Why Microsoft should buy Facebook
Microsoft, the software giant, has been leading the industry during years, although many of us didn´t like its products. It didn´t matter. With its winning strategies, the pc industry was their monopoly.
I guess because of that power, they thougth they were invincible, kind of The Conan of software. However, during the recent years, many open battles(open source, Linux, Google, etc) have weakend the giant. For the past two or three years it seems as if they were loosing its momentum in favour of Google.
I am personally a Google heavy user because in the trade off they offer me, I am very happy. Nonetheless, the latest movements of the company, make me believe that they are becoming the next evil. Either they develop a tool or buy it, as Microsoft used to do.
It is not the objective of this post to relate all the actions taken by Google during the past few years. What I bring here is my believe that if Microsoft wants to be the leader of the next generation, they should acquire Facebook.
As I see it rigth now, the fight over who leads the Internet is between Facebook ang Google. They might seem diferent, but at the end of the day, both fight to get the user to their services and be online through them.
Maybe my believe is not completely correct as I think about how Spanish internet users access the Internet, but I will take the risk.
Should Microsoft buy Facebook to make it the social network of the world? Not exactly. As I see it, the advantages for Microsoft are:
1. Getting the biggest worldwide network of today
2. Learn from the development tools of Facebook
3. Migrate their users to the platform
4. As Facebook is becoming a source of information, make it a rivalry of Google Search
5. Integrate Office in Facebook to compete with Google apps.
6. Develop Facebook for business to make companies work online through the application
7. Offer great deals to applications developers
8. Invest in Facebook connect
9. They can leave windows and focus in the “cloud”
10. They will be ready to compete evenly with Google
The final question remains: Should they pay $15.000 billion?, they way I see it, Facebook becoming the next big thing to remain in Internet, I think they should. In fact, they have the cash.