Salto Partners

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Alphabet

Google on Monday announced a restructuring that will make it a wholly owned subsidiary of a new umbrella company called “Alphabet.” Product Chief Sundar Pichai will take over as CEO of Google, while Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergei Brin will be CEO and president, respectively, of Alphabet. Here is what I said in an interview with E-Commerce Time.

“Google became every bit of what it promised to be when it was incorporated in 1998. That is, it became a well-oiled machine of global significance that continues to grow and produce cash. The reorganization will let Page and Brin focus on the next big thing under the Alphabet umbrella, while the day-to-day business of Google remains in strong hands.”

You can read the entire article here.

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Spotify raised $526 million

Spotify has raised US$526 million in its latest round of funding, according to reports that surfaced Wednesday. Spotify has raised US$526 million in its latest round of funding, according to reports that surfaced Wednesday. Here is what I told E-Commerce Times about this news, “The combination of Spotify’s free service, which carries ads, and a premium paid version that’s ad-free, has let the company gain significant traction. On the other hand, Apple is leveraging its brand recognition to simply convert its global customer base into paying subscribers of its new streaming service.”

You can read the entire article here.

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Apple Maps

E-Commerce Times interviewed me about whether Apple has plans to further improve its Maps app, possibly by strengthening local listings, which are increasingly important to businesses. Here is what I told them, “Apple’s launch of its Maps app had a rough start in 2012. Since then, the application has gained significant traction. Apple Maps has the potential to be embedded in a variety of e-commerce services leveraging geographical context information. The application could open up new partnership models and revenue streams.”

You can read the entire article here.

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Hewlett Packard’s Q1 Results

Today Salto Partners’ Andreas Scherer talked with E-Commerce Times about Hewlett Packard’s first quarter earnings for the new fiscal year 2013. No matter how one looks at the numbers, they ain’t pretty.

HP reported first quarter earnings of $1.6 billion, or 63 cents a share, on revenue of $28.4 billion. This is down 6 percent from a year ago. Some analysts expected worse, so the good news is that is not as bad as some believed it would be.

 If you take a look under the hood you’ll see that all major business units are down year over year and quarter over quarter.

 1. The Printing and Personal Systems delivered $14.13 billion revenue. That is $1.02 billion less revenue compared to the $15.15 billion revenue it did in Q1 of 2012. This division of HP is competing in a tough market segment without any significant market share in hot segments such as tablets and smart phones.

 2. The Enterprise Group delivered $6.984 billion revenue. It dropped more than $475 million compared to last quarter. The EBITDA contribution of this group has declined year over year and quarter over quarter.

 3. Enterprise Services delivered $5.919 billion revenue. It dropped more than $433 million quarter over quarter. What’s even worse. The group only delivered only $76 million EBIDTA. A service organization operating at 1.3 percent EBITDA margin is at this revenue level a significant concern. Another 5-10% drop in revenue and HP is going to lose a lot of money in this business unit.

Now, Meg Whitmen gave a more upbeat outlook for the rest of FY 2013. This could mean that the sales pipeline across the major business units looks stronger than the current numbers indicate. It could mean that there are new products in the pipeline that can make an instant impact. Or it could mean that HP’s strategy is simply hope. The next quarters will be telling which way the Silicon Valley icon is going.

You find the full article here. 

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Yahoo Acquires Alike

Recently Salto Partners’ Andreas Scherer talked to E-Commerce Times about Yahoo’s acquisition of Alike. Here is the full analysis. 

Yahoo is picking up speed and Marissa Mayer is the driving force behind this. She defines Yahoo’s core business in a simple way: It’s about delivering personalized content. Having a sophisticated mobile strategy is a critical part of this vision. Smart phones offer information about time, location as well as preferences of a user. The mobile internet allows news ways to combine relevant content with smart advertising.

Without any doubt, the Alike acquisition will boost Yahoo’s mobile presence. It lets a user know about nearby restaurants, bars or any other type of venue that is like the ones she is already a fan of. Users can share their preferences also on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. The app can serve as a focal point of Yahoo’s future strategy. Along with this acquisition comes the inevitable clean-up of past attempts to compete in the mobile arena. The company has in total more than sixty apps. Marissa has to determine which ones continue to make sense. It will be likely a number between 12 – 15 when it is all set and done. The mobile strategy of Yahoo needed an overhaul. The Alike acquisition could be the turning point that brings a promising new technology and new talent into the company.

In the big picture Yahoo has to get three things right: Content, Distribution and Monetization. Marissa Mayer already overhauled Yahoo’s approach to monetization by entering into a strategic relationship with Google after recognizing that the Bing partnership didn’t grow combined market share. With the Google partnership it has access to the adsense platform – a well-oiled advertising machinery. Overhauling the mobile strategy helps Yahoo to catch up in a mission critical space. It remains to be seen what else Yahoo plans to do to provide premium personalized content.

One thing is for certain. Things are changing over at Yahoo. And they continue to do so until Marissa gets it right.

You can find the E-Commerce Times article on this subject here.