Option watcher

Apple Taking Notes From Disney

You want a Disney comparison to Apple? I'll give you a perfect up/down crash and burn failed recovery with just one name! Britney Spears...

How does her example compare with Apple? Well lets see! You have the hottest product of your corporate life and you tie yourself to one company (ATT) with a multi year exclusivity contract. Next you count on purchasers to actually activate with this company as it is critical to your earnings projections.

How about missed opportunities? You finally move to an Intel chip platform but, make your operating system exclusive to to that chip on your hardware platform only!! Dumb move. Why? Because MSFT has released there worst O/S ever with Vista. You had the opportunity of a lifetime to gain significant market share by finally allowing your O/S to run on a standard PC. Lets face it. People that already buy your hardware will continue to do so, so why worry about that. Every residential customer I meet with Vista or XP have said they would absolutely by your O/S to put on their existing PC if priced at $200 or less. What they will not do is pay 5x that amount for hardware they don't need just to try your O/S.

Oh and you missed the boat on China. 1.4 billion people and half of the with cell phones and you hold out for a revenue sharing contract? Are you insane? If you could sell an Iphone to every person in the USA but, with no revenue sharing contract would you turn away those sales? Well China would have been that many sales this year already. How is that ATT revenue sharing plan working out for you? What's that? More than 20% sold are not activated you say? How is that exclusivity deal working for you now?

When you do stupid things you tend to take a fall that you can't fully recover from. Just ask Britney. Her novelty has worn off and so will the Iphone's and probably before you wake up to all the missed opportunities........