[AMZN] Amazon, [GOOGL] Alphabet, [MSFT] Microsoft

[MSFT – Microsoft] Death Star, Reformed

Posted on by scuttleblurb

There’s a good reason why Microsoft was dubbed the Death Star by many fearful detractors during the on-premise era: its OS/application stack, with 90%+ desktop share, was an impermeable force that whipped the surrounding computing galaxy into submission.  Given Window’s ubiquity, value added resellers and systems integrators optimized their resources and relationships by supporting Windows […]

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[ROL] Rollins, [SERV] ServiceMaster

[SERV – ServiceMaster; ROL – Rollins] Scale Economies and Hard Realities: Part 2

Posted on by scuttleblurb

Countless termites die every day from natural causes, and that makes them the lucky ones.  Many are poisoned by liquid pesticide sprayed along entry routes into homes.  Still others are duped into ingesting toxic morsules that they share with nest mates, unwittingly wiping out whole colonies, slowly, over months.  More creatively (and less commonly), they […]

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SAMPLE POSTS, [TRUP] Trupanion

[TRUP – Trupanion] A SaaSy Underwriter

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Looking at TRUP is like staring at one of those ambiguous images that could be both a rabbit and a duck, both a saxophonist and a woman’s face: we know that this is an insurance company, but we’re compelled to analyze it as a data-driven subscription service. Of course, all responsible insurers are data-driven and […]

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[CWN LN] Countrywide plc, [FSV] FirstService

[FSV – FirstService; CWD LN – Countrywide plc] Scale Economies and Hard Realities: Part 1

Posted on by scuttleblurb

Today’s post is part of a broader discussion about scale advantages: when they apply and to what degree.  I’m addressing this topic in the context of rolled-up entities because, in my experience, it is here that scale advantages seem far too liberally promoted, even if they do sometimes apply with awesome effect.  This write-up was […]

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Podcast Blurbs

Blurbs [Online travel, B2B2C implementation]

Posted on by scuttleblurb

Executive Roundtable: Street Talk (11/9/17), Phocuswright Conference Rachael Rothman, Sr. Analyst, Gaming, Lodging, and Leisure at Susquehanna Financial Group (on hotel demand) “I think we know from the industry-wide data that there is a definite shift to book direct…I would also just highlight that going back 30 years from hotel school, we always thought of […]

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[CSGP] CoStar Group, [REIS] Reis Inc.

[CSGP – CoStar Group; REIS – Reis Inc.] Tale of Two Data Providers

Posted on by scuttleblurb

Before CoStar came onto the scene in 1987, getting clean and current data on rental rates, vacancies, absorption, and precedent comps needed to transact in commercial real estate was a vexing, ad hoc process.  In the early/mid-90s, juniors staffed across various financial institutions devoted significant chunks of their workweeks collecting and scrubbing this information.  Or […]

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SAMPLE POSTS, [TRIP] Tripadvisor, [TRVG] Trivago

[TripAdvisor, Trivago, OTAs] Thoughts on the Carnage

Posted on by scuttleblurb

Trivago’s “relevance assessment dimension”, implemented in late 2016, is an algorithmic adjustment that compels hotel advertisers to improve their landing sites and booking engines if they want to rank higher in trivago’s search results.  The idea is that while the user experience starts with a room search on trivago, it extends to when she clicks off […]

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[ODFL] Old Dominion

[ODFL – Old Dominion Freight Line] Superb Logistics Company

Posted on by scuttleblurb

I don’t think there’s anything to do here given the lofty valuation (30x on what feel like peak earnings), but I like this company and thought it was worth a quick shout out.  Old Dominion is an incredibly well-run business staffed with high-caliber folks who care deeply about their work.  The first thing to understand […]

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