Microsoft doesn't just acquire companies

$26.2 B looks reasonable for the patents and trademarks that Microsoft is acquiring with its latest purchase. Why build software yourself when you can buy it cheaper from someone else? Besides, this is an acquisition war for enterprise software and LinkedIn is not just a software platform for recruiters and job seekers. A stockpile of cash doesn't do anyone any good if it just sits around collecting interest. $26.2 is a price that no one being acquired would complain about. You might even consider this purchase a waste if you were writing for Forbes. But, that is not the case. Here's what Microsoft also gets with that deal.

CXO talent:

• Jeff Weiner is retained as CEO of subsidiary LinkedIn (ranks at #5 on Glassdoor's Highest Rated CEOs in 2016) - how does that saying go? Employees quit leaders, not companies (via TalentCulture). This is a retention tactic used by Warren Buffett, who often lets senior management stay at the acquired company if that company is managed well.

LinkedIn's Patents (source) - only adds to Microsoft's girth of patents and trademark holdings

LinkedIn's acquisitions (source):

• 15 Digg patents (purchased for a mere $4 M)
• mspoke
• ChoiceVendor
• CardMunch
• Connected
• IndexTank
• Rapportive
• SlideShare
• Pulse
• Bright
• Newsle
• Bizo
• Careerify
• Refresh.io
• Lynda.com
• Fliptop
• Connectifier

The other cake trimmings:

• This is the primary feature that sets LinkedIn apart: it allows online services to be marketed to users within a network. Many companies struggle with this concept and network-wide implementation.
• LinkedIn's app portfolio - mobile authentication, user feature that allows attachments from mobile phones, user feature that effortlessly allows users of any status (basic, premium) to connect with any user on LinkedIn's primary platform. Apps include:
• LinkedIn - a lite version of the LinkedIn website for users, a basic user lookup tool
• LinkedIn Lookup - a bio-hacker for professionals for skills and experience
• Lynda.com - eLearning on the go
• LinkedIn SlideShare - shareable presentations
• LinkedIn Groups - professional and industry interest networking
• LinkedIn Pulse - business news
• (premium) LinkedIn Recruiter
• (premium) LinkedIn Sales Naviator - the sales lead engine for selling on LinkedIn
• (premium) LinkedIn Elevate - reputation building by content sharing
• The LinkedIn Brand - the web/mobile properties under the LinkedIn umbrella have mostly been well managed, both from an integration and public relations perspective; nothing bad can happen from adding this to the Microsoft portfolio, unless the integration between the subsidiary and the parent fails to mesh

The acquisition makes sense. Who else could have purchased LinkedIn? Any of the top 50 companies amassing stockpiles of cash.

And as for LinkedIn's 9,200 employees? I expect nearly all of them to get laid off at some point as Microsoft sheds dead weight from overlapping operations it wasn't keen on picking up with this purchase.

Microsoft SmartScreen Filtering: False Positives

I have recently run across two scenarios where Microsoft's SmartScreen service for Outlook mail has flagged single-opt-in subscription content as spam. It's annoying because one of those subscriptions is from Microsoft's Virtual Academy; which also has a glaring email autoresponder issue that I'll address in another post.

Imagine if you could: a giant inbox funnel with a mesh strainer on top of it called SmartScreen. The difference is that with Outlook.com (formerly live.com, hotmail.com, etc), it captures 110% of all incoming mail. Even the legit emails get caught in this spam trap.

What is SmartScreen? It's an Internet Explorer safety feature, really intended to be a phishing filter security feature. This is weird because I'm experiencing its affects using Chrome so I suppose Microsoft has separated its function from IE and made it app-centric instead.

What's the cure for businesses with legit email?

One possibility is to report the false positive to Symantec through this link. Another, is to contact Microsoft, but that like asking Google customer service to reset your free Gmail account password (which, if you signed up with verification service before you had mobile phone service, it just might be a problem for users trying to reset their password through automation tools. Just how many people have tied a landline w/o caller ID to Google's text verification password reset?).

Basically, you're nearly stuck.

But, what you should have been doing all along..

• Have an unsubscribe or preferences link
• Have your company name and postal address listed in the email's footer
• Double opt-in for promotional content, if your ESP has that capability
• Have legit unique content that's relevant to the receiver; even when they sign up for your services. Receipt nor open of an auto-generated welcome email does not constitute an acceptance of newsletter subscription; especially not in Canada

Lightning May Be Hazardous to Your Cloud

Typically data centers are in places where the land and facilities are cheaper than say in a windowless building in downtown metropolis. You'll find yottabytes data centers twiddling away in remote places like Fargo ND (Microsoft), The Dalles OR (Google), Allen TX (Cisco), and internationally in locations such as Ireland, China, India, or Japan. Remember virtualization? Well, it's more or less the same to marketers as cloud computing. Regardless of what you call your online data storage method or how your firm accesses it, that data still resides on a physical machine plugged into an electrical grid.

A lot of data bits we use in our daily lives are making their way to the cloud. Name any online service (Flickr, Google Docs, Amazon AWS, Office Live, Adobe AIR) and some or all of its data is hosted virtually. Businessweek notes these two primary risks of using cloud computing: 

• Risk #1 - your data could be exposed to third parties
• Risk #2 - data and apps may only be available when you are connected to the Internet AND when that service is up and running

A simple act of nature can blow up backup generators, disrupt electricity, and take entire systems offline and require manual operations (actual human technicians) to bring those systems back online.

