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In the past decades, most watchmakers have decided to source core parts from suppliers. This has led to the quasi-monopoly of the component manufacturer ETA, owned by the Swatch group. Now this strategy is backfiring, with ETA creating stricter conditions to its customers, the latter complaining about unfair business practices but fundamentally unable to find alternative strategies. As one executives states, "it's not ETA that has created a monopoly, but others, by not investing".

Now we understand what Nokia's CEO meant when he said the company had to "jump into the icy seas" in order to save itself. The "icy seas" in question has materialized as Microsoft's OS, It is ironical that it was Nokia that originally led the main handset makers away from Microsoft  and into the Symbian consortium for fear of becoming commoditized hardware makers. Now, years later, the company has been forced to make a dramatic U-turn. Why didn't Nokia choose Android? Probably because both Nokia and telcos - who are its main customers - fear a Google monopoly (or a Google-Apple duopoly) and don't feel threatened by a now weakened Microsoft. Moreover, the two companies are somewhat complementary, with Nokia having scale but lacking a competitive OS, and the opposite for Microsoft. But critics might wonder whether - in this fierce competition between ecosystems - it is wise to pick a weaker ally for fear of intra-ecosystem competition, and risk losing the battle between ecosystems. Moreover, Nokia will have to pay Microsoft for OS licences and not have exclusive rights, so that the risk of becoming commoditized is for real. Finally, the announcement was made today, but new products will not be ready for months (how different from Apple's approach to announcements!). In the meanwhile, Nokia's market share is likely to plunge significantly. A real jump in the icy seas  

Part of Google's success is due to its secret algorithm, capable of delivering search results that are relevant to users, but also marketable to firms. The problem is that Google has the power to grow or kill any business by simply moving it up or down the hierarchy in search results. Some firms are starting to complain about fairness of this (especially the ones that partially compete with Google). However, it is up to antitrust authorities and end users to decide on the right tradeoff between convenience and neutrality of results.

Interesting to see that the choice of protecting innovations by relying on secrecy and speed isn't only for small firms, but also for a giant as Google. Of course, this lack of transparency is attracting complaints by other firms and antitrust authorities.

Good by to privacy. Google recently launched Buzz, a social network platform trying to compete with Facebook. Interestingly, it made the choice to include millions of Gmail users and to automatically create links between people who had corresponded via e-mail (and without asking for consent). The immediate lesson is (i) privacy probably is a value of the past, since complaints were relatively weak, and (ii) in the current paradigm the real power is no longer in software or operating systems, but in owning data on people and relationships. Google as the next Microsoft?

The last pasenger has abandoned ship. Sony Ericsson has now moved to Android, officially making Symbian a Nokia-only thing, though still the one with the largest market share. It is understandable that phone makers didn't want to hand themselves to Microsoft, but is it a wise bet to do the same with Google?