Confused Bill Gates, but a regularly attacked one too. A rather predictable comment given he's not the only one selling the chewing gums and the soaps this time, so keep on bubbling folks. Think mature Web 2.0, think Semantic web, or at least dare to envision -- Microsoft wishes the Internet was never invented, unless of course they could sell you the license to use it."There are a hundred YouTube sites out there," Gates said during an interview with a group of journalists in Brussels before a speech to European lawmakers. "You never know. It's very complicated in terms of what are the business models for these sites." Some of them, including sites that offer Web-based word processing and search engines, are being promoted by their creators and analysts as possible competitors to makers of retail packaged software like Microsoft. "We're back kind of in Internet-bubble era in terms of people thinking: 'O.K., traffic. We want traffic. We want traffic,'" Gates said. "There are still some areas where it is unclear what's going to come out of that."
The very basics of Internet marketing which transform branding into communication, segments into communities for instance doesn't necessarily mean that traffic is the cornerstone of E-business. Eyeballs, thus participants marely visitors converted into revenue sources speak for themselves. Win-win-win business models need no comment. Once you get the traffic, boy, what wonders are there for you to discover, sense and profitably respond to. But then again, keep in mind that search and online video represent a tiny portion of the overal Internet user's activities. Don't look for the next Google, or the next YouTube, look beyond.
Having R&D centers on enemy territories creates more job opportunities, and improves Microsoft's comfortability with its stakeholders :
"Microsoft said that it would invest $7.8 billion globally in research and development this year, about 15 percent of sales, and it plans to spend $500 million in Europe next year. Microsoft operates its main European research center on the campus of Cambridge University in England, with other research offices in Denmark and Ireland."
While it's also cheaper to operate them in Europe than in the U.S, money cannot buy innovation and many other things, so don't get too excited but learn how to surf tidal waves, the ones Bill Gates himself predicted back in 1995.
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