With that in mind, is your business ready for the cloud?

The cloud, it poked me in the eye

Is there any data that isn't compromised by the US Patriot Act? 

I thought about writing an intro series for marketers to the Cloud (as in cloud-based apps and marketing), but I'll jump right in here. Imagine if you would, your personal hard drive (from a computing device: say, an iPad, laptop, netbook, desktop monstrosity, server, etc.) with documents (e.g., text, photos, presentations, spreadsheets, notes) that you share with your colleagues or clients in an online platform where you presumably control access privileges and file privacy rights. On zdnet.com, Zack Whittaker highlights an interesting perspective on how Microsoft is dealing with privacy with respect to law enforcement requests for documents shared on a cloud.

The Microsoft statement: "Any data which is housed, stored or processed by a company, which is a U.S. based company or is wholly owned by a U.S. parent company, is vulnerable to interception and inspection by U.S. authorities." 

Not only do companies have to worry about hackers breaching a cloud platform like what happened to Epsilon and its customers in March 2011 (Kroger, JPM Chase, and a long list of others), but now your data could be seized at any moment without due process by the US government, regardless of where that data is if it is managed by a US-based company.

Read more?

Microsoft's whitepaper on the data protection policies of Office Live 365
PC Mag's article on "Epsilon Data Breach: What Can You Do to Protect Yourself?"

The Microsoft Advantage

One of the reasons for not adopting a game console through the various generations of consoles is because the decision standard I used was to find at least five games I would be willing to play more than once or would be engaging enough to offer more than 24 hours of play. Single user PC games have this flaw. Most are solvable within 24 hours, except those that are coded to deliberately become progressively harder by throwing more minions at you so you cannot. The result: none matched this criteria. All console systems are priced about the same. The console games are priced per brand and market opportunity rather than if they're any good or not. And for users, the measure for buying a game is based on the Borg-collective of gamers on sites like Gamestop, IGN, or CNET, where game ratings from hundreds of players factor largely for new players to consider the game title. Games aren't cheap anymore. The average new release costs a player $50-70 per user license, depending on what kind of bundle it is. And, you can't return a game after the box has been opened or you purchased it online and downloaded it. 


But, I digress, this post is not about console games, its title publishers, or consoles, but rather Microsoft's near-term strategy for its media portfolio.


Today's top console manufacturers are Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony.


When a marketer thinks about media outlets, what generally comes to mind? Print. Broadcast radio/tv. Internet web/email. In-game advertising has been around for at least a decade, maybe longer. Barack Obama used in-game advertising during his 2008 campaign. It's nothing new. What is revolutionary and adds a whole new dimension to advertising is the ability to stream in real-time, ads and programs, from partner firms, like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, or Pandora radio, through a new media platform, the game console.


This includes, but is not limited to video-on-demand (VOD), web conferencing, simucasts (from existing radio and web tv stations), HD radio, or user-generated content.


Here is a rough timeline of partnerships:


Microsoft
...and the WWW - no official add-on, but this capability has been around since 2005
...and YouTube - no official add-on, but this capability has been around since 2007
...and Netflix - May 2008 (Netflix gained a new distribution network; Microsoft gained access to partner media content)
...and HD radio - May 2009


Nintendo
...and Virgin Radio - Apr 2007
...and YouTube - Jan 2009
...and Netflix - Apr 2010


Sony
...and IPTV - Jan 2007 (IPTV has roughly 28 MM subscribers, though when introduced to the PS system, this was free content)
...and Virgin Radio - Apr 2007
...and Netflix - Nov 2009


After subscribers reach into the double or triple digits worldwide, what's left to conquer in the media universe? Someone else's subscriber universe for their revenue annuity, of course.


Ahh yes, but what is the advantage if everyone jumps onto the same bandwagon? KPI metrics and the ability to target content based on user behavior. You wouldn't know it from observing console users or buyers. When you register a product, all that demographic info you fill out in a questionnaire isn't just for marketing. It's for customer profiling. Even if a manufacturer is only able to get 25% of its users to register and opt into receiving more info, if XBOX Live really has over 17 million subscribers, that still represents a lot of data points. Microsoft has been at the partner integration strategy for a lot longer than anyone else and executes it pretty well.


Toshiba debuted a motion-sensing tv experience at CES 2009. It won't be long when more users of Internet-ready TVs will be able to change channels, switch between 'screens', or open up a video conferencing window just by using simple hand gestures, regardless of tv brand or media platform. Now how cool is that?


And a side note: Apple didn't show up to E3 because of a business decision not to. If you look at what companies comprise ESA, they are all top devs, publishers, and manufacturers of pc, console, and Internet gaming. Apple does not make a gaming device. Users may use the iPad/Phone/Touch, or desktop/laptop Mac as a gaming device, but that's not its core purpose nor revenue model. You'll find Microsoft and Sony at the E3 Expo because they are multi-verse companies.


Disclosure: I'm a PC.


Related:

This Is Microsoft's Opportunity
Microsoft and Netflix Unveil Partnership to Instantly Stream Movies and TV Episodes to the TV via Xbox LIVE
Obama's in-game ad bill: $44.5K
Apple and Windows Computers Living Together Under One Roof, Oct 2009 stats