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Now imagine a world where Harvard education is available
only through your mobile device and physical products like remote controls.
And bookshelves have been replaced by mobile software. That may not be such a distant
reality according to MicroStrategy
CEO Michael Saylor, author of "The Mobile Wave".
MicroStrategy has already been mapping out a new future for intelligence
software
for the last fifteen years but in his book, Saylor explains how mobile is
coming to dominate
computing. Our editor at large Corey Johnson spoke with him
about the concept and asked why he believes
Mobile will alternate life as we know.
I mean the thing with the mobile wave is every company is becoming a software company
whether they like it or not, to the extent that they provide a good or
service that touches the consumer. So unless you have a diamond mine or an oil well
you better become a good software company. And clearly Google, Facebook
Apple are the winners.
The losers are companies that need to be great software companies but either in
denial
and they're hoping that this is not going to happen or they're just
incapable of
developing great software skills. What things die what businesses go
away
I mean is that happening already? Businesses that are based upon
local, average, or are mediocre provisional goods and services.
If the only reason you're here is cause you're the only person or the
printing press in Hong Kong and nobody else can afford to print
a paper and ship it to you... then that's no longer the case. I mean I would expect
the New York Times is gonna ship the 500 million people
and if it doesn't then someone else is gonna come along that can ship a paper in
English language to 500 million people.
So I think you can't hide behind local rules, local laws
local material constraints, and local labor constraints anymore.
You have to be prepared for a global, very competitive world where
the single best person in the world is probably going to ship their software
every single place that might possibly go. It also seems like a lot of
physical things, those things that remain, will have to be connected in mobile ways
that we're not thinking about right now.
Yeah I think if we take something as simple as a key, right and in an
electromechanical world, the key opens a door.
It's pretty clear that sometime in the near future your smartphone is gonna
become a key
and if I can actually open my apartment with a piece of software on my smartphone
I can flick the key to 25 people. I can create a key that only opens the door to
my partner when I'm not there
Or a key that only opens the apartment from 9 to 5
when I am there. At that point keys are all on a network and someone's going to be running a
server that's got a billion keys networked into and they'll be running all the
software to open and close all those doors.
I think we're gonna see lots of application networks form that are
worldwide that provide
very, very powerful software services. So let me ask you about MicroStrategy
really quickly. So
with your company do you try to reestablish or refocus your company
for this new mobile world? You know it's essential.
Three years ago we started working on mobile software and we released
a product, MicroStrategy Mobile in 2010.
It's now evolved to be a Mobile Application Platform.
We're now releasing mobile application networks
networks for mobile identity, for mobile commerce, for mobile intelligence
and we think that it's essential. You're either gonna grow
into the new space or you're gonna defend and chisel away at three
to five percent a year.
I gotta ask you, you know I know goes back a long ways but
I wonder you know you've stuck with this company through thick and thin and also
through a massive account, we'll call it an accounting problem
but it was there were FCC charges, it was a big deal and I wonder
for you, like do you look at that as a
experience you learn from and you did things differently in terms of
for example not doing conference calls and and running your business
differently for different kind information era?
Yeah I think we've learned to appreciate over time to shoot for the long term I
think
Warren Buffett has become a great idol of mine and what Warren Buffett said is
is over the long term, the stock market's a weighing machine
over the short term it's voting machine. And the most important thing for us to
do is
is lookout and assume we're going to be running the business forever and then find a way to
maximize cash flows
grow the business, serve the customers. And if we do that then the rest will follow.
That was our Corey Johnson with MicroStrategy CEO
Michael Saylor. Coming up Corey and I...