KenC

Customer Survey Notes Microsoft's Brand Revival

You wrote, "The Windows brand revival story is a pretty clear one". Hmmm...for $300M you'd think they'd have gotten more bang for their buck.

How Stocks Perform After Being Added to the Dow

Hmmm...no mention of Cisco?

Apple: Three Battles Won, Nicely Positioned for the Fourth

Let's look at FTEs from a year ago, and then extrapolate for the additional stores.

Here are the numbers:

March 2008 = ~12,000 FTEs

March 2009 = ~14,000 FTEs

Both figures were preceded by the word “approximately”, so they are clearly + or - 500 FTEs. Around 17% more FTEs this year than last, HOWEVER…, you have to factor in the number of stores open.

March 2008 = 205 stores

March 2009 = 251 stores

So, number of stores increased by 22%, and FTEs increased roughly 17%, but given the vagueness, the range would be from, 8% to 26%.

In other words, the increase is in the margin of error. Much ado about very little.

Clearly you did NOT read the filings you are citing, so everything you say afterward is SUSPECT. And, what are you going on about iPods in WalMart, that has been going on for a LONG time now. Jobs was there, when that decision was made.

No one likes one-sided stock hyping, but one-sided stock bashing with no basis in fact is worse.

How did you become a Top 3 Commenter? Did you game the system, because you are clearly out of your depth in commenting on Apple. Have you even read any of the filings that you are commenting on?

On Apr 24 03:53 AM Moon Kil Woong wrote:

> My take. According to filings Apple dropped its employees 10% from
> 15,600 to 14,000 and is currently under consolidation. It's margins
> rose due to cost cutting and a revenue mix shifting from hardware
> sales to software which means less market share gains.
>
> Looking at Apple to total PC shipments make more sense than comparing
> them with HP and Dell which they are loosing market share. This makes
> sense since Apple sells at a premium and we are in a recession.<br/>
>
> One can see positives as well as negatives in this filing. Cost cutting
> is not bad if management is honest about it. Expanding into China
> this year is a positive if Apple is honest about it combating expected
> domestic sales. Choosing not to get into Net books is fine if you
> think it undermines your value proposition with 13" Macbooks and
> iPhones around that price and functionality area. Dissing netbooks
> for no good reason isn't so intelligent. Apple should be happy it's
> computers sell for a premium and commit to those price points even
> if it looses market share. Jobs was always clear it was not his intention
> to try to become 20 or 30% of marketshare.
>
> The fact that Apple sells its iPods in Wal-Mart is unsettling for
> a few reasons 1) it doesn't fit their demographic niche, 2) it doesn't
> ring brand value, 3) it sounds like a good place to dump, and 4)
> shows Jobs is utterly absent in making corporate decisions there
> anymore.
>
> So yes, Apple had a nice quarter but it doesn't smell like victory
> to me.
>
> I don't own or short Apple. I'm a fan of their products but don't
> like one sided stock hyping.

Netbook Sales Cannibalizing PC Revenues

Netbooks are getting more expensive, while laptops are getting cheaper. Hasn't Katie noticed that netbooks are getting larger and larger? They're are encroaching on low-end laptops. Dell is about to release a 12" netbook. Heck, that's a laptop.

PC Sales Down, Netbooks Remain Firm

Another day, another bunch of gibberish from Paul Carton.

1) So, you survey 20,000 members, get only 3115 to respond. Of those, only 6% are thinking of buying a laptop. What's that amount? 187 respondents. Of those, 4% more are planning to buy a netbook than in January. How many is that? 7 people. Is that significant or is it just noise in the data?

What's the margin of error on your sample? In a random sample of 3000, it's about +/- 1.5%. So, your 6% buying a laptop could be as low as 4.5% or as high as 7.5%. Holy cow, since you are rounding to the nearest whole unit, that could mean your survey results are 6% +/- 1.5% or between 4 and 8%. In other words, the change in laptop buying intent could be nothing but noise in your sample.

2) Let's look at your netbook comments. So, of the 187 people who say they plan on buying a laptop, 18% or 33 people, plan on buying a netbook. Compared to last month, when only 14% or 26 people said so. That's a difference of only 7 people. Is that significant or is it noise? The sample size is ONLY 187 people!

3) The odd thing is that after writing about consumer pc spending, netbooks, Apple, HP, Dell, and customer satisfaction, you conclude with an out-of-the-blue question, "Even with the big hits Apple Mac Laptops have taken in our September and January surveys, why are they still managing to somehow muddle along in this incredibly tough spending environment?" Nowhere in the preceding, do you talk about these "big hits". Nowhere do you analyse these "big hits". Do we even know if these "big hits" are real? Maybe, they were imaginary, and that's why Apple seems to muddle along after taking such "big hits".

In both of those surveys of September and January, a 5% drop would represent roughly 9 people. Is this a large enough difference to be statistically meaningful or is it more noise? What explains the 4% jump in November's survey? Could it just be regression to the mean, and the fluctuations nothing more than noise from your large margin of error?

Paul, have you considered taking your survey to a statistician?