Zobby

10 Reasons Not to Buy Apple

One of the dumbest articles on Apple ever.

"No room to grow in wireless market" ? The smartphone market is one the fastest expanding markets around. Apple sold more iPhone 3GS in a shorter time, 1 million in a weekend although launched in fewer countries in a recession than the 3G. People are upgrading from normal cell to smart phones. People changing from Samsung, Nokia etc to iPhone. The mobile computing market, small powerful computers like the iPhone, iPod Touch and the rumored iTablet are the next big thing in computing. While others are saying it's equivalent to the birth of the PC and internet revolutions you've got "no room to grow". Forbes: "Collins Stewart analyst Ashok Kumar estimates Apple shipped 6.8 million phones in the June quarter alone" , remember when the iPhone first came out Apple hoped to sell 10 million a year.

You say "Apple's slice of the U.S. computer market fell to 8% in the fourth quarter of 2008, from 9.5% in the third quarter of 2008, according to Forbes (source)." Did you actually read the data that's been coming out the last week or so? Morgan Stanley : " "Apple began to outperform the broader commercial PC segment -- with commercial Mac shipments up 25% month-over-month in May versus market growth of just 1%," That doesn't even fully take into account the spectacular sales of the new Macbooks, the new 13" Macbook Pro is selling out. Apple Insider: "Apple's newly-coined 13-inch MacBook Pros appear to be off to a hot start, with the company reportedly having difficulty keeping some of the new models in stock as it enters the heart of the back-to-school buying season. In a note to clients Tuesday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster pointed out that the Apple online store is currently reflecting lead times of 7 to 10 business days for the faster of the two 13-inch MacBook Pros. He notes this is the most extensive delay affecting the company's 13-inch notebook models ever.

The analyst, which regularly tracks and records lead times for products on the Mac maker's online store, said he had to look back more than two years into his records to find similar delays, and even then they spanned just 5 to 7 business days. "

As for iPod Saturation. Many people are shifting to the higher priced iPod Touch due to the thousands of apps available. Yesterday numerous articles e.g. at least 3 articles on Zdnet (a PC oriented site) alone! said that the Touch if it gets the rumored camera (Tech blogger Michael Arrington reported Monday that Apple has placed orders for a "massive number" of camera modules for the iPod.) it will be a 'disruptive', a category killer. Read Forbes "Why Apple Could Kill Your Camera". In short a camera equipped Touch will sell like hotcakes.

Won't bother to comment on the rest but the above is enough to show how poorly researched this article is.

A Nice New Zune, But Microsoft Has Lost This Market

Wall Street Jan 09: "at its much faster rate of decline, the Zune player looks like it's headed from low to no market share" (heading to Zero!)

Only a deep pocketed MS can hire the witch doctors to try to resurrect the failure and make it the ZHD (Zombie HD?). (Is that why a few years ago MS had 56 billion in cash reserves and is now down to 25 billion?)

The Zune is a sales disaster even after MS pumped 100 million into the launch and more millions after that. In the Jan Quarter it lost another 54% of its miniscule sales while iPod gained.

In the April Quarter the entire E&D division of MS which holds Zune, Xbox, Media Downloads, Games , Peripherals AND Win Mobile LOST 31 million!

MS E&D is roughly equal to Apple App Store, iTunes, Apple TV, Apple Peripherals, iPod and iPhone. IMAGINE if Apple's group LOST MONEY!!

E&D is a sorry mess.

A few years ago MS was going to kill the iPod and after waiting for two years for iPod to die laughing, they are trying again.

This time (dear God) they going to use WINDOWS CE!

to fight iPhone OS 3.0. Even Rim couldn't out OS Apple with the touch Storm and MS is trying with touch Win CE.

Early this year Samsung and Sony two of MS biggest mobile customers gave up Win Mobile (CE's offspring) in disgust and put Symbian on their flagship phones.

If Sony and Samsung long experienced device makers gave up on Win Mobile will MS with a sucky record of consumer tech ( the original Zune was just a rebranded Toshiba Gigabeat player and even the 'successful' Xbox is a money loser with a Billion Dollars in warranty claims from burnt out Xboxes) succeed with CE? Think not.

