Zobby

Back to School on the Cheap: Another Round of Mac vs. PC

Sometimes Apple stuff is much cheaper than Microsoft.

Snow Leopard upgrade is 29, Win 7 Home upgrade is 119.

that's FOUR times more for Win Home.
(and people talk about Apple tax? Where's Lauren?)

and that's just win Home we're not even talking about Win Pro prices! And there's just one upgrade price for Snow Leopard same price even for pro users.

Win 7 so much more expensive in spite of the fact Msft. has big cost advantages of scale and mass production. Apple has to make back it's R&D and other overhead costs with 2-3% worldwide market-share. Amazing no hue and cry from PC up-graders.

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.

Apple Will Flourish With or Without Steve Jobs

Some good points in the article and posts here.

I'll just ad one more thing on the OS thing. Microsoft's grip on the OS is a double edged sword for a Microsoft and an opportunity for Apple. It's a positive for Microsoft as it's tremendous market share (a near monopoly in same areas) gives it tremendous revenue but because it needs to support so many legacy applications, hardware configurations that it finds itself in bind in innovation. Many are still sticking with XP which is what 7 years old? This gives an opportunity for Apple which can innovate much quicker and increase it's OS lead. OsX because it is Unix based is a more modern (and stable and secure) OS than Windows and Apple innovates faster with it, from XP to Vista, Apple has put out Cheetah (Puma), Jaguar, Panther, Tiger and Leopard. Next year it has promised Snow Leopard.

Microsoft's iPhone Envy Is Starting To Show

Reading the whole letter it seems that Msft. is saying that it will sell 20 million licenses this fiscal year. It also mentions 150 handsets run win mobile. 20 million from 150 different hand phones doesn't sound too good. (I read it as after 150 tries from different manufacturers over many years no one has yet to hit a Win Mobile phone home run. Says something about Win Mobile doesn't it?). Apple's target is 10 million from the iphone and has already sold a few million just selling in the original four countries.

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.