it is important to understand which part of the total value stack is for his yellow company. Another example is for example a manufacturing company which delivers parts of a certain end-product that is directly sold to a customer. In this case it is important to understand what value the parts represent of the total value of the end-product.

In the value stack analysis you should also think about aspects like core ip and patents, brand value, distribution network or the power of purchasing.

Creating value top 10 !

The last topic I wanted to share  from the opening speech of professor Roel Pieper is an overview of one of his slides, the so called creating value top 10 !!

1. Accept that you win and lose;
2. Leadership- responsibility – commitment;
3. People quality;
4. Milestones;
5. Who wins and who loses;
6. The composition of the market;
7. Multi-sourcing and -partners;
8. Communication website;
9. Communication – verbal pitch;
10. Scalability – value triangle – value stack;

While this top 10 consists of some great items to think about, you might have noticed that in the sections above the last point is almost completely outlined. With the creating value top 10, I would like to end the opening speech section, and provide you with an idea of two workshops (out of four), which I attended in the afternoon program of the vision on the future symposium.

Workshop 1 – A close look at the IT (Structures) @ Centre for Information and Communication Technology, part of the Dutch Tax Administration

This workshop is organized by Saco Bekius of the Centre for Information and Communication Technology and Professor Dr. Jos van Hillegersberg from University of Twente. I don’t have a formal education in computer science and information technology, so with events like this symposium I always try to broaden my horizon and move out of your own professional field.

On the website of the Dutch Tax Administration you can read the following description of the Centre for Information and Communication Technology:

“The approximately 3,000 staff members of the Centre for Information and Communication Technology (B/CICT) in Apeldoorn develop, manage and monitor the entire computer system used by the more than 30,000 staff members of the Tax and Customs Administration. This makes B/CICT one of the largest internal ICT organisations in the Netherlands.”

It isn’t a big surprise that this part of the Dutch Tax Administration is of vital importance of the whole Tax Administration organization. In other words you could call it the backbone of the organization, which therefore makes it very interesting to discuss.

The impact of e-service trends @ the Dutch Tax Administration

• Key e-services trends;
• Current services and organization of the Dutch Tax Administration;

In this first part of the workshop the attendees should brainstorm and engage in an open discussion on how e-services trends will have an impact on the Dutch Tax Administration. What should the Dutch Tax Administration of the future look like ?

The importance of organizational and IT architecture @ the Dutch Tax Administraion

• Architecture modelling and legacy architecture transformation;
• Current organizational- and IT architecture of the Dutch Tax Administraion;

The second part also consited of an open discussion on what should happen in organization, processes and IT to achieve the Dutch Tax Administration of the future. Due to the wide variety of professional- and educational backgrounds of the attendees these discussions were great, interesting and highly valuable.

Personally I learned some more aspectes about e-services trends and IT architecture as well as legacy architecture transformations and their organizational impact.

Workshop 2 – International Risk Management @ Storck  Aerospace

This workshop is organized by Joanne Geurts, Floor Richters & Robert Imhof of Storck Aerospace and Professor Dr. Rez Kabir from University of Twente.

On the Storck Aerospace website, you can find a formal description from this interesting business unit of Storck B.V., which will be producing parts for the Joint Strike Fighter:

“Stork Aerospace designs, develops and produces advanced structures and electrical systems for the aerospace and defence industry and supplies integrated maintenance services and products to aircraft owners and operators. The Aerospace group carries out these activities with 3,532 employees.”

It won’t be hard to imagine that production of parts of a multimillion euro fighter plane, involves accurate management of high-end product specifications, safety regulations, challenges for manufacturing and tracebility. In the light of these aspects this workshop consists of a business case where you need to assess the risks of setting up a factory in Chili, Soutch America.

The used method for analyzing the risks is the “Gross Hazard Analysis“, which I will discuss step by step below:

Step 1  – Determine scope

Step 2A  – Identify risk

Is the risk caused by human, technical failure, or nature ?

Step 2B  – Asses risk

It is very important to understand the difference between danger and risk, since these are two very different concepts. Danger = potential treat for people or business and is not quanitified !

