The dictionary defines 'Joint Venture' as: "A joint venture (more often than not it
is abbreviated as JV) is a legal entity or agreement formed between two or more
parties to undertake economic activity together. The parties agree to create a
new entity by both contributing equity, and they then share in the revenues,
expenses, and control of the enterprise.

The venture can be for one specific project only, or a continuing business
relationship such as the Sony Ericsson joint venture. This is in contrast to a
strategic alliance, which involves no equity stake by the participants, and is a
much less rigid arrangement."

There doesn't have to be a high risk of failure involved and a new entity is not
necessarily formed. Individuals and companies do joint ventures all the time
out in the brick and mortar world as well as in cyberspace. As a matter of fact,
the joint venture is one of the better kept secrets of Internet marketing.

The joint venture is an idea as old as time. The cavemen most likely figured out
that buy pooling their efforts they could more easily feed and clothe themselves.
By pooling talents and resources so much more can be accomplished than any
one individual or company could accomplish alone. That's why so many
individuals and companies enter into joint venture agreements. Joint ventures
are the stuff that fortunes are made of.

One of the better known joint ventures of modern times is the one that Bill Gates,
of Microsoft fame, entered into with IBM, the giant of the electronics industry. Bill
Gates had developed DOS while IBM had market share. The rest, as they say, is
history. Just think what our world would be like if that joint venture had never
happened. Ohand as most of us already know, Bill Gates was a billionaire
before he was 31.