BeachRider

Verizon's Droid Is the Real Deal

Android is a Linux/Java application platform. The ones that VZW sells will probably be CDMA/3G until some-time in late 2010. The big question will be "can VZW's network sustain high usage of 3G". AT&T's network hasn't handled it very well. VZW has been annoyingly 'closed' to open-standards-handsets, so Android will also challenge them in that way.
VZW has been offering CDMA/GSM phones for four years. If worldwide communications is important AND you perceive VZW to have a better network, you can get the phones for that.
Bashing AAPL for its iPhone is also silly. iPhone is a revolutionary phone that has been largely unchallenged for two years. People who perceive a need for that kind of communications will pay the $30-50/mo for additional network services for iPhone.
I agree with those who say 'let the battle begin'. That IS the fun stuff of Capitalism!

100% Gainers and Their Estimated P/Es

JAVA on this list, too? Although this list is backward-looking, I can't help thinking that people are looking at entries that will continue this performance.

JAVA is being purchased by ORCL, as soon as Belgium clears it. If something happens and ORCL drops the acquisition plan (very low chance), then JAVA will decline in value.

Buy JAVA if you believe that the difference from today's price to the ORCL purchase price will give you enough value for the risk. The minor chance of significant falloff is what is causing the gap today.

I wish ORCL and JAVA well on this venture, but it will be a roller coaster for a little while!

Why Microsoft and Apple's Market Caps Should Be Reversed

My goodness. APPL is certainly on a charge and Microsoft certainly had a stunningly bad quarter. APPL P/E has been over 27. MSFT P/E is around 14. There is clearly room for MSFT to turn around the ship. MSFT still has much-higher revenues and profits, but their progress has been blunted.
Buy APPL for some for-sure immediate day-trading. The time for a longer-term MSFT purchase could be after an expected August/September swoon.

The Netbook as Cannibal: But Not for Apple

The article quickly swings between 'what is good for consumers' and 'what is good for vendors'. That is hard to do in an article this short.

Netbooks were a new low-end Windows/Linux platform, and now MacOS device. It plugged a gap between iPhone and laptops. If APPL didn't do it, they would have lost the segment to MS. It doesn't really overlap existing APPL products, so the sales cannibalism is limited to people that 'had enough money' to buy a Laptop, but 'only needed' this machine.

Healthcare's Software Problem

Several issues are running together here. Healthcare IS, in general, is less mature than in other industries. In medical suites, successful hospitals integrate Nursing skills & IS skills around whole-cooked or framework software products. If whole-cooked products (e.g. Cerner, Meditech) are used, then the practice must adapt to the assumptions of the products. If Framework products (e.g. EpicSystems, Eclipsys) are used, then wisdom governs the expression of existing medical practice through the product. Each way has its risks & rewards.
ERP Hospital systems (e.g. SAP, Lawson) are less nursing-integrated than Medical systems. They need to focus on primary benefits to be derived. Most have a financial bias that must not be ignored, although they must adapt to staff workflows.
I would be interested in more about these open-source systems. This type of software tends to have more trouble adapting to changing technology and regulation. It would be great if they have adopted a structure to leverage the benefits of open source, though.

51 Option Ideas for Bears

HPQ is showing up in too many bear-scenarios. There must be some kind of negative sentiment on their future success with EDS and Computer Storage. The IA-32 server business is still sound, but not much growth in CY2009. There is no clear signal with their IA-64 (Itanium) stuff.

Hewlett-Packard: Not Just Another Computer Company

HP's upside is that its adaptation of commodity hardware is fairly robust. Their IA-32 blade servers are competitive. Their disk-storage adaptations are probably competitive (but they got that EMC guy to move this up, and he is being delayed). Their PA-RISC stuff is barely holding-the-fort and is losing market share. Their IA-64 stuff is lashed to Intel's underperforming progress on Itanium, but benefits from Sun's problems. EDS's prognosis is stunted, until economic growth returns. Their consumer brands are doing fine, but the margins are tight.
HPQ should probably be compared to IBM, but the last six months have gone largely to IBM because of their predictions for stronger profits.

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

GM reorganizing Delphi. Not much of a surprise, they depend on Delphi. It is very important that the engagement rigidly follows the plan for rapid re-privatization of both companies, though.

How to Profit from Possible U.S. Credit Downgrade

Interesting scenario. Other than political alignment, the UK & USA don't have much similarity in their financial underpinnings, though. Credit is more than just measuring the amount of spending for this kind of technical analysis.

Make Way for Tech Earnings: IBM, Yahoo, Apple and Microsoft on Deck

IBM revenue missed. Analysts expected $22.56Bn. Actual was $21.71Bn. It was also a drop of 11% from $24.50Bn this quarter, a year ago. After hours is a little lower. We have to watch the overseas bourses overnight...

Will Intel's New Processor Be a Game-Changer?

Raising the capability of the high-end is a good thing for Intel. They will create price pressure on IBM, existence-pressure on SPARC and judgment pressure on HP (for choosing Itanium in the UNIX market).

This isn't widely applicable to home-machines. Perhaps 5% of home computer users will have much use for this. Not trivial, but not a game changer.

These are still IA-32 chips. Acceptance/Understanding of x64 is a problem. Intel must make it clear that they have a long term solution and sever-off Itanium. Then the future will be clear.

Technically the Core i7 at 45 nm is still substantially slower than the Power 6 at 65 nm (core-per-core). Both are available as true quad-core setups, for several months now.

Saving electricity on a by-core basis will always be in SPARC's favor. The just run the thing at low GHz and cram 8-16 cores in each CPU. I am not sure how that translates into server-buy decisions, though.

Top Ten Tech Surprises in 2009: Low Probability, High Consequence Edition

Isn't Cisco trying to enhance their Intel-blade offerings? Doesn't Sun have a substantial knowledge of doing that from their Intel/AMD blade products? I don't know how the Sun/STK disk stuff would sell at Cisco, they don't have any offering in that area (could be good, though). The freeware might be useful to Cisco to augment existing Cisco products for Network monitoring that presume the use of Sun/Solaris. Purchasing Sun can't really be that expensive, anyway.

I would like to see these two get together.

Is This the Nasdaq or a Dollar Store?

Here we are on JAVA again. Don't they have a couple of Billion in cash? Do they really have so-little appeal as a buyout target? It looks like the hedge funds are really burying this stock. It doesn't help that they have three consecutive semi-surprises. How does their management keep their jobs with this performance. The market is down 30-40%. Java is down almost twice that.