Risk = severence * probability (quantifiable !!)  with severence:  I – catastrophic, II – critical, III, IV and with probability: A, B, C, D, E, F

Step 3 -  Determine the Risk Profile

With help of the graph above you can create a risk profile, which consists of the several indiviual risks you thought about in the previous steps. This Risk profile gives you an overview of the portfolio of different individual risks. A simple rule or constraint is that all risks above the blue line need to be mitigated. In other words the risk profile is higher if many of the individual risks are above the blue line.

Step 4 -  Making a decision about the risk

In this final step you need to make a decision to (1) eliminate, (2) reduce, (3) transfer or (4) accept the risk(s).

In addition to the application of the Gross Hazard Analysis in a Storck Business Case, Professor Dr. Rez. Kabir held an excellent presentation about International Financial Risk Management. This was a great complementary, but very insightful presentation (certainly in the current economic times). Professor Dr. Rez Kabir discussed a well tought-out financial risk analysis of Storck Aerospace based on the publically available information (like press releases and annual year reports).

Concluding thoughts and wrap-up 

At first I would like to compliment the student association Stress with the excellent organization of the Vision on the future symposium. At first a highly interesting and valuable opening speech, which addressed both scientific theoretical- and business practical aspects.

Second the organizers of the Vision on the future symposium were able to collaborate with highly interesting companies to participate in the workshops. You could only choose two out of four workshops to attend, so I missed the workshop about Logistics @ Schiphol Group (however have done a Balance Score Card case about the Schiphol Group in the past) and Human Resource Management @ Kock.

Furthermore the workshops during events like a symposium are great opportunities to broaden your horizon and the challenge is to show an excellent performance in a different professional- or education field. Despite I don’t have a formal educational background in Computer Science and IT, both the background as a Mechnical Engineer and Business Administration (Business Model Innovation & Technical Innovation) helped to add real value to the discussions. In the second workshop I could see some parallels of underlying concepts of International Risk Management and Failure Mode and Effects Analysis which I knew from my Mechnical Engineering background.

In the traditional plenary session all the different topics of opening speech and workshops are connected, where students needed to share their experiences and knowledge from the particular workshop(s) they attended. After a final round of good discussions, the closing words of the Vision on the future symposium chairman and a drink, I could look back at a highly interesting day !!

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Back in June 2009 I visited the “Business Model Innovation Knowledge Fair and Book Launch” in Amsterdam, where a first (prototype)version of the Business Model Generation (hand)book was launched. Furthermore I was able to meet the book-team as well as over 100 business model practitioners from 13 different countries there.

Last week I was very excited, since the team of the Business Model Generation (hand)book announced that the final version of the book was shipped. So I couldn’t wait for the mailman to deliver the book, and I almost ripped it from his hands to quickly open the box and have a first look at the final result.

The picture above shows an amazing front cover, while the content is even more high quality and very interesting (despite that I have seen the evolvement of the different book chunks). For the people who are not familiar with Business Models and Business Model Innovation I will provide the definition provided in the book preview:

“A business model describes the rational of how an organization creates, delivers and captures value“  [ref01,  ref03]

One of the problems that Alexander Osterwalder describes in an article of the Dutch periodical Management Team (Issue 16, October  2nd 2009, p.p. 28-31) is that in the same company people can have a different perception of the business model often dependant on their background or education. 

Therefore the Business Model Canvas, shown in the picture above,  is an important tool. It is an instrument, structured around 9 building blocks, to open a cross functional dicussion and come to an agreement to one or more of the company’s business models. And more improtant it creates a common language for mutual understanding and discussion. The Business Model Canvans consists of: (1) Customer Segments, (2) Value Propositions, (3) Channels, (4) Customer Relationships, (5) Revenue Streams, (6) Key Resoures, (7) Key Activities, (8) Key Partnerships, (9) Cost Structure. Now that you have an idea about the core of the book, lets extend it in different ways with a preview below. 

Preview of Business Model Generation (hand)Book

In order to give you both a preview- and a complete idea of the contents of the Business Mobile Generation (hand)book, the picture below provides a visual overview of the table of contents. You not only see the different chapters, but also the underlying relationships.

The above described Business Model Canvas is the central core element of the book, which is fully covered in the preview of the Business Model Generation book below. While from the other book chapters you will find a sneak preview.

