Julian Ivan-Alexander

Google, Apple, Research in Motion and Amazon: Are "The Four Horsemen" Overvalued?

Laughably low estimates for AAPL in 2008 are responsible for skewing the AAPL numbers. AAPL will earn approx $6 - 6.50 in 2008, not $4+. The smart money knows this, which is why it is letting the stock run up even while most of the blow hard analysts fail to get their collective heads around the impact of iPhone subscriber revenue sharing with the carriers and the $1-2+ on earnings this offers.

AAPL is actually the most undervalued of the lot, relatively, rather than the most expensive.

Amazon's Unbox Grabs NBC Programming From iTunes

"Major coup?" Hardly quite...

Amazon.com's DRM-Free Music Store May Reshape Market

This isn't a zro-sum game. All music will ultimately be downloaded, so there's plenty of room for iTunes, Amazon, and whateverelsemicrosoftt...
However, iTunes is simply the best store, with the best jukebox software, which works with the best, most popular music player - the iPod.
Amazon won't change the download market.. they'll just broaden its appeal to the minority of non-iPod users, which can only be a good thing for digital music.

Amazon, Apple, DRM And Digital Downloads

Nice piece! So when are we going to see the headline: "Amazon DRM-Free Music Downloads To Boost iPod Sales" in the financial and tech media? Answer: never.

Obviously anything which boosts the appeal of downloads (as DRM-free MP3s would definitely do!) is going to increase the popularity of all MP3 players. As the iPod is by far the market leader, it - and AAPL - stand to benefit far more than anybody else from such a development. It is widely known that music downloads make Apple very little - if any - profit, so there's no loss to earnings for AAPL from music bought elsewhere, only more profit from more iPods sold. Users will still use the best jukebox software out there - iTunes - to manage their DRM-free music, probably on their iPods, so the source of the music itself if DRM-free is actually fairly irrelevant.

Of course you won't read a story like that from most financial journalists, because it wouldn't make good headlines. Far more likely is: "Will Amazon's DRM-Free MP3s Kill Apple's iTunes?" A wholly irrelevant and far less important question (to which the answer is obviously "no" in any event).

That's the way this media-whoring game works.