reinharden

Total Rating:
0 / 0

54 Comments

    • Tue Apr 10th 20:55 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is Apple Beginning Its Long Delayed Descent?
      Well, given that you had to call back and your tech support record was screwed up, I'd have to say that Steven was correct in that they dropped the ball.

      Although one wonders if there's now a Bob Smith who's wondering why Apple tech support addresses him as Ashkan Karbasfrooshan? Perhaps the case reference numbers, if you will, crossed streams?

      It's never fun when screwups happen to you (and as a former employee of the nation's largest credit card issuer, I'm certain that you know that screwups will happen), but the question at the end of the day is did your issue get resolved? If you get a working Airport or a refund, then your issue will have been resolved. As mentioned before, not perhaps as efficiently or quickly as preferred.

      Although frankly, if you escalated to the top of Austin's customer service chain, I'm a bit surprised you were told to wait 24 hours for an email. My past understanding is that they could expedite things quite well from "on high".

      Perhaps it's time to invoke Investor Relations (investor_relations@ap... I've always found them a dependable ally when things go awry.

      reinharden
      View article »
    • Tue Apr 10th 20:34 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Google's Venture Capital Misadventures
      I suppose what, perhaps, confused me is your re-inclusion of your four earlier points, of which, seemingly, only the latter is directly relevant to the situation under consideration. The first three might arguable me relevant; however, they're already mitigated because everybody at Google is allowed 20% time, everybody's 20% project has to be approved of, and the same rules apply to everyone's results. But certainly all these 20% projects, especially the ones that see the light of day, can be distracting to analysts because it's quite likely that the ones that even Google thinks are going to stick are not necessarily the one's the get embraced by the public.

      The next issue, to me, then becomes one of what is Google's true core competency? Search results, eyeballs, advertiser relationships, or the networking effect created by the combination of each?

      I believe that we'll end up having to disagree because I believe that Google needs to broaden it's base as well as increase its depth.

      From my perspective, Google has worked on ways to make eyeballs sticky to Google sites in order to reduce its Traffic Acquisition Costs and simultaneously sell more adds. Thus Blogger, Gmail, Picassa, Reader, and all the other portal like components. Each of which makes eyeballs hang out on Google sites a little longer and (eventually) each click on a Google site allows one to three more ads (or at least salts the earth for Microsoft and Yahoo). This also explains Google's experiments with broadband (highly localized search results which will undoubtedly prove valuable if the iPhone or other Portable Internet Devices take off) and cellular (similar to broadband, but sufficiently different to require different technologies).

      Google already has quite a large group working on maintaining their search algorithms. And another large group working on optimally monetizing their advertiser relationships. Considering the depth and complexity of what they're doing already my suspicion is that throwing too many more resources at those areas would run afoul of the mystical man month syndrome.

      So, I, as one Google shareholder, would much rather see them attempting to broaden their base as well as deepen it. 'cause Microsoft and Yahoo are already broad and they're not going to give up on trying to get deep. And in fighting those two organizations, especially Microsoft, any territory you surrender without a fight will just be used to provide resources to your enemies.

      reinharden
      View article »
    • Tue Apr 10th 12:57 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is Apple Beginning Its Long Delayed Descent?
      Re: mainstream media

      I've learned over the last year or two that it's almost better to read the blogs because this afternoon the online New York Times will report that a blog is reporting X and that evening the online Chicago Tribune will report that the New York Times is reporting X and tomorrow morning I'll read X in the print edition of the Washington Post. Whereupon every blog will write about it as fact.