Many MS apologists went into ecstatic spasms when the original Zune appeared saying the bigger horizontal Zune screen will kill the iPod (classic) and now the same are saying the 'Oled' screen will kill the Touch. Deja Vu.

(by the way Oled screens are just generic. Apple can get them if they wanted to. The original iPhone didn't have 3G and they got it when they thought the time was right).

They don't understand it's not just isolated features but the whole user experience with the device, the User Interface, hardware and software working together and Apple wins with this hands down.

Now MS is going to resurrect the Zune and go head to head to iPod Touch with it's great OS and 30,000 plus apps with Zune running CE. It's going to be a repeat of Zune one fiasco.

No wonder a decade ago MS market cap was 600 billion and Apple 15 billion and now MS is 179 billion and Apple 119 billion. See who's shrinking and who's growing?

Expect Major Changes in the Mobile Landscape Imminently

Zune and the statement "I bet that has got you excited"

As the joke goes "all the people who have the current Zunes, all 12 of them are excited".

Really the Zune is barely breathing and on life support. In the January quarter sales down by 54%. Zune has lost millions for Microsoft.

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The division that Zune belongs to Msfts Entertainment and Devices
Division made a paltry of 426 million for the entire 2008 fiscal year.

Gamesindustry:

"Microsoft released its Q4 and FY 2008 earnings reports today, with the Entertainment and Devices Division reporting a USD 426 million profit over the year."

Note that E&D contains Zune, Xbox, all the Msft. devices like keyboards and mice, All Windows Mobile licenses, and many other
things. And this division one of only five divisions in Msft. made a miserly 400+ million in one whole year!

PC Advisor in January says that the Zune is heading towards 'Zero Market-share" echoed by the Wall Street Journal: "at its much faster rate of decline, the Zune player looks like it's headed from low to no market share".

Apple execs must really like the Zune, a comparison of the Zune to an iPod Touch must be best PR Apple can have for the superiority of Apple technology.

Companies' Cash Holdings: The Winners and Losers

I notice that you have Apple net cash at 23 billion.

Apple CFO Oppenheimer said during Q1 financial report on Jan 2009 said that Apple had over 28 billion in cash and no debt. The quarter before that Apple had over 25 billion.

venturebeat.com/2009/0.../

Am I reading the reading the financials wrong? Perhaps i am but I just wanted to point it out.

What It Would Take To Fix Microsoft For Me

The iPhone SDK will be another big nail in the coffin of Windows. When 3rd party applications come to Apple "iDevices" the tight integration between these 'new platform' mobile computing devices and 'classic' computers (notebooks, desktops) will be an Apple advantage neither Msft. (or any other company) could match. They can't match it because they don't have OsX. Leopard on Mac is just the beginning, the iPhone SDK (or Cocoa Touch) is whole new and potentially much bigger ball game.

Smart Phone Wars: iPhone vs. Blackberry vs. ...Android?

The iPhone is a MOBILE COMPUTER that can also make phone calls. Some other so called 'smart-phones' can't even be hooked up to a computer.

It took something like 20 years to create OsX (staring as Next Os), a modified version runs the iPhone. Many don't get how sophisticated Unix based OsX is. Microsoft can't match it, doubtful if any PHONE maker can do so. That's why so far every "iphone" killer has fallen flat on its face. Apple will fix whatever iPhone shortcomings there is like 3G, GPS, no sweat just a matter of time but their competitors will never get OsX.

With iPhone software 2.0 and SDK apps. coming in June the whole game is going to change. The iPhone and future Apple iDevices are going dominate this whole new 'mobile computing' category, nobody is going to come close. As John Doerr Google and Amazon financier said it's whole 'new platform' and he added 'bigger than the PC'. John Doerr biggest tech financier is so sure of this he's setting up a 100 m fund to finance iPhone application development.

I won Google stock but my bets still with iPhone vs. Android.