Gray Smoke

On one hand, I see Microsoft trying to reinvent itself with Surface Pro 3 and on the other I find MS losing its plot on some areas. For the last 1 week, Whatsapp which is one the largest mobile messaging platform is no longer available on Windows phone. The reasons that they have given is due to the notification issues. This has resulted in lot of very angry customers around the world.   http://www.techtree.com/content/news/6290/update-microsoft-promises-solve-whatsapp-issue-windows-phone.html At a time when MS and Nokia is trying to regain market share, having one of the key application would have surely resulted in loss of sales and worse customer experience. After 5 days of the application being, Windows phone VP, sends cryptic tweets For those w Q’s on Whatsapp: they pinged us about an issue that popped on notifications, we’re working with them on a fix. More info soon — joebelfiore (@joebelfiore) May 22, 2014 Ps - the notifications co...

On Thursday morning I woke up to the news that Facebook has brought Whatsapp for $19B. My first reaction was 'Holy Cow'. I was more shocked at the sheer amount, than the fact if 'Whatsapp' is worth the money. The whole discussion about the purchase has been limited to two topics 1. What else could be bought for $19B ? 2. Is Whatsapp useful at all ? (Especially by Americans who have never heard of this application before) The first looks at different companies that have less market cap which include iconic companies like Harley Davidson, Airline company etc. All these comparisons are stupid as we are talking about apples and eggs. Facebook is in a business of connecting people online. Whatsapp does precisely that at costs which are very low and is making profits. For example it charges $1 per year after an year. Even if 25% of the 450M users have paid, it would mean more than a $100M of revenue. With a 55 member team and basic servers (remember it does not ...