Pricing and availability

With permission and the open character of the Business Model Innovation Hub, I was allowed to share the following information about pricing and availability of the Business Model Generation (hand)book:

About the Business Mobel Generation Team

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Constanze Roman -a Community PM with the Windows Mobile Community Team- has published an interesting article on the Windows Mobile Team blog with the title:  “Ready to Port your iPhone App to Windows Mobile?“

Although I’m not a developer,  nor having a formal Information Technology & Computer Science education, I would like to have a detailed look at this cool case study from a business administration- and entrepreneurial perspective. It might be a good starting point for discussion, so comments are welcome.

Apple Appstore, Android Marketplace and Windows Marketplace for Mobile 

Let’s start builing this case with some details and background information about the Apple Appstore from Wikipedia:

“The App Store is a service for the iPhone and iPod Touch created by Apple Inc. which allows users to browse and download applications from the iTunes Store that were developed with the iPhone SDK and published through Apple.

And furthermore some details about the time frame:

“The App Store opened early in the morning on July 10, 2008 via an update to iTunes. The billionth application was downloaded on April 23, 2009.”

These numbers clearly show that since the launch of the first generation iPhone in June 2007 the mobile marketspace is disrupted with the result of high growth both for iPhone sales and as a result iPhone Application sales. Developers have massively addapted the platform, and simply move where the sales volumes are, right ?

In October 2008 Google hit the market with a similar concept called the Android Marketplace, and because of the Java-kind programming language the developers embraced this platform as well, and currently there are quite some freeware applications in the Android Marketplace. The Android platform however is in the early stage of it’s developments, but thanks to developments of HTC the platform has made some large steps in becoming mature.

Microsoft is currently working hard on the Windows Marketplace for Mobile and probably gains momentum from the Windows Mobile 6.5 release. In a sequence of articles on www.mobilityminded.com I have covered quite some details of the concept and the implementation of the payment mechanism: 

1. Windows Marketplace for Mobile coming to Windows Mobile 6.1 and 6.0
2. Windows Marketplace for Mobile – Payments and Operators
3. Microsoft Surface table to win in developer contest: The Race to Market Challenge 

In the articles you can read some concluding facts as well:

“This means that developers will have an opportunity to reach more than 30 million Windows Mobile devices. ”

This means that Apple iPhone developers have the opportunity to enter a second and third market, and scale their businesses significantly. As stated in the introduction, a real case study is conduced in collaboration with a developer for the application “Amplitude”.

 Amplitude – A real(istic) case study !

On the gripwire website you can find the following product description of Amplitude (for iPhone):

“Amplitude is a fun application that enables users to amplify audio from their surroundings. By enabling users to adjust the volume/gain on their microphones, Gripwire has turned the iPhone into a high-tech listening device capable of picking up the sound of animal heartbeats, distant conversations, and a host of other sounds that you might never have noticed.”

Very cool that for the case study not a kind of fictive application is chosen, but an existing application from a “real” software-development-firm. Constanze Roman -a Community PM with the Windows Mobile Community Team- explained why Amplitude is an interesting application to use for the case study.

“Amplitude is well suited for a porting project because it combines a rich user interface with features such as alpha blending and transparency with specific audio and sound requirements, which makes it challenging to port the app but, at the same time, provides a number of helpful learning experiences.”

However I have seen quite some interesting applications on the Apple iPhone where the build-in g-sensor is used. This could also be an additional challenge in the porting process, since these hardware parts become also very common in Windows Phones. However the Amplitude application covers already quite some parts of the spectrum.

Minimizing the learning curve by solid documentation ? 

The article ”Ready to Port your iPhone App to Windows Mobile?” already describes to broad overview of the research project, but on the MSDN network the whole case study is well documented in the article:  “Porting the Amplitude Application from the iPhone to a Windows Mobile Device – a Case Study“

I think the article can be of great help since it offers a starting point, and it provides bits of code which could be helpful while porting your own application. However each application has its own structure and probably each developer has an own style and structure of coding, so a unversal approach probably is not applicable. Every application will have it’s own challenges and it’s up to the developer to tackle these. I also expect not all the developers to document their findings and put these online. 