      With no mention about it all being based upon an unsubstantiated rumor started on a blog. :-(

      Kinda like that John Dvorak "I was talking to a guy at Verizon who reported that the iPhone only works for 40 minutes". Facetious on its face, but now all over mainstream press and the blogosphere.

      reinharden
      View article »
    • Tue Apr 10th 12:49 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is Apple Beginning Its Long Delayed Descent?
      Re: names

      It'd certainly difficult to tell from your original message that the name was indistinguishable simply because of volume. It comes across as, if you will, the typical American complaining about names, I'm sorry to say, such as your own. Thus the seeming irony. I personally make it a point to ask people to re-announce their names if I can't hear them and to spell them if I can't on my own. Thus I know who to complain about or praise.

      re: Apple support

      If you're still in Canada, there's probably room to question whether you should have called Apple US or Apple Canada. And interestingly if you purchased it in the US, it's vaguely questionable whether it's actually a supported product in Canada as the regulatory bodies sometimes differ between here and there. Of course, if you're still in the US, then this is all moot.

      Nevertheless, while front line support clearly erred in not quickly and efficiently resolving your problem, it seems that after appropriate escalation on your part, at the end of the day, your problem was seemingly addressed by having you send in your product for replacement or refund?

      With at least a veiled apology from Steven because Apple had "dropped the ball".

      As an Apple shareholder, I'm saddened that you were not satisfied with your Apple experience; however, I'm not convinced that it rises to the level of a bad customer service experience. But obviously it wasn't me on the phone.


      Stepping away from your original article and to your more cogently stated:
      <i>but at $80B+ market cap, for a hardware and increasingly consumer electronics company, it seems rich... and priced to perfection.</i>

      With $12B in the bank (~$14/share) and thus an enterprise value of "only" $68B, if you back out cash, they've got a trailing PE of around 28 and a forward PE of less than 20 (versus fiscal 2008). For the most part, few analysts have really cranked up the 2007 and 2008 earnings while seemingly waiting for the early returns on the iPhone, AppleTV, and such. And Apple's historic PE ratio is substantially higher.

      So, crank in higher than forecast earnings and perhaps a return to historic PE ratios and the possibility of a resurgent stock market, and Apple is cheap. Or go the other way and Apple is expensive. But, for Apple to be "priced to perfection", I'd argue that it'd need to have a forward PE ratio up there with Yahoo at 40x.

      reinharden
      View article »
    • Tue Apr 10th 12:30 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is Apple Beginning Its Long Delayed Descent?
      Re: fanatical

      Perhaps you consider it a good thing; however, the traditional definition is "filled with excessive and single-minded zeal" and the traditional thesaurus entries are:
      1 <i>they are fanatical about their faith</i>
      zealous, extremist, extreme, militant, dogmatic, radical, diehard; intolerant, single-minded, blinkered, inflexible, uncompromising, hardcore.
      2 <i>he was fanatical about tidiness</i>
      enthusiastic, eager, keen, overkeen, fervent, ardent, passionate; obsessive, obsessed, fixated, compulsive; informal wild, gung-ho, nuts, crazy, hog-wild.

      As you can see from the first list of words that mean the same thing, "fanatical" is not traditionally a positive word. It implies an irrational enthusiasm blinded by faith. And thus, when you invoke that word, most who are not fanatical, turn off anything else you have to say.

      If you wish to have a blog that evolves to a community, you'd be well served to not insult the members of the community you're seemingly addressing. If you just wish to push up your page counts (ala John Dvorak), well then, spinning up the Mac fanatics is always good for some page hits. ;-)

      reinharden
      View article »
    • Tue Apr 10th 10:04 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Google's Venture Capital Misadventures
      Ummm...but Google isn't doing Venture Capital or anything similar to venture capital.

      Google is either acquiring firms (d'Marc) or homebrewing new technologies (orkut).

      So how do these activities have anything to do with your original thesis vis-à-vis venture capital?

      d'Marc makes what seems a natural attempt to leverage relationships with advertisers to other media. I wouldn't be surprised to see Google making a play into the electronic billboard arena either. In fact, I'd be disappointed if they didn't. Will this diversification work? Who knows, but it's a small enough outlay that it makes sense to try. I'd content that it'd be irresponsible to not try and extend this relationship.

