Larry Bellehumeur

Apple's Tablet: Consumers Will Buy, But What About Businesses?

Miltie - I thought about that one (I mention Health Care Professional in the article). One of the problems may be ruggedization of the unit. Most Tablets that are used in the Medical field tend to be relatively rugged, since they have to be very reliable. As long as it was easy to find some sort of protective shield for it, or if the Tablet had some sort of drop resistance to it, it would likely do well in this space. It would also have to have Wi-Fi embedded to get any serious consideration (I doubt that this will be an issue, as even iPod Touches have Wi-Fi standard) Thanks for reading.

Apple's Tablet: Consumers Will Buy, But What About Businesses?

Roger - Good point, about the Educational market. However, having dealt with Educational boards for years, they tend to be quite "frugal", so we'd have to see if a price could be worked out.

Davswa - Thanks for your points. I would likely buy one, if it ran MAC OS. All initial "speculation" is that it won't, but that would be a huge difference. As for phones, I see your point, but have a hard time to believe that people will give up their PDA for phone use, and use a Tablet. As I mentioned, some will, but I don't see this being a mass exodus.

Google Chrome: Redefining the Operating System

The stock went up 25% from July 8th, the day of this article, in less than 2 weeks. It is still up 15% from then....

Kind of proves my point....the market doesn't care about Google in this area, until they break the Corporate Monopoly. Not saying that they can't do it, just that it won't matter until they do.

Larry


On Jul 08 10:58 AM CloroxCowboy wrote:

> Gotta disagree. Mac and Linux are completely different than what
> Google's proposing with Chrome. Apples are too expensive for marginal,
> if any, computing advantage...it's all about buying an image. Linux
> is not necessarily hard to configure, but it's not the push-button
> solution that Goodle is describing either. And neither is really
> a web-based OS like Chrome would be.
>
> A fast, streamlined, FREE os that gets users on the web quickly...I
> think MSFT is in serious trouble.
>
> On Jul 08 10:01 AM Larry Bellehumeur wrote:

Google Chrome: Redefining the Operating System

The Market won't care.....there has been a viable option in MAC and Linux for years, and MSFT is still king. Do you imagine a Fortune 500 company, which is where much of their money comes from, switching over? The average Home user might put $100 in MSFT's pocket, where as GE might put hundreds of millions per year....

When Google cracks the Corporate market, then people will notice.

13 Safe Stocks in a Return to the 1970s

I like the article for the most part...Couple of points:

1) You could likely substitute Microsoft for Cisco in your Consumer play, as MSFT has much more of its overall revenue exposed to the Consumer than CSCO, who only has some through its Linksys brand. Much more of their revenue is through SMB, Corporate and Government.

2) Don't know if I would include PetroBras in the category of a Low Cost producer. I like the company, but most of its production needs $60 to $80 a barrel to be productive, as the cost of Off-shore rigs is still high. They also still have a lot of exploration costs....

3) Apple, Disney and Nike are all solid brands, and will bounce back violently to the upside when the consumer starts spending.

Larry

Apple Will Still Thrive Post-Steve

Thanks for your comments everyone...

Bob -- When I said that GE suffered for a while, I was more referring to their performance in the immediate period (say 2001 to 2004) following Welch's retirement. Immelt continued to grow the earnings at a nice rate, but due to a variety of factors (some related to GE, others to the market correction itself), the P/E ratio was never what it was when Welch was running it. In terms of the performance as of late, yeah, it has been a tough ride for GE shareholders, no doubt about that.

Whether or not you approve of Wal-Mart's business model is an opinion that you are entitled to have. The reality is that they are still selling the same stuff that many other stores sell, and have a unique way to sell it that appeals to many people. I believe that in his own way, Sam Walton was as a great of an innovator as the business world has seen, and the comparison to Jobs is accurate. Jobs excels at knowing what the market wants, which is exactly how Walton drove his business. I do agree that Jobs is unique in finding a way to make people buy premium products while feeling that they got full value....

Five Reasons RIMM Will Continue to Fall

You have some valid points in your 5-point argument, but some other ones that are way off base.

I agree that there will be some margin compression. However, your argument doesn't factor in that RIM doesn't play in the low-end commodity handsets that are selling large in Emerging markets. This is the cause of much of Nokia's lower margins. RIM also has a significant high margin revenue from the Carriers as a "Royalty" for using their BES service. This is huge margin.....

As well, I have heard this open Architecture argument for years. I used to be a Carrier Sales Manager, and we were concerned years ago that RIM was taking up too much of this market, almost a Monopoly status. We tried to push other technologies (Visto, Good, Microsoft Exchange, etc). While they all had some functionality, none of them could match the slickness, security and reliability of the BES/BlackBerry combination. Even when companies tried to use the RIM software on their devices, such as Palm and CE, it never proved to be as reliable.

I am long on RIM, having just bought some this week. Are you sure that you are not Short?

When To 'Believe the Hype' of a New Product

Hello everyone...

I wanted to reinforce the fact that I am ABSOLUTELY NOT criticizing Apple. Their ability to create Buzz, Hype or excitement (however you wished to call it) is one of the incredible reasons for their success. While there may be some great technology to their products, it isn't the technology that makes people line up for hours.....

This implies whether they are actually intentionally creating the buzz/hype/excitement themselves or whether it is just the media (I found your comment on the iToaster funny, by the way). I listened to a great interview with an Analyst on Bloomberg where he referred to Apple as the "Media-Masters". Creating hype for your product is not a negative thing on its own, it is only negative if you constantly develop products that do not live up to such hype. Apple is not one of those companies. The iPod is a fabulous piece of technology, as is the Mac product line (I own about 5 or 6 Apple devices in my house, thanks to my wife and child.). Haven't tried the iPhone, so I can't comment there.

