Then it opened its own stores in an effort to increase its competitive positioning.

FORBES: Still Too Soon To Buy Dell

The market and competitive positioning for Autonomy remain strong, particularly in cloud offerings.

ENGADGET: HP cuts 27,000 jobs, profit tumbles 31 percent in Q2

Deep inside the organization someone has to oversee the supply chain, the marketing, the launch program, the competitive positioning against Apple.

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What social issues are containing our growth or hurting our competitive positioning?

FORBES: Why Social Change Is Good for Business

According to the TechCrunch article, Facebook is attempting to shore up its competitive positioning with a big push to developing its own apps on HTML5 and moving quickly to an online currency to hook users (Facebook Credits).

FORBES: Facebook vs. Apple

Although it was presented in the typical corporate fashion suggesting that Schmidt had been thinking about this for a long time, the simple truth was that Page was anxious about the state of Google and its competitive positioning in the next 5 years.

FORBES: Is Larry Page the Answer to Google's Problems?

This competitive look also provides an excellent platform for discussing and establishing a pay positioning strategy post-IPO.

FORBES: Executive Compensation: Before and After the IPO