neutrino23

Case-Shiller: Home Prices Continue to Rise

I'm not sure why you suggest that San Francisco was "bubble central". I would have given that dubious honor to Las Vegas. For several years before the crash there was a lot of discussion about how speculators were driving up the price of real estate in LV.

I'm not an expert on this but SF and the peninsula south of there are a little bit special in that there is a lot of access to foreigners wishing to buy American property and, being that this is a peninsula, there is no room to expand. Not to say we can't have a bubble here, just that the SF market operates a little differently.

Another Crisis Looms Right Around the Corner

I don't understand why you mention expanding healthcare as a negative. The largest cause of bankruptcy in this country is due to health problems. Sensible healthcare will help the economy in numerous ways.

Will Microsoft Get Squeezed by Chrome OS?

This is an interesting argument. I don't think many end users will soon give up windows for chrome. Rather, any place you see a PC used for a single task is a candidate for Chrome. Some examples: PCs used in libraries to search card catalogs, PCs used in airports to print boarding passes, PCs used in hotel business centers to print boarding passes and do simple document editing, PCs used in industry for single tasks such as data entry and various kinds of interactions with customers by phone.

The argument about the middle being difficult to sell is quite true. I've seen a number of products suffer this way. When you do find a customer with enough budget and interest to buy your product they are susceptible to a higher end product luring them upscale with features and discounts or you lose your customer downscale to simpler products encouraging the customer to save their money. This is deeply frustrating.

Regarding the hoards of flying executives creating powerpoints, they are perfect candidates for this kind of product though their egos wouldn't let them buy it. All they ever run is Outlook, Word, Excel and PPT, and, of course, solitaire.

Microsofts big, long term problem is that the charge for their product. Just as they killed Netscape by giving away IE for free other companies will kill eventually cause pain for MS by giving away the OS. Google wins by providing a platform that gets more ad hits. If the OS is cheap for them to maintain that is a win for them. Other companies will join in as the economics changes in favor of this. Someday you'll get a piece of junk mail which will be a PC printed on a piece of plastic with an OLED display. To use this free PC you'll have to first watch some short advertisement or there will be advertising printed on the package. That PC will not be running windows or OS X but Chrome or Linux.

Banning Derivatives and Other Such Foolishness

There is no such thing as a free market nor would one be desirable. A truly free market would be anarchy. A truly free market is when a gang of muggers knocks you on the head, leaves you for dead and takes your possessions.

Governments create markets through a stable currency, rules of the game and police and courts for enforcing the rules. Hopefully the point of the regulations is to ensure transparency and honesty and a modicum of safety.

Why Research in Motion Is a Takeover Target

I don't see RIM taking off. They'll probably maintain their position or slowly lose share while remaining profitable. They just don't have the software or technology to keep up with expansion outside of their core business (email).

I don't see RIMM as a take over target. Sure, they will have a steady cash stream, but it is a long shot that they will grow rapidly.

I think Palm is a better take over target than RIMM. It takes much less cash and you get a better OS. The downside is that there are fewer customers so again, it is a risk as to whether they will grow rapidly.

While Rivals Jockey for Market Share, Apple Bathes in Profits

Gartner just released a report saying that Apple's world wide share of the smart phone market reached 17.1% just behind RIMM at 20.8% and further behind Nokia at 39.3%. No one else was in double digits.

So if you look at the smart phone market (not all phones) then Apple also has quite good (and growing) share.

I read a similar item a while back claiming that Apple had the lions share of over $1,000 laptops in the US.

This is Apple's good fortune. The message is not that they don't compete in the sub $600 market, it's that they have little competition in the over $1,000 market. Which would you rather be in?

Probably Sony should have been their natural competitor but Sony never really got established in the computer business. I think they didn't have a clear vision of what they wanted to be. Some time back I visited their sales office in Japan and we saw Unix workstations as well as all sorts of windows towers and laptops. So they definitely had their chance at that business.

Expect Apple's December Earnings to Grow 37%

This is a temporary ban that has already been lifted. Once they sell out of current stock the new phones will have WiFi.

www.macrumors.com/2009.../

How Apple's Market Share Will Propel Stock to $500, Part 2

I can't do the arithmetic to say that AAPL might reach a particular target, but I can see that Apple is a very unusual company. They have no debt, a huge amount of cash, no legacy technology holding them back, they own their own technology and designs. They now have this fantastic machine for developing new tech products. They are not limited to PCs, iPods and iPhones. Any consumer product that involves software is a potential target for Apple expansion. This will be fantastic to watch.

Bye, Bye Love: Leaving My iPhone for Droid

A handset connecting to a wireless network is a very complex animal to understand. You are blaming the iPhone for your problems (perhaps correctly) although it could be something else.

Here is a test conducted in the UK that showed the iPhone being best at maintaining a connection to the network. This was the iPhone 3G (version 2.2 firmware).

www.mobilehandsetdesig...

Maybe there is something about your location that places you at the intersection of multiple towers? Being on the fourth floor you may have line of site to several towers causing some conflict. You might try Skype over WiFi while you are in your office.

The Problem with iPhone Killers

I don't much care for the religion analogy as it obscures rather than illuminates. The whole business of iPhone killers (or BB killers or what have you) is driven by the tech pundits looking for splashy headlines. I think the business people are just looking for profits and survival. As such Apple seems to be looking for a secure market position, they are not trying to dominate the market.

