KenC

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+3 / 0

132 Comments

    • Sun Oct 5th 15:02 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Consumer Spending Slowdown Catches Apple
      Paul, I find your surveys interesting; however, I think many are reading far too much into the numbers. Here are some problems I see in what you have posted:

      1) The X-axis is NOT consistent. In '06 you use Jan, Mar, Jun and Sep; in '07, you use Jan, Mar, Jun, Aug, and Nov. Then in '08, you use Jan, Feb, May, Aug, and September. When people look at the chart, they immediately assume you are measuring quarterly, but if you look carefully, you see odd intervals, some being as soon as monthly. This leads to a chart that isn't correct, timewise.

      2) Where is the correlation measure between the two charts, Purchasing Past 90 days, and Purchasing Next 90 days? As a leading and lagging indicator, the measures do not seem to correlate very well. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the Dates upon which the surveys are taken are not separated by 90 day increments. It's just hard to draw quick conclusions from graphical data, when the graphical data is not presented in its most obvious manner. Like point 1, why is the time period between surveys varying? Or, why is the X-axis not reflective of these differing time intervals? Shouldn't you use graphing software that accurately reflects these x-axis intervals?

      3) Since you are asking for 90 days worth of purchasing intent or behavior, can't you parse out the actual 30 day behavior, if you doing surveys every 30 days? I mean, look at the Sept 08 purchasing past 90 day number of 17% for desktops. This would indicate that sales for June might be around 15%, since July and Aug lagging indicators are both at 19%, BUT if Aug 08 is 19%, and May is 16% then June looks unlikely to be around 15%. In other words, the survey's accuracy in actual purchasing behavior seems not to add up.

      4) Further looking at your chart, the decline in September may be seasonal, but we can't tell, since the only period measured where you show both August and September is this year. We can't see what happened in 07 or 06. There may have been like declines, attributable to the bump from BTS, back-to-school, sales peaking in August. Look at Sept 06, it shows a decline from June 06 in laptops.

      5) In regards to the last chart on total CE spending, your survey seems to show, that in Sept 06 and Sept 07, people really don't know what their Xmas shopping behavior will be, because by November, the increase is quite large.

      6) Looking further at your chart on CE spending, while the trend is clearly down, if CE spending is going down, it should have been going down since February of 08, since the split in sentiment was already down 14% points. By August this negative sentiment had hardly changed to 19%. Where's the correlation to CE spending since February?

      The bottom line, is that the surveys, while worrisome, could be far more enlightening, if some of the outlined problems, could be fixed. A more consistent timeline, showing actual intervals, not consistently spaced intervals would go a long way to making the charts more informative. The way the X-axis is now is really bad use of stats.
      View article »
    • Wed Oct 1st 15:53 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Flash Seems to Be Coming to Apple's iPhone - But Is That a Good Thing?
      Of course AdobeAir likes Flash, it's Adobe!

      Flash is not a webstandard and needs to be killed. It's a resource hog, exactly what we don't need with a mobile device.

      Plus, how does one search a flash site? Given how much Adobe likes metadata, the fact that flash is difficult to search, is ironic. Just kill it for the internet's good.
      View article »
    • Wed Oct 1st 15:47 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Crop of New Smartphones Will Compete With iPhone
      Open-source OSes are not a mass-market selling point. Ask Linux all about it. The average user wants functionality and usability. He doesn't care whether it is open-source or not. It's like iTMS tracks. No one cares that it has DRM, because the DRM is not a hindrance. That's why Amazon's music store has made no inroads into iTMS share.
      View article »
    • Wed Oct 1st 15:41 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      AAPL's Time For Greatness Is Now
      Unlike other cellphones, the iPhone regularly adds new features, and due to SOX is required to charge for those new features. One way to get around charging customers every time Apple updates the OS with new features, is to use deferred revenue accounting.
      View article »
    • Mon Sep 29th 20:37 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Amidst Market Turmoil, Apple Has Unique Opportunity
      If about 75basis points are due to a new product transition this quarter, which is the Fiscal 4th quarter, then it must have already been introduced. 75bp on $8B in revs is roughly $60M, right? That's not alot. Clearly not a completely "new" product, or one that has a huge revenue impact. I'm guessing this product was the iPod Touch, which at $229 for the 8Gig model is a very aggressive price, with lower margins. The last 8Gig Touch was $299. That's a $70 difference, and probably $50 wholesale. It would only take a million or so Touches to account for the drop in GM if that were the case.
      View article »
    • Wed Sep 24th 17:02 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is the Notebook Market Slowing Down?
      ThinkPanmure?!? They don't even cover Apple. At least, not officially, is this some guy's blog? The guy has NEVER been on an Apple conference call. And, he doesn't seem to even factor in iPhone's deferred revenues which should have normalized by 2009, in his 2009 eps numbers. What a joke.
      View article »
    • Wed Sep 24th 15:24 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      9 Feature Comparisons: G1 vs. iPhone
      Geez, people will sue Apple for only having 3G coverage in 200 markets, while T-Mobile's G1 has 3G coverage in 21 markets.

      It doesn't matter what specs the G1 has, if the carrier's 3G coverage is only just rolling out.
      View article »
    • Wed Sep 24th 15:03 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Jonathan Ive: More Valuable to Apple than Steve Jobs?
      Comparing specs is nonsense. Anyone with half a brain knows that. Wait until real-world testing takes place.