“The large development community, both within Microsoft and outside, and the various whitepapers, blogs, virtual labs, websites, and other online documentation, offered a wealth of information that provided direction and greatly facilitated problem resolution. The only real challenge was assuring total portability between screens, and that was assured by utilizing the concept of aspect ratios.” 

The documentation is a good point, but in the MSDN article you can read there are some challenges due to the differences in platform requirements as well.

Wrap-up and idea’s

Let’s start by having a look at the main conclusions from the research:

“Porting an iPhone application proved both surprising and not nearly as challenging as had been expected. Once the frameworks and library decisions were finalized, the effort to port code essentially consisted of moving Objective C to C#, both of which are Java-like languages.”

Remark my introductary comment that I don’t have a formal Computer Science education, so I need to trust the developer’s word. I think that the available documentation helps, and it can even significantly decrease the learning curve.

Mary-Jo Foley -Editor at ZDNet All About Microsoft- described earlier this year a kind of chassis/reference concept in her article: “A Microsoft smartphone: No. A Microsoft phone chassis: Yes“:

“Think of what Microsoft is doing in phones as similar to what it has done in the PC market. Microsoft often develops reference implementations and encourages PC makers that they build PCs that adhere to a set of reference guidelines/specifications.”

To me it sounds a little like concepts I know from Mechanical Engineering: process- and product-standardization, modular architectures and -designs. These concepts, if there is some part of truth in it, could furthermore decrease the learning curve for developers since the standards are very clear and outlined (comperable with DIN-norms in Mechnical Engineering).

“Thompson’s case study shows, that even though there are some challenges in porting a multimedia-rich application from the iPhone to Windows Mobile, the task can be accomplished, especially with the help of developer-friendly tools like Visual Studio, the richness of community content that is available for Windows Mobile, and last but not least by planning the project ahead and doing all the necessary research in advance.”

I would like to make a final point here. Close friend and colleague Paul Willen concluded in the article: “Windows Mobile 6.5 Development – What about Developers?” 

“[...] I think its sad to see that a very good developer has to do a great investment before his application can actually become a product in the Marketplace .That’s why I hope Microsoft will re-consider the choice and gives something to starting developers. Something that will make it easier and cheaper to start developing.”

While for the Apple Appstore and the Android Marketplace the development tools are free, developers need to invest even before they start developing. And despite the developer will get 70% of the revenue of the application, according to Todd Brix in the channel9 video, it might be a threshhold to start developers porting their Apple iPhone Applications !

I hope this article will provide some input to start a valuable discussion, and since I’m not an expert in the technical coding part, you developers out there might get my up to speed about the implications !

Reference List

While many references are used as links in this article I would like to highlight the two most important references on this case study, which provide a great amount of information for developers:

1. THE WINDOWS MOBILE BLOG:  Ready to Port your iPhone App to Windows Mobile?
2. MSDN:  Porting the Amplitude Application from the iPhone to a Windows Mobile Device – a Case Study

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A few weeks ago Jason Langridge wrote an article on his blog “Online Mind Mapping” which caught my attention and covers a great online service for Mind Mapping called MindMeister.

Last year I attended a traning of Marc Tigchelaar which I covered in the article: “Speed reading, mindmapping & braintraining“, and during the recent “Business Model Knowledge Fair & Book Launch” I could experience the power of visual (thinking) techniques in business communication myself by applying it on drawing a business model.

Introduction: “What is mind mapping ?”

On the mindmeister website a very nice definition can be found which covers most of the concepts behind the mind mapping technique:

“Mind mapping is a creativity and structuring technique that focuses on the human mind and its assumed inner workings. Contrary to the conventional methods of linear reading and writing, mind mapping is based on the central thesis that our mind works both rational and associative. In order to mimic this behavior we have to adapt our traditional methods of note taking, brainstorming, and creating lists. We need to introduce visual stimuli based on imagery, colors, icons and a more holistic view on a given topic or theme. ”

On the website of Tony Buzan -the developer of the Mind Mapping technique- you can find a very practical and helpful example called: “Exam Revision 10 Top Tips“. Here comparison overview is shown of a mindmap next to the list of tips, so please compare for yourself.