The purpose of the article was to touch on the idea about how Investors can play "hype" to their advantage.

Again, many thanks for taking the time to read my article, and for your comments.

Cheers and thanks
Larry

When To 'Believe the Hype' of a New Product

250541 -- Perhaps you are correct in your word descriptions. I guess I don't differentiate the two as much as you do. I was in Marketing at a Carrier for years, and we referred to the whole experience (what we did, and the eventual reaction) as Hype.

To reiterate what I said earlier, my point wasn't to focus in on Apple, only to use them as an example. It just seems that when you use the word "Apple" in your work, people disregard everything else and get defensive.

Thanks for taking the time to read and to comment!
Larry

When To 'Believe the Hype' of a New Product

Texasgolfer -- thanks for your note.

I know of a stronger challenge in Canada, with Comwave's main product (like Cisco, also a VoIP product), where it dragged out for much longer and was much more of a threat to Apple's launch of the iPhone. The Cisco one seemed to be settled quickly, as I recall.

Doubt that was an intentional part of Apple's plan, but I am sure that they enjoyed the free press!

I just wanted to point out that the purpose of the article was not to slam Apple......I think they did a miraculous job, in fact, and I say so in the article. People seem to become extremely defensive about this company when they sense (incorrectly in this case, I might add) that someone may be saying something bad against it. The purpose of the article was to examine whether product (and more importantly, Sales and Earnings from the product) live up to the hype and how investors might gain for it. It wasn't meant to be a forum on Apple, but it appears that it may have become so...

I guess like Apple's legal challenges, it doesn't matter why people read, as long as they read....=)

Larry

When To 'Believe the Hype' of a New Product

TanToday -- Thanks for your comment. I appreciate all comments, even those with differing opinion than my own.

Interesting that you say that Apple did nothing.....why is it that they pre-announced the product months in advance of launch? Why is it that they gave pictures, brochures, marketing material, FAQ answers to the carriers months before they launched (I know, as I have contacts at AT&T and Rogers who have them)? Everyone knew exactly what the iPhone was about long before it ever hit the stores.....that is EXACTLY what pre-launch hype is.

I encourage you to check out this article:
www.nielsenbuzzmetrics...

It shows:
- Apple informed the world of the iPhone in January 2007, despite the fact that it was launching in June 2007
- Quote from this web page, "“Apple’s iPhone is riding an unprecedented wave of pre-launch conversation and expectations are mounting,” said John Latona, Vice President of Client Services, Consumer Technology, at Nielsen BuzzMetrics. “Starting next week, the nature of the conversation will shift to very explicit and descriptive commentary about actual experiences with the product, and this will have a huge impact on ongoing trial, advocacy and sales.”
- Stats from the same web page: Traffic to the official corporate site, apple.com, spiked following the iPhone announcement. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, the iPhone section of the site had 1.79+ million unique visitors in January 2007 and the keyword “iPhone” was searched 870,000 times. Consumers continued to visit the site during February and March frequently, with more than 980,000 unique visitors per month, with a slight decline during April (almost 637,000 unique visitors). Web traffic to the site increased again during May with more than 701,000 unique visitors a month prior to release.

Maybe Apple didn't fully intend to have this kind of publicity, but you can't honestly tell me that this product didn't launch with perhaps the biggest hype of any new product in recent memory?

Cheers
Larry

Five Great Quality Companies: Are They Too Expensive?

SEC -- I must have been a bit drunk.....lol

My only excuse is that July 31st (when I wrote that) was my birthday, and I might have had one too many. I actually don't even remember writing anything!

I have a Masters in Criminology, actually, although I will be sure not to show my Prof that statement!

For the record, I must have been trying to say, "I used ain't as a way of emphasizing my point"....

I think I am going to apply for Remedial English now.....

Five Great Quality Companies: Are They Too Expensive?

BS-D.....When one writes an article with an opinion (my work is more opinion than factual, as no one really knows where these stocks will go), you have to expect that you will have some objectors. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I welcome the idea of hearing what people think. We all read numbers and evaluations differently.

One important part to remember is that most people on SA don't do this for money.....I've never seen a cent for anything. We do it to share ideas with like-minded people, and hopefully, cause some discussion.

In terms of some of my word choice, I used "ain't" as a way as a form of emphasis (I have a Masters, I know it isn't a grammatically correct choice).

In terms of this article, perhaps I should have expected that some people would not grasp the concept of it. My comments spoke about the attributes of Apple, and its dominant market share. Amazing how calling it expensive set off a great uproar.....the stock corrected around 35% at one point this year, so someone else must have thought it got out of control as well.

I'm going to continue to post articles, and I welcome all comments...good or bad!

Cheers and thanks for reading!
Larry

Five Great Quality Companies: Are They Too Expensive?

Mental note -- If you want to get a lot of comments on your article, just bash Apple!

BrianZach -- your point matches to what I am saying. Apple is a great business, just an expensive one.

Five Great Quality Companies: Are They Too Expensive?

Thanks for the grammatical correction, Tuskagee. As for my bias towards or against RIMM, I love the company. I've known many of the executives from the time that they used to make Cellular modules for Vending machines. I had one of the first 850 devices ever made, and have had a BlackBerry on my waist since 2000. If anything, I would be tilted in favour of them......Funny thing is that their evaluation probably looks better now than it ever did!

Bearfund -- interesting point. I've never understood why a company like Apple wouldn't pay a dividend. Google is still in acquiring mode, so they get a pass for now....I do know in the future never to critique Apple though! Seems to draw out the claws from people....