      And while orkut has arguably not seen the same success as gmail and has not had the press coverage of Google Documents, orkut has proven quite sticky for several million users (allegedly 49 million) and is annoyingly popular in Brazil and the Middle East (I say annoyingly based upon the amount of Brazilian spam I get there). So if nothing else, it's a fertile playground for technology, innovation, and internalization. Now if only we could see some monetization (although one hopes there's at least some small relationship to using orkut and using Google).

      reinharden
      View article »
    • Tue Apr 10th 09:33 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is Apple Beginning Its Long Delayed Descent?
      I would start that mentioning anything that invokes "fanatical users" instantly loses credibility because it's already been made clear that you've made up your mind and you're fully prepared to dismiss any responses as coming from "fanatics". Nevertheless...

      First, I would argue that you and your business associated clearly erred by thinking that Apple makes a "more robust" X. Apple's raison d'entre to a market is by making a "more usable, better integrated" X, a product "that just works". Clearly in your case, it did not. The downside to outsourcing manufacturing is that "these things happen". The upside is lower cost.
      Clearly Apple failed you as a customer in not catching a flaw on the part of their manufacturer and, more importantly, on having less than good customer service when you called.

      I'm surprised that you had such an encounter with their customer service as my limited experiences with customer service (in my 20+ years as an intermittent Apple customer) have been of much higher quality and most have resulted in my writing letters or emails to various parts of Apple commending the particular representative with whom I had dealt (one exception resulted in my writing a tirade to investor relations that resulted in an immediate return phone call from both investor relations and the management chain of the employee...amusingly, that was over a $0.99 misbilling on iTunes).

      I'm also further surprised that swapping the product out at an Apple store wasn't an option.

      Nonetheless, my experience with that particular product is that it has worked well in my SOHO, mixed 802.11b/g/n environment, with Linux, Mac, and Windows clients with both file sharing and print sharing. And I'm hoping that I'll see additional integration with the release of MacOS 10.5.

      So while you may have indeed gotten a faulty box, it's by no means signs of the imminent downfall of Apple nor of their having made "an extremely crappy" product.

      Were you truly interested in examining whether or not Apple's service had decayed, it'd be interesting to see what happened if you called in, say 3 or 5 times.

      reinharden

      PS: I'm sorry, I can't help but lightly notice the apparent irony in your seemingly taking offense at somewhat mocking your name (in a humorous fashion) when you've already mocked someone else's name...especially in light of your having, shall we say, a somewhat untraditional North American name yourself. On the other hand, Apple has never been known for its Canadian service..so perhaps that's the root cause. I wonder if they're still outsourcing their Canadian tech support to a Canadian contractor, that used to be the source of much, um, miscommunication.
      View article »
    • Tue Apr 3rd 02:07 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Why Apple Inc. Will Hit $200 per Share in 2007
      While I wish it would come true, I don't see 12 million MacTel units in calendar 2007 (much less fiscal 2007 which is already half over).

      Apple moved 1.6 million units during their best quarter last year. To hit 12 million this year, they'd need to do double their best 2006 quarter every quarter in 2007.

      During the Jan quarter of 2006, Apple only moved 1.1 million MacTel units. So it's not hard to imagine easily doubling Jan 2006's numbers. But annualized that's still a far cry from 12 million.

      Apple needs to introduce quite a few products between now and 12 million units/year. I'd be thrilled if we got them all real soon now. But realistically it's probably 2009 before Apple has a viable shot at that number (unless we count Apple TVs and iPhones as Mac units).

      reinharden
      View article »
    • Tue Apr 3rd 01:47 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Cingular Hopes iPhone Will Distract Consumers From Unreliable Voice Service
      It's a little thing and it's kind of a silly nit to pick...but one would imagine that a "vice grip" would be quite a different thing than a "vise grip".

      reinharden
      View article »
    • Thu Feb 15th 11:33 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Will Apple's Big Marketing Campaign Work? It's Doubtful.
      iPod Shuffle - With regards to the redesign of the iPod Shuffle indicating that the first generation was a failure. The iPod mini was the best selling iPod of all time (during its time) and yet it was supplanted by the iPod nano and the mini was completely dropped from the product line.