      As for the nonsense about Ives being CEO, that's silly. Everyone knows that while Ives is chief designer, Steve is the Chief Arbiter of the design aesthetic to be followed, from the first Mac, to the last iPhone.

      The next CEO has to have vision and be charismatic. That's not Cook or Shiller or any of the other competent execs. It's Bertrand Serlet.
      View article »
    • Tue Sep 23rd 14:20 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Running The Numbers – Apple Looks Cheap
      Any DCF analysis is highly sensitive to your assumptions.

      Having said that, the one set of numbers which I think you miscalculate is revenues. By 2010, the iPhone's deferred revenues will be fully felt, instead of the current situation, where much of the revenues have been put off. If Apple sells 45M iPhones like some analysts predict in 2009, that would mean about 22.5B in additional revenue, just for the phone. Your revenue growth is really predicated upon existing lines of business since, iPhones currently contribute so little.

      In other words, I think revenue growth is far too low.
      View article »
    • Tue Sep 23rd 14:02 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Apple Gets Mixed Analyst Reviews
      Most users don't need a MBP, over a MB, unless they need the bigger screen or Expresscard slot, or play games or do graphics, just like the salespeople said. This is not new. The MB offers 90% of the power of a MBP for a bargain price.

      What I wonder about, is the memory chip orders. That info needs to be more specific. Rumors of memory chip orders typically are wrong. In fact, I can't ever remember one analyst ever getting mem chip rumors right.
      View article »
    • Tue Sep 23rd 13:53 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Adobe's CS4 Should Give Apple Sales a Boost
      I haven't heard alot of good about CS4. Mostly, I've heard it's a minor release.

      And, about how it effects Apple. As the original respondent posted, it won't be popular with Mac users as CS4 is not yet 64-bit for the Mac. Mac users will have to wait for CS5. Why?

      Apple has been telling developers for a long time to use Cocoa to write their apps. Adobe, has been dragging their feet, which they always do, and was depending upon Carbon, hoping that Apple would write a Carbon 64, allowing them to keep their Carbon code, and make CS4, 64-bit. Apple did not write Carbon 64, and deserve some blame, but they did constantly warn developers not to depend upon it, and that they should be writing their code in Cocoa. Since, Adobe has to rewrite their code in Cocoa, there will be no 64-bit CS4. Users have to wait until CS5.
      View article »
    • Tue Sep 23rd 13:46 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Google Phone: Blockbuster or Bust?
      Google is self-serving. Its desire for openness is also in line with its desire to keep its search engine, and how it makes money, at the top of the heap. If Windows Mobile were to win in the mobile device market, then Windows could lock out Google from the next great platform.

      You wrote, "Google is positioning itself against Apple, which has bet on the iPhone's "locked" handset model -- available only through AT&T (T). In contrast, Google has championed an "open" model, not only by basing Android on open-source technology, but also in its successful effort to open up the 700Mhz wireless spectrum auctioned off by the F.C.C."

      This is so wrong. Google is aligning with Apple in a loose WebKit alliance supporting webstandards, against MS and proprietary ones. You do realize that Android and Chrome are built on WebKit. Adobe Air is also built on WebKit. Nokia's S60 is also built on WebKit. Safari is also built on WebKit. Guess who makes WebKit?

      Yep, you guessed it, Apple. Apple makes the rendering engine, powering all of those browsers and browser-based Apps. Apple released WebKit back to the open-source community.
      View article »
    • Tue Sep 23rd 13:36 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Worst Analyst on Apple Lowers Price Target
      Perhaps, deferred revenues are confusing her?

      As I posted at MDN, the only positive I can remember from MS's analyst is that she predicted the specs of the iPhone a few days before it's initial release, spot-on. Clearly, she's got an inside source on products, if for only that one time.
      View article »
    • Wed Sep 17th 22:10 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Does a Mobile Internet Devices Market Exist?
      Well, it's always all about the definition, isn't it?

      I think Apple designed a MID, with its iPhone, but squeezed it into the cellphone category, exactly for the reason Dean cited. The MID market just isn't that big yet. The cellphone market is huge. Which one is a niche, and which one isn't?

      As for my ideal device that isn't a desktop, laptop, or cellphone? I'd like something like the OLPC, 2nd gen mockup, where the touchscreen is on both sides of the fold, but smaller of course. In fact, I'd take the iPhone size and shape, and clamshell it, so that it unfolded giving you double the touchscreen, for when you wanted to surf the net, work on spreadsheets. Of course, when you flipped it closed, it would appear just like the iPhone does now. Interestingly, Apple has patented something like this, so I'm hopeful in a couple years we'll see something like this. Something small enough to be a phone, but also unfolds to be something that can replace a Nokia N810 or Kindle, or Netbook.
      View article »
    • Mon Sep 15th 20:22 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Apple as a Target
      You wrote, "But DECE wants to create a standard that would let any company offer DECE downloads that would then be playable on any DECE product made by any other company."

      Hmmmm....did they perhaps think of removing DRM? That would "create a standard that would let any company offer DRM-free downloads that would then be playable on any device made by any other company. By creating a DECE-DRM standard, they can exclude both customers and outsiders like Apple. How is this customer-friendly? Cause if it ain't customer-friendly, it isn't going to gain any traction.
      View article »
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