Kris Tuttle

Will Cheaper Laptops Snuff Out Netbooks?

A smartphone, netbook, laptop for every user. Or in cases like me for every use case, I bring a netbook sometimes when on the go but need to take notes, use cloud apps and so on but still need a powerful laptop to run applications on a larger screen (plus usually an external display as well.)

I bet netbooks helped the laptop makers get more serious about lowering price points. It's also made it easier to buy computers for kids or interns which often went without.

My guess is that this puts some pressure on the high-end laptop prices given what you can get for $1000 there. But I'm no PC analyst.

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.

Will Windows 7 Catalyze the PC Upgrade Cycle?

The other competition that is really eating at Windows is the browser. Since my XP machines will be able to run high end browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Safari and so on the OS doesn't matter as much. Since there is no real need to upgrade applications on Windows (that I know of) the move to Windows 7 is more of a "nice to do" rather than a need. Enterprises will no doubt move to it for exciting reasons like management, security, support and so on but there's no evidence we've seen that shows how fast it will happen.

What Windows 7 should do however for MSFT is at least get them out of this punishing situation of people not wanting to even buy Windows computer if they get stuck running Vista. Whether it is deserved or not (we never tried Vista) the negative label has certainly stuck.

Windows 7 should be good enough so that if someone wants to buy a new Dell laptop they will be happier about doing it with Windows 7 and will probably save some money versus a similar MBP running MacOS.

Dell Gets Ready for a Comeback - Barron's

Dell should be preparing for a comeback but it's not yet clear how they are going to get there. I agree with some of the other comments that they need to address quality and branding issues even in their core market. Fast and cheap is something everyone expects and mostly gets delivered.

They are at a critical juncture though. As companies like HP and Apple get stronger it's harder for Dell to find breathing room. Although Dell has made some moves it's still largely defined by the past.

I think Windows 7 may help put a little wind behind their business for a change but with that they need to chart a faster course than their competition, something they haven't done in some time.