MindMeister and some key features

Now we know a little about the basic concepts and reasoning behind mindmaps, let’s have a look in which ways MindMeister extends on these concepts and makes this tool extremely useful for business and working in projects:

“MindMeister is the market leading and multiple award-winning web-based collaboration solution that uses proven mind mapping concepts to facilitate multi-user planning, brainstorming, and project management sessions from within a standard web browser.”

While I used Mindjet Mindmanager 8 until now to draw mindmaps on my Lenovo X60 tablet, it is not easy to work simultaniously, adjust or share the mindmap easily with you project team.  This brings us to THE unique feature of the MindMeister service.

Collaborative Online Mind Mapping

“MindMeister brings the concept of mind mapping to the web, using its facilities for real-time collaboration to allow truly global brainstorming sessions. Users can create, manage and share mind maps online and access them anytime, from anywhere.”

With this concept MindMeister become a valuable business tool, which projectmanagers and engineers could use on daily basis, without the need to be writing on a white board in the same physical room with your team mates. It will help to capture idea’s in an efficient way, and describe relations among the different idea’s in a graphical way.

Mobile access

Another feature that I really like as a mobile technology enthusiast is the availability of a MindMeister for mobile application. With this application you really have total freedom of accessing your mindmaps on the go, even without the need of a computer or notebook.

“MindMeister mobile, our iPhone application, provides access to your online mind maps whereever you are. You can create new ones, edit them and sync them with the server. Through our unique user interface you have both the comfort of an iPhone application and the familiar interface of MindMeister”

Unfortunately the MindMeister for mobile application is only available for the Apple iPhone, and as a Windows Mobile fanboy I truely hope that this great application will be ported to the Windows Mobile platform as well. I think it would a great application to have in the business center of Windows Marketplace for mobile.

Overall thoughts

Despite I really like Mindjet MindManager 8 on my Windows Vista powered Lenovo X60 tablet, I think that the MindMeister service brings mindmapping to the next level and making it available for a wide variety of business applications. You can easily share the mindmap with your colleagues and changes by your co-workers are shown on a real-time basis.

MindMeister connects the web, the pc and the smartphone so you can access the mindmaps anytime anywhere. This is a comperable strategy as some of the Microsoft products like Microsoft Live Mesh or another example Evernote. This multi-platform approach is a concept that I  personally like, and I truly hope te see a Windows Mobile version coming soon !

MindMeister is offered in four different editions:  (1) basic; (2) premium; (3) business; (4) academic; The basic version is free, and this is a great opportunity to get familiar with mind mapping or start instantly sharing and colaborating on mind maps with your co-workers and friends.

Reference List

1. MINDMEISTER:  Online Mindmapping – About
2. BUZAN WORLD:  Buzan Books on Mindmapping

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Perhaps some of your remember the acquisition propositions of Microsoft to Yahoo! earlier this year, which in the end didn’t result in Microsoft buying Yahoo!. However yesterday the news spread very fast on the web that both companies announced a long-term agreement in the Web Search segment.

“Yahoo! and Microsoft announced an agreement that will improve the Web search experience for users and advertisers, and deliver sustained innovation to the industry. In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.”

Analysis key terms of the agreement

But even the simple term version in the summary made me think about the advantages and impact the agreement has for both Yahoo! and Microsoft. Dueto my background in and interests in technology trends I wanted to have a closer look at the key terms below:

@1.   “Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms;”

Remarkable is the long-term character of the agreement, especially in the fast moving and hard to predict digital era we currently live in. However the agreement might be a good strategic move, in order to continue development and expand marketshare for the Microsoft Bing decision engine.

@2.   “Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.”

This key term only supports the expansion of Microsoft Bing, since it will power the search platform on Yahoo! websites. A questionmark however is if Microsoft will also have access to the Yahoo! search data, which is collectd by Yahoo! until now.

@3.   “Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.”

It sounds like this key term is really aimed at combining complementary skill sets, or to reduce Microsoft’s sales force for premium search advertisers.

@4.   “Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.”

