neutrino23

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.

The End of Exclusive: How Apple Plans to Grow Market Share

The article correctly identifies some of the external pressure on Apple to end the exclusive with ATT, it doesn't shed much light on how that will happen. I don't particularly fault the author. No one outside of Apple knows the answer to that .

My guess is Apple will not make a phone for Verizon. They will wait till Verizon deploys the next generation network.

Beyond that, my intuition is that Apple is thinking more deeply about this than simply increasing share by adding a carrier. Just as the App Store changed the landscape I suspect they are looking at some other new feature in the near term that will once again change the landscape whether Verizon is involved or not.

Research in Motion: Reports of Sales Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

It seems to me that RIMM is OK for a while but I'm skeptical of their long term prospects. They have good cash flow from current customers and they are giving phones away to try to lure new customers.

You get a Blackberry because your company forces you to carry one. You get an iPhone (or Pre or other) because you want one.

The competitors are not sitting still. RIMM has not caught up with the current competition. What will happen to them when someone else starts making inroads into the business market?

How PHEVs and EVs Will Sabotage America's Drive for Energy Independence

The Prius currently does not use lithium batteries. It uses NiMH batteries. Word is Toyota is researching lithium batteries intensely but they are not there yet.

I applaud the intense research into lithium (and other) technology and it may eventually yield a very useful technology.

The good point about the electric vehicles is that they clearly are designed to use less energy. The problem with hybrids is that not all hybrids are designed the same. The Prius and Honda Insight get fantastic mileage. Many other hybrids get only slightly better mileage than their gas powered counterparts. The car company has to design the whole car to get good mileage.

I get your argument about the EV. I don't go along with you on the PHEV. For example, If the Prius could go about 15 miles on a charge (about 3kWH useful battery, probably nearer 4kWH on the label) that could yield well over 100mpg for many people as much of our travel is short trips near home. This number depends on driving patterns. 3 - 4 kWH is a relatively small amount of energy that could be applied by a relatively small array of solar cells which would help even more.

A separate consideration is to look at the amount of energy invested to manufacture these vehicles. Toyota works hard to reduce the energy needed to build a Prius. If the manufacturer is not careful about this it can take more oil to build the vehicle than is saved in operation.

Pace of Insider Sales Continues to Escalate

This is too vague a number to be useful. It is a red flag of sorts that insiders are selling so much. However, without investigating why they are selling one can't make an informed decision about how to respond. As pointed out above perhaps many of these people are in dire need of cash. Perhaps they are underwater on the mortgage on the mansion and need to set that right. As the above poster points out, you need to investigate companies one by one to see whether and why insiders are selling. No one has a crystal ball.

China: Exactly Where Japan Was in the 1980s?

Of course, it can be instructive to compare any two economies, but Japan and China are so different that you have to be extremely careful in doing so.

Japan is, and has been for decades, a well regulated, homogenous, consensus based culture. It is also an incredibly wealthy nation. Yes the last 20 years or so have not been great, but that has been a loss of growth, not a slide into dire poverty.

China is a totally different beast. China suffered unimaginable chaos after the war during the cultural revolution. Poverty in many areas is still horrible. Environmental restrictions in many areas are almost unknown. Toxic chemicals of all sorts are dumped in the air, land and water. There is usually little recourse if one develops a debilitating disease from this.

China is huge and consists of many disparate cultures. Some areas of China, particularly the coastal areas, have seen enormous economic growth. The disparity between places like Shanghai and the poorer provinces is enormous. I can barely imagine the tensions that exist between the different elements of their society.

My take is that China is still working to build the nation. It is still working to supply basic necessities to many segments of the population. If farm productivity increases they can still bring more of the population into the manufacturing base.

Someone mentioned above about the Walkman being made in Japan and now similar products are made in China. The Walkman was a breakthrough product designed and made in Japan. It brought great wealth to SONY.

Apple computers are made in China but they are designed in Cupertino. China has yet to design and produce their own world changing product. If an Apple laptop brings ~$1,200 retail how much of that goes to China? $20? $40? Intel makes many of the chips. Other components come from Taiwan, Korea and Japan.

How does that affect their economic future? I don't know. I see it as too chaotic to easily make a prediction. There are many upsides, but the disease causing pollution and waste and lack of worker rights, lack of human rights, lack of civil rights, the corruption all take their toll. I suspect they need two generations to instill a sense of stability and normality into their population and to find their way as a society.

Disclosure: I lived in Japan for nine years between 1984 and 2002 and visited China a dozen times or so during that time on business. I road trains and buses to the small towns where I provided training at universities and institutes.

Microsoft: Whistling in the Dark

MSFT has a long term problem in that the PC manufacturers mostly compete on lower prices. It gets harder and harder to justify hundreds of dollars for the OS and Office when the underlying hardware cost is only a two or three hundred dollars.

Yes, MSFT's worldwide unit share is high but I'll suggest that outside the US and Europe a high number of those units are illegal copies that provide little or no revenue to MS.

In China MSFT has cut its prices to the bone to try to compete with piracy. No revenue growth there.

Now MSFT is coming out with free, web versions of Office. Where is the future revenue stream in that? Will they try to support it with ads? How annoying will that be?

This is the danger for MSFT. They have a history of leveraging Windows to force people to use their formats. For example, they forced the use of IE in windows which forced web developers to code for IE instead of open standards. In business you have to have Office because everyone else uses it. If the world decides to change directions and switch to web based/cloud type apps that are almost free, or if they decide to go in the direction of the iPhone/BB/Android, then MSFT is starting from a position of being an also ran and outsider. They'll have a hard time using windows to force people to buy into their proprietary formats if the world decides they don't need windows. If MSFT is not forcing standards then they cannot force people to give them money.

It doesn't mean MSFT will disappear. They have a lot of momentum and there may be a core business in MSFT at much less than their current size. But if they enter a long period of slow revenue decline that will kill the stock. How do you value the stock if you expect revenue to decrease 1% or 2% or 3% a year for the foreseeable future? How do you attract bright people when their stock options are worthless?

Disclosure: Long AAPL, not an analyst, just a guy.

Why Apple Isn't Making iTunes Available for the Palm Pre

First of all, Apple can't formally allow Pre to sync to iTunes as that becomes a liability. They are now responsible for providing this service and if they do it for Pre they do it for everyone. I see no way Apple can do this.

Second, I agree with James Katt. There are other ways Palm could have gotten iTunes content onto the Pre without pretending to be an iPod. This would not have put them at odds with Apple.

How Google Apps Could Cost Microsoft Up to $18 Billion in Value

As does Wilhelm, I think MS has to worry about long term trends. In business you often have to use MS Office simply because everyone else does and you need it to participate. Once enough sub-groups start using something else (Google supplied or otherwise) there will be a tipping point such that business will accommodate multiple applications. That will be bad news for MS because once they lose that lock on the customer there will be a race to the bottom as different suppliers offer other applications in this "new" market.

Did Apple Steal the Palm Pre’s Thunder?

AT&