Strategy-In-Action: Marrying Planning, People and Performance (The Global Leader Series Book 4) by Thomas D. Zweifel & Edward J. Borey

Author:Thomas D. Zweifel & Edward J. Borey [Zweifel, Thomas D.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: iHorizon
Published: 2013-07-17T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6 Filling the Gap: Thrusts and Synergies

7. Sustain the Momentum 1. Shared Understanding

6. Catalytic Actions 2. Strategic Intent

5. Leadership 3. Dashboard of key

Indicators

4. Thrusts & Synergies

The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. —Henri-Frédéric Amiel

In May 2010 Google announced a deal with Sony, Intel, and the Swiss-based Logitech to offer Google TV, a seamless integration of television, the Internet, and its powerful capacity to organize information, designed to let any Internet users or viewers worldwide watch what and whenever they want. Google was not the only company to enter the television business. Since 2006, Apple had attempted to get into television with its Apple TV, a device that allows computer users to download, stream, and view high-definition television shows on demand via iTunes. Microsoft had been even earlier. In June 2001, CEO Steve Ballmer had been in Lisbon, basking in the glitter of assembled media cameras and in the glory of a small victory. TV Cabo had successfully tested Microsoft TV, the company’s interactive television middleware. Six thousand miles away, in Silicon Valley, Microsoft TV’s senior vice president Jon DeVaan was meeting with investors and technology executives, hoping to get the same in the United States: industry support, which had been elusive, for its middleware. Will Poole, vice president of Microsoft’s Windows Digital Media division, gave Hollywood a hard sell of his own, calling on Viacom’s chairman Jonathan Dolgen, a known Hollywood Luddite, to push Microsoft’s media codec and rights-management software. Microsoft executives were conspicuously present at the Sundance Film Festival, the E3 gaming exposition, and all of the cable TV trade shows. “They are insidious,” said Chris Lutz, the head of Mediachase, a broadband content developer in Los Angeles. “From my perspective, they are 100 percent on it.”79

Why? Because Microsoft has a strategic thrust: to be seen by the entertainment industry not only as entertainment savvy, but as indispensable. Microsoft does not want to be a typical media company. It wants to supply the software that delivers all forms of entertainment to any playback device you could imagine. If successful, Microsoft will be the software platform used by executives to view digital dailies of movies they are funding, by directors to encode their demo reels, and by consumers to watch video on demand or listen to downloaded music.

While Microsoft is still known mostly for its Windows operating system and Office software suite, the company has been doggedly pursuing a major presence in the media business at least since 1994 when it bought special effects maker Softimage, at the time its second-largest acquisition ever. By 1996 it had invested over $6 billion annually in media-related enterprises, and that number grew only more when Microsoft started pushing its Windows Media Player, WebTV, and Xbox. Success was far from certain; in fact Microsoft had been involved in many skirmishes across the media landscape, from Disney and Sony to Nintendo and Linux, to name but a few rivals across the 21st-century media landscape. But according to Mr.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.