The winter holiday season is regarded as a peak in commercial activity, when everybody is buying something. But this year, the corporations have decided not to wait until November and they've have already started to make prospects.

Microsoft acquired Teleo, EBay is making "indecent proposals" to Skype, talking about billions of dollars as if it was allowance money, Yahoo invests in China with Alibaba.com, News Corporation swallows IGN.com and there are rumors saying that Google would like to add Reuters to its empire.

Corporate acquisitions are not something new, but this year once could say that a peak has been reached. All the companies are starting to realize that the Internet is the next big thing and they all want a piece of it. But the Internet is huge, and none of them knows which part of it should they get involved in. What is the wisest choice: web searching, VoIP, or perhaps even the development of an alternative to the current Internet? (It is rumored that Google is planning such a development and hiring Vinton Cerf was clearly a sign).

For the outsider, all this acquiring madness denotes a lack of ideas and innovations. Apart from a few companies, which are still original, the corporations are starting to look for ideas in small companies. Stuck in some gigantic projects, like the conquering of the Chinese market, the corporations seem to entrust the research and innovation to the small companies, which pray for a stroke of genius so that they can be bought by a bigger one.

It's obvious! The Internet is up to something. The question is: what?


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