On the subject of take-one-for-the-team mergers in fragmented, cyclical industries, easyJet yesterday said they rejected a takeover bid from Wizz and instead decided to raise a couple billion to buy more planes. From what I understand, every European airline talks about how the European airline space is too fragmented (certainly it is much more so than the US) but no one seems to have an incentive to do anything about it themselves.
Re "Meanwhile, old software—especially the kind that came on CDs rather than over the cloud—needs indefinite support."
As you know, that's why all enterprise and consumer software companies are moving to subscription models. True of microsoft products like office and windows of course.
Benedict Evans has a post on how slow this transformation to cloud is for enterprise
I guess my point here is that *strategically*, this concern with supporting old software has already ended. Companies are pricing such support on old software as a cash cow to punish companies who haven't yet moved to subscription. And going forward, the gap between the speed of software change v hardware will no longer be dragged down by supporting legacy applications.
On the subject of take-one-for-the-team mergers in fragmented, cyclical industries, easyJet yesterday said they rejected a takeover bid from Wizz and instead decided to raise a couple billion to buy more planes. From what I understand, every European airline talks about how the European airline space is too fragmented (certainly it is much more so than the US) but no one seems to have an incentive to do anything about it themselves.
https://skift.com/2021/09/09/easyjet-turns-to-shareholders-for-an-extra-1-7-billion-after-rejecting-takeover-bid/
Re "Meanwhile, old software—especially the kind that came on CDs rather than over the cloud—needs indefinite support."
As you know, that's why all enterprise and consumer software companies are moving to subscription models. True of microsoft products like office and windows of course.
Benedict Evans has a post on how slow this transformation to cloud is for enterprise
https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/8/31/mainframes-machine-learning-and-digital-transformation
I guess my point here is that *strategically*, this concern with supporting old software has already ended. Companies are pricing such support on old software as a cash cow to punish companies who haven't yet moved to subscription. And going forward, the gap between the speed of software change v hardware will no longer be dragged down by supporting legacy applications.