Steve Alexander

3 Intriguing Points About Qiao Xing Mobile

> Contradiction: "I've given Qiao Xing a C+ for growth potential. The
> Chinese mobile phone market is one of the most attractive in the
> world for several reasons."

It would be a contradiction if Qiao Xing was a market leader with little competition. It is neither. It may or may not benefit from market growth due to price and feature competition. It's unclear, and hence a C+.

Nokia's a Juggernaut, But What's Left to Conquer?

> Can you explain what you mean by "Symbian is not inherently a smartphone
> OS like Apple's or RIM's" and why those of Apple and RIM are ?<br/>I
> am not aware of any technical reasons why one of them is not for
> true smartphones.

Apple and RIM both designed their operating system to handle smartphone activities like email, internet, and so forth, and have structured them to be expandable through third party applications that utilize QWERTY keypads and other hardware features.

Symbian was historically developed for phone hardware - number keypads that could perform some tasks like text messaging. Trying to shape and mold this into a good smartphone OS will be a challenge. You need to have a lot of low level features like memory management, task switching, data protection, power management, and so forth. Symbian was not developed with these in mind and adapting an operating system can take as long as creating a new one.

What Apple Is Doing Wrong and Why It Means Trouble

Apple has a lot of things it didn't have the last time the company almost dissolved. For one, iTunes is a massive lock-in mechanism, and even though it's moving to all MP3, it's still only accessible from Apple hardware. Secondly, the iPhone is a closed platform that has the potential to dominate much like Windows on PCs. Once a substantial investment is made in games, apps, music, movies, contacts, etc., a user is less likely to abandon the platform unless something else is significantly better. These lock-in benefits also drive demand for Mac computers, as they most easily integrate with iPods and iPhones.

Apple's computers fill the "BMW" niche - they are generally cache, but even an objective viewer would generally consider the build quality and experience superior to the Dell's and Acer's of the world. While this is not really a sustainable competitive advantage, it is a current one.

Jobs leaving, if it turns out to be permanent, it certainly a long term concern, but he's built a company that can sustain itself for many years without him. The bench here is strong too - Cook is a solid ops guy, Ive and Forestall are top notch hardware and software guys, respectively, and Schiller has overseen a very successful marketing operation. I wouldn't worry about Apple, especially at these prices.

Dell: No Angles Left?

Dell didn't dump resources into a retail division under Rollins - Dell himself started that initiative. And it's a necessary one if Dell wants to capture consumers instead of just business and government dollars. Also, Dell was never about technology. The company's edge was low cost manufacturing, allowing them to win business by being the low cost producer. Another faux pas here is equating market share to success. Less market share at better profitability leads to better profits and a higher stock price. A lot of misconceptions in this article.

Steve
magicdiligence.com