This little tidbit from the Journal’s day-one story on the Google/YouTube deal caught my eye:
A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company “evaluated acquiring this type of technology several months ago” but decided to build its own service, a test version of which opened recently.
It may be foolish to read too much into an unnamed spokesperson’s boilerplate wording, but it is unwittingly illuminating.
YouTube’s “technology” is smart: the company made a good bet on making posting videos really easy — it did for Web video what AOL did a decade ago to help people get online. But the technology itself is something that Google, or Microsoft, could duplicate for a tiny fraction of YouTube’s price tag.
Google traded its stock not for YouTube’s technology but for its massive and growing community of users. That Microsoft would describe the deal as “acquiring technology” is an indication that it’s still thinking like a packaged-software-goods company.
[tags]google, youtube, microsoft[/tags]
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