Professor Elam

Wed Oct 10 2012

Today Steve Ballmer announces that MSFT will capitalize on hardware and the mobile internet. This would be hilarious if anyone else like say Jon Stewart had made the announcement. MSFT has been playing catch up to Apple for years, or more exactly ever since Ballmer took over in 2000 and Apple's ascent began. IN a related announcement, MSFT cuts back Ballmer's bonus. 

In a similar vein. Wal Mart is playing catch up to Amazon. Wal Mart has announced it will ship on line deliveries from individual stores. But experts say that can cost two to three times as much as shipping from a warehouse as Amazon does. WMT's estimated on line sales are $4.9B while Amazon's are $34 B. 

Wal Mart has tried to go upscale numerous times and take on Target, it never worked. WMT's on line is about 1% of their overall sales. No doubt imagining that doubling or tripling that small number causes numbers to dance in heads in Ark, but do you think of WMT as an internet source?  Me either….

Thsi is classic supply chain efficiency in action. Page B 1 in today's WSJ.