The Email War and Long Term Business Success..

Know of the latest in the email war?  Yahoo Mail has raised the storage to UNLIMITED!  Now, you need not delete your emails.. pics etc.. just to make space for the new emails.  They have followed Gmail now.. Once again.. Hotmail has been left behind in the race.  Just a few weeks back they had come out with the latest upgrade to Live mail..

Email war, I believe will remain as the most classic ever!  It is an amazing saga of how the leader – by far (Hotmail) – lost it to Yahoo Mail.. and Yahoo Mail which did not think it through carefully.. lost it to Gmail.  Now it is catch-up for them.. while Hotmail is rendered to the sidelines of the battles.

Microsoft has been a great company, but in my book it would not fall in the same league as IBM or Unilever.  It is one thing to be successful in one era, but quite another to survive many.  Success – long term and multi-generational – does NOT come from any successful product or a great CEO but from a totally different skill in the DNA of an organization!  And that is – Ability for Evolution!  That requires ability for deconstruction and reconstruction according to completely different configuration, yet world class.  It is for an organization to ask one basic question – What business are we in?  And once you have answered that…. stay true to it.  Which means changing as the very meaning of that business core changes!  For example what was rotary phones in one era for communication, went through the path of Mobiles and then now VoIP.  Those companies which did not make that connection lost the war and their future!

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