Saturday Highlights: Lessons learned from AOL-Time Warner merger; On getting more cash out of SaaS

15 years later, lessons from the failed AOL-Time Warner merger (Fortune)
Must Read.

Getting More Cash Out Of SaaS: Timing Is Everything (TechCrunch)
By Nino Marakovic, CEO and managing director of Sapphire Ventures (formerly SAP Ventures).

Sometimes Cutting R&D Spending Can Yield More Innovation (Harvard Business Review)
Intersting article looking at R&D at Cisco, authored by Fox Business and St. Joes' profs.
As an aside, I've always questioned the accounting definition of R&D spending and what goes into it. If you look at IBM over the past 30 years or so, you wonder where the return on R&D is. They do some great stuff, of course, but its not clear how its contributed to market capitalization.
IBM has a market cap of $157 million, yet over the last 20 years its spent over $100 billion on R&D, and that excludes the billions its spent on acquisitions and capital expenditures. So where's the value creation?

Nelson Peltz's plan to bust up DuPont doesn't add up
(Fortune)
Again, question of value creation.



For Internet of Things, Chaos Reigns (Clutter, Too) (Zatz Not Funny!)