Kris Tuttle

Atheros' Impressive Earnings: Time to Get Back in Cheap

I share your interest in this one. Their purchase of Intellon is smart. We have more work to do on the company from a research standpoint but it looks well positioned.

Verizon's Droid Is the Real Deal

Steve Jobs is said to be a pretty polarizing individual. That's good and bad sometimes. Apple seems to have made an enemy of Verizon which is an important member of the ecosystem. AT&T is a good partner but is that what Apple really wants?

If Verizon can execute well (a big question I know) they can create a pretty powerful "not the iPhone" choice for consumers, particularly Verizon FiOS customers.

Until recently Apple has had an "easy schedule" of games to play. Microsoft has been crippled by their own lousy execution and Vista, Google hasn't had a mobile offering, Nokia has been MIA on smart phones forever and RIM is great but too tied to business users to get in their way.

Now we have what looks like a decent platform with Android coupled with good phones from Motorola and others and a Microsoft that may have a decent product cycle in front of them.

Doesn't have to be a bad thing for Apple to have some decent competition. Maybe their products will get even better, even faster. Everyone should love a challenge.

How Big Will Android Get?

Everyone should just do their own market forecast. Then if we aggregate them we'll know the future!

Palm Slashes Mobile Platforms: What Exactly Is Its Problem?

Palm needs to put all their wood behind the WebOS arrow. They probably would have done it late in 2008 but would have lost what few sales of older generation devices they did make.

The biggest issue Palm faces now is lack of resources. Going against Apple, Research in Motion, Motorola/Google to name a few is just not going to generate high operating margins.

They don't need another $100M, they need $1B. The only way to do it is either with a service-provider partner like Verizon or a system vendor like HP or Dell.

Unfortunately that looks risky and potentially embarrassing so the odds don't seem very good. Palm has run up quite a bit so hard to buy here, plus there is a already a big short position so it's similarly hard to sell it or be short here.

Motorola Looks Far Better than Other Mobile Internet Players

We all look forward to seeing better offerings from Nokia. We've been waiting or years. Last year, despite looking silly in front vis a vis the Blackberry and the iPhone, management insisted that they were a "global leader" in this space. I think they really believe it.

Motorola's Cliq Builds on iPhone Concept

How about "communicator?"

I know it's tainted by having been used in Star Trek but it seems to fit.

video, email, messaging, status updates, location, phone - all sounds right

Is Apple Going to Start Making TVs?

Doesn't seem like Apple really wants to be in the "TV" business. AppleTV after all attaches to your TV. Apple wants a TV business but that would hinge on content rather than devices. For Apple to want to make the display there would have to be something unique about it for them to make it attractive in terms of gross profits.

See the related post on Apple and the NFL deal. I think it raises more interesting questions about Apple strategy vis a vis content.

Apple Dropped the Ball on an NFL Deal

AppleTV is only marginally useful as it stands. A deal like the NFL one for content would certainly drive many more sales. I for one would sign up for it and I think there are at least a million others in similar situations that would too.

"Sports" are surely not a niche. Things like the NFL and World Cup are gigantic, compelling consumer content categories that people will make major changes for. Apple TV needs some of that from somewhere. There's not much there now.

Expecting a Sell-Off: 35 Ways to Protect for Less

If you are concerned about the general market but still wanting to stay long the individual stocks that are most attractive one could short the closest index: SPY, QQQ, SMH to provide a cushion. If they underlying stock selection is good then even if the pullback doesn't come you should stay in positive territory. Then you can adjust your short position in the index as you see fit. Covered calls are also okay but they cut both ways and you can still lose quite a bit of capital with them. Unless you set up a stop loss with a buyback of the (much lower) call options at a certain threshold.

Evaluating Pre-Summer Positions in This Schizophrenic Market

I meant no disrespect to the fine nation of Canada.

Beautiful country!

TGIF: AT&T's Really Bad Week

I'm pretty sure every major new technology adoption cycle goes through the same performance and support issues as user demand and activity runs ahead of all ability to deliver it from time to time. Then the resources "catch up" and along we go. It's normal.

The New Palm Is Gonna Bomb

What a week for Palm. They have at least gotten themselves a ton of free publicity for this thing. It is after all just another smart phone, gotta remember that.

That several other carriers have come out and said they would be offering it is solidly good news for Palm.

I would tend to agree that based on what we can see now Palm may be just a bit too late with this to change the game at all. The momentum behind the iPhone is huge and it's tied to applications and content that are "sticky" w.r.t. Apple.

An interesting question is whether or not there is a significant segment of the market that might go for the Palm. There are the iPhone types, the Blackberry types and maybe to a lesser extent the Android and Samsung types.

On Day 1 I'm not sure Palm will be different enough but there are probably more than enough people who just have decided they want to try one for it to sell out quickly. But what new form factors and development tools they will offer to turn their new OS and devices into a platform remains to be seen.

Apple and Sirius XM Partnership: Combined Strengths Too Big to Ignore

My 2c is that it's hard to justify paying for radio. When linked to other services like traffic, navigation, roadside assistance and all that it could be packaged in a way that people are more willing to pay for it.

Having said that it doesn't sound like a great fit for Apple.

Another problem for companies like this is that IP-networks are open. Which means that eventually I can put everything through one connection instead of needing to pay for ten of them. We see this with TV content that is going to many over the Internet to their PC or iPod. Live programming is available via streaming.

Let's assume that mainstream Western consumers will continue to be willing to pay *both* $100/month or so for a home broadband connection linked to a set-top box or equivalent and about $100/month for a mobile broadband service linked to an iPhone or equivalent. Then they are going to amortize those fixed monthly costs as much as possible. They will get "radio" equivalents over these connections but getting them to pay a separate fee for it isn't obvious.

Will Palm Roll Out the Pre the Day Before Apple's WWDC Keynote?

It could work if Palm had some really big things to announce. More than just "hey it's here and we love it!"

If there are more service providers to announce and a new WebOS license like Motorola or HTC then it could create some standing waves.

The momentum around the iPhone as a platform is the real problem for Palm. It's probably past the tipping point which means that no matter how "superior" WebOS may be as a platform there will already be so many developers focused on the iPhone that they won't be able to get enough mindshare to succeed.

I like the Palm device and software and they should do well enough to survive. However the stock seems to discount a good deal of that already. The large short position in PALM should help the shares move higher if they can be forced to cover.

Verizon in Talks with Apple Over Possible iPhone Deal

Verizon deal and CDMA seems like a ploy. However it is yet another illustration of how sought after the iPhone is these days. As it matures into more of a platform every carrier will probably need to offer it just as they typically have some number of Blackberry models today. (Same with Android I expect as well.)

Smart phones will be on a roll for some time. Enjoy it.