      Apple would rather eat its own babies than let someone else do so.

      #####

      I personally thought the cube was a brilliant design and had it been priced appropriately I'd have bought several. But I couldn't justify paying more for less. If nothing else, the design work Apple did there paved the way to the flat screen iMac and the Mac mini, so it wasn't a total loss. But I for one wish the cube form factor had lived on... Although if it wasn't such a pain to add RAM to a mini, I probably woudn't complain.

      To underscore the point about Mac longevity, one of my primary servers is an upgraded 300 MHz Beige G3 from 1998. It just keeps working. Sadly, with 10.5 on the horizon, I'm thinking about retiring that machine. Amusingly, it replaced a 1989 vintage SE/30 (which was running AU/X 3.0.1 when retired). Two servers over nearly 20 years. Not bad bang for the buck.

      reinharden
      View article »
    • Thu Feb 15th 09:18 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Will Apple's Big Marketing Campaign Work? It's Doubtful.
      Considering that Apple has raised its US marketshare from well under 3% to more than 6% over the last two years, I'd be hard-pressed to say "Apple would have more market share by now" with a straight face.

      They've not done as well in worldwide numbers and that is a concern; however, it's also a reflection that Apple has not chosen to participate in the sub-$500 desktop market or the sub-$1000 laptop market.

      Calendar Q1 is always Apple's weakest quarter, so with Vista launching into the mass market in that same quarter, I'm not overly concerned about minor perturbations in market share just yet.

      Especially since odds are that Apple will still demonstrate year-over-year unit sales growth of 25%+ even while showing a minor decrease in worldwide marketshare.

      reinharden
      View article »
    • Wed Feb 14th 11:19 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Realizing Metalink’s Potential
      I'm confused by this sentence:
      &gt; Geday was previously associated with a number of major successes but also, the failure of the 802.11b standard.

      Unless you're specifically and narrowly speaking only of 802.11b at Conexant, I'd be hard-pressed to imagine that the 802.11b standard "failed". Instead, it did exactly what it needed to do and, in so doing, created the thriving market we now know as WiFi.

      In any case, if I'm vaguely remembering correctly, Conexant early 802.11 efforts were predicated upon being a licensee of Intersil's 802.11 technology. So it's not like Conexant was a driver in the 802.11 development.

      It is interesting that both Intersil and Agere (who all but owned the 802.11b chipset market) are no longer players in 802.11.

      reinharden
      View article »
    • Thu Jan 18th 00:01 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Microsoft Hits Multi-Year High: What's It Really Worth?
      Why $9B in cash?

      Didn't MSFT have $28B when they last shared that information?

      Also, how do you, or should you even try to, take into consideration MSFT's planned $36B stock buyback?

      reinharden
      View article »
    • Wed Jan 10th 09:44 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Apple's iPhone Partnership With Cingular Could Drag It Down
      At the moment, according to the most recent numbers I could find, 78% of world-wide mobile phone subscribers have access to a GSM/GPRS/EDGE network. However, once you move into the "heading into 3G" environments, it fractures into a dozen 2.5G, 2.75G, and 3G technologies.

      As a shareholder, I heartily approve of making sure that you can address 78% of a billion unit market when you go to market.

      AAPL should be able to easily make new versions that follow the cellular protocols as they come available. In particular, I don't think there's any way they ship in Asia without moving upscale in terms of protocols. Certainly EDGE won't cut it in Japan and Korea and probably not even China.

      reinharden
      View article »
    • Tue Jan 9th 21:29 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Apple's iPhone Partnership With Cingular Could Drag It Down
      In the interest of accuracy, the latest numbers I found said 29.5 million subscribers for T-Mobile and a touch under 60 million for Cingular. So that's only 2 times the customer base, not the 5 I said before.

      reinharden
      View article »
Loading...
Symbols:
Authors:
Quick Links:
Contribute an Article Become a Seeking Alpha Contributor

Transcripts

More Transcripts»