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Man, they are on some buying binge. Unfortunately for them, I don't think it's possible to buy innovation or relevance. Those things have to come from within and permeate the entire culture of the firm - and Yahoo just doesn't have it right now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_S...
They seem to be doing well.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/indus...
So it will be interesting to see where Yahoo goes with this.
Man, they are on some buying binge. Unfortunately for them, I don't think it's possible to buy innovation or relevance. Those things have to come from within and permeate the entire culture of the firm - and Yahoo just doesn't have it right now.
Companies like Cisco seem built around buying all of their innovation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_S... They seem to be doing well. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/indus...
Cisco actively encourages senior engineering employees to leave the company, start new ventures and return as leaders in the M&A process. It's not fair to compare Yahoo to Cisco when Cisco invests tremendous amounts of effort, time and money into these ventures to grow and nurture them (recent example: Meraki) until they can be reabsorbed into the Mothership.
Yahoo on the other hand is buying a bunch of companies that it knows only by reputation. Yahoo might be successful, but not for the same reasons that Cisco is successful. It's just a very different culture.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Companies like Cisco seem built around buying all of their innovation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_S... They seem to be doing well. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/indus...
The culture of Cisco M&A is unlike anything seen in Silicon Valley. Cisco actively encourages senior engineering employees to leave the company, start new ventures and return as leaders in the M&A process. It's not fair to compare Yahoo to Cisco when Cisco invests tremendous amounts of effort, time and money into these ventures to grow and nurture them (recent example: Meraki) until they can be reabsorbed into the Mo…
Man, they are on some buying binge. Unfortunately for them, I don't think it's possible to buy innovation or relevance. Those things have to come from within and permeate the entire culture of the firm - and Yahoo just doesn't have it right now.
It's certainly possible to buy both innovation and relevance. Innovation is possible by acquiring already-innovative companies and letting them flourish as if you hadn't bought them, then stick your name on the work they produce. Relevance is even easier, just throw $1.1 B and you're going to be the thing that's relevant. At least for a little while. Is it ideal? Can it scale? Will it last? No, but it gets the job do…
I'm also curious for what Yahoo was going for here. Playerscale (which only product really so far is Player.io) is actually something I've worked with in the past. And it's a fairly strong idea - an easy to use but versatile server platform for multiplayer games (along with client libraries of course). The only problem was that it wasn't that well executed. Long downtimes for no explained reason, large-functionality…
When I read this I tried searching for PlayerScale on the web. Didn't find much. Anyone have a link to their website or more info on this company?
I'm trying to find the thread that binds all of this recent M and A activity together. There have been so many acquisitions of companies big and small, wrapping your head around Yahoo's global strategy is beginning to look like Google's. Does Yahoo have the engineering prowess to pull off this Multi-faceted hydra strategy? Do they have the management? It seems news will play a very prominent role in the new Yahoo, bu…
I'm trying to find the thread that binds all of this recent M and A activity together. There have been so many acquisitions of companies big and small, wrapping your head around Yahoo's global strategy is beginning to look like Google's. Does Yahoo have the engineering prowess to pull off this Multi-faceted hydra strategy? Do they have the management? It seems news will play a very prominent role in the new Yahoo, bu…