Thus the agreement is only for the search-segment of both the companies, while other parts like the Instant Messaging platforms and the Web Properties, etc. will not be part of this agreement. From a Microsoft perspective, it looks like this deal is fully aimed at brining Micrsoft Bing to the next level. What intrigues me is how the close collaboration agreement will be shaped in practice? Will the Microsft Yahoo search become a separate business unit under the Microsoft Bing “umbrella” ?

@5.   “Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology.”

This one is very interesting, since I believe that both companies will invest in continuous development of the user experience as well as the search experience. This key term triggers a question again: What will happen to the Intellectual Property (IP) that is a result of a co-creation process, which required both parties’ knowledge to develop / or create ?

@6.   “Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.

• Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
• Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.”

Well here come some financials in play. Microsoft (Bing) will pay Yahoo! compensation for the market expansion which seems to be fair for both companies. The first bullet however only covers the first 5 years of the agreement, while the exclusive license agreement on Yahoo!s search technologies is bought for a period of 10 years! Honestly in the fast moving internet era, these periods seem to be long but might be the result of “slow moving giants” compared to the flexible start-up companies.

@7.   “Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.”

Looking a the compensation-term of the agreement  above and the fact that Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo! revenue per search, both companies but foremost Microsoft have really faith in the success of Microsoft Bing, which is more than a Google search alternative.

@8.   “At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.”

Nice to write down the estimates, but which prediction and estimation models are used to calculate these numbers. What is the balance between the financial win for Microsoft and what is the financial win for Yahoo!?  However I do think that this merger / acquisition can result in highe efficiency improvements by combining the best of both worlds in search and advertising. If the numbers and calculations we’re correct we will see in time.

@9.   “The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.”

Consumer privacy is certainly a good point, but will this key term not slow down the companies since they seem te rely both on certain types of information for additional development of their services.

Thoughts and wrap-up 

Todd Bishop -co-founder and managing editor of TechFlash- has written a series of articles on the TechFlash website about this deal from a variety of perspectives in the following highly recommended articles: “What people are saying about Microsoft’s Yahoo partnership” and “Analysts, investors react to Microsoft’s Yahoo partnership” and “Audio: Ballmer and Bartz discuss partnership, Google, and f-bombs“

“While Microsoft gets the larger market share to improve Bing’s search relevance and advertising volume, Yahoo still gets 88 percent of the revenue from ads on Yahoo search, without the R&D and operating expenses that it would normally encounter. That frees up Yahoo to concentrate on its online media business, Ballmer said.”

But how can we relate this agreement back to the failed acquisition in February this year, and what was te initial goal of the Yahoo! acquisition at that point in time ? Was it also aimed at buying the search technologies of Yahoo! in order to improve Microsoft Bing and leverage the Yahoo! network to collect data and expand in advertising as well ?

All interesting questions, which will require some additional research. However what most strikes me in this deal is the long-term character and trust both companies have in this agreement and the partnership. I would like to know when you really can measure the impact of this agreement, both in financial- and in operational and efficiency terms as well.

In the article I explicitely didn’t talk about Google -another industry giant an leader in the search segment-, but I’m also really curious on their strategic reaction as well. And:

• Is the agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo! a clever move to dismantle Yahoo! piece by piece or is it a better deal for Yahoo! so they can really develop ventures in new or related industries ?
• Will the two industry giants be able to be more flexible and move faster due to this agreement, like a early start-up ?
• Which management challenges will the (partly) merger of Yahoo! and Microsoft (Bing) bring ?
• What impact has this acquisition on the innovative power of Yahoo! and Microsoft ?
• What is the impact on the business models of Yahoo! and Microsoft ?

Concluding

The current agreement betweent Microsoft and Yahoo! is a very interesting business case, of which I will follow the developments. I hope in time some questions will be answered and perhaps some new challenges will come on their path. The long-term character of the agreement and the open formulation of the key terms, makes it even more interesting to follow. Please let me know what you think of this agreement, and you might have some thoughts about the proposed questions as well.

Reference List

1. MICROSOFT PRESS PASS: News Press Release Microsoft Proposes Acquisition of Yahoo! for $31 per Share
2. CHOICE VALUE INNOVATION:  Microsoft, Yahoo! Change Search Landscape
3. TECHFLASH:  Analysts, investors react to Microsoft’s Yahoo partnership

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