The tech blogs focus too much on superficial features of phones and extrapolate market penetration based on that. Market share is earned by a mix of characteristics, one of them being the product itself. In addition you need to consider company reputation, product reputation, customer support, retail outlets, advertising, and many other things.

For a newcomer to become a hit is not an overnight process. Share grows over time and now the competitive situation is much tougher. When Apple introduced the iPhone there was no Apps store and no other phone similar to the iPhone. Newcomers don't have that benefit. Apple and others will not sit idly by and let another company gain share without a response.

My take is that Apple will continue to see strong growth. Apple has a great mix of reputation, 200+ retail outlets that also provide support and now they have a huge installed base. Keeping a customer is cheaper and easier than getting a new customer. Apple also has the power to add more extrinsic value to their phones. iTunes Music Store and the Apps Store are examples. Expect more ventures like this next year (my opinion).

RIMM will do OK but continue their slow loss of market share.

Android phones will replace Nokia as the provider of low cost phones. Probably in a few years the numbers of Android phones will exceed the number of iPhones. iPhones will capture the lions share of the profit and will continue to be the feature leaders.

WM will malinger but not die as MS will keep shoveling money at it. Perhaps they will find a way to give it away and make money elsewhere such as in selling office for mobile phones?

Symbian OS will fade away year by year. It might not be bad, but there is just no reason for it to live. Why switch to something that is maybe almost as good as Android and a distant second to OS X?

When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get an Apple

It would be interesting to know who all the new Mac customers are. Apple's ads are heavily focused on people switching from windows to OS X indicates that they are seeing a lot of activity in that area.

The ads also indicate that this is a personal decision. There are no Apple ads showing an IT guy buying 2,000 Macs for a company. This makes sense. If you set up some sort of a sea of cubicles filled with people doing something like tele-marketing where they run one application all day long then the cheapest computer possible is what you want. If you are investing in yourself then you may consider a higher quality device with more diverse applications and capabilities. Customers satisfaction (as mentioned in the ads) would be important to you.

Verizon's Droid Is the Real Deal

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. A problem is that most of the people who know about products like this at the roll out are far more detail oriented than the general public. Nothing bad with either group, just that you can't project the reactions of one group based on the reactions of the other.

I doubt that most people care about a phones OS or heritage very much.

Apple has a tremendous head start in the market. They have access to customers through 200 odd Apple stores plus the ATT stores plus online sales. They have tremendous mindshare in that the Apple brand and iPhone name are extremely well known. Not to mention the App Store which has been a true phenomenon.

Droid will probably do OK as it has no competition from Apple on Verizon. We'll see how reliable it is and if it really works out in the wild.

I'll agree with some earlier posters. I travel a lot on business and use an iPhone. Now and again the network slows down but I've had good connectivity in every major city in the US. Only when you get out in the dessert or farmland does the signal drop off. Now and again I see four bars of signal but very slow internet speeds. In these cases I can still make calls and text.

I'll offer a defense of those touting Apple's seeming invulnerability. Apple has already achieved tremendous market penetration and built a large infrastructure for support. They were able to do this partly because there was almost no competition when they first came out and they were able to piggyback on the support structure put in place for computers and iPods. The competitors like Pre and Android phones don't have that luxury. They have to compete in today's world where Apple already exists as a fierce competitor (and RIM and Palm as well). The Apple App store is a reality that Apple didn't have to contend with when they first came out. Android phones face that reality. Most of all, if Apple gets a hint that any competitor is encroaching on their growth Apple has massive resources in engineering, design and marketing to make a very strong response. They may stumble but you have to like their odds.

Apple's Solid Triple Play Will Be Hard to Beat

I use a Mac for both home and business. Most of the time I can use just Mac OS X. My company has a few things that are windows only and for that I use Parallels and XP. It works pretty well. When I need to do something XP specific I run XP and as soon as I'm finished I shut it down and get it out of the way.

Regarding Apple and imitators, this is an interesting point. Normally you would expect an imitator to copy a successful product. To some extent this has happened a lot. When the colored iMacs first came out then suddenly everything came with translucent colored plastic. Some laptops look something like MacBooks, MP3 players ship with white earbuds. This is all superficial. What Apple has done is to create an ecosystem of interrelated products. The same OS runs on the iPhone, the iPod touch, the laptops and desktops. This is a huge barrier to entry. Nothing lasts forever, but with their cash hoard and their desire to stay in front then Apple should be able to stay ahead of the pack for many years to come.

Why Android Is Gaining Ground on Apple

Android will have its place but it does not compete directly with the iPhone. My guess is that a couple years down the line Android phones will largely supplant Nokia phones in the low end, low margin market. RIM will survive but lose share. The iPhone will own the high end, high margin business. Watch for Nokia to drop Symbian OS and adopt Android on some phones.

I think the Android world will be too chaotic to develop much in the way of a useful App Store.

Will Windows 7 Resurrect IT Spending?

Just anecdotal, but I've visited a number of large companies and national labs on business over the last few months and not one of them has shown any enthusiasm for using W7. I think they will gradually adopt it, but it will not be a adoption rate.

Regarding some of the earlier posts, I will suggest that Apple products are not as expensive as suggested. If you are a student then in the summer season you can buy a Mac at the education discount with a $200 rebate credited towards the price of an iPod. Many would choose to get the MacBook and iPod for roughly $900 vs. an iPod at list plus a cheap PC for roughly $700, not to mention the additional expenses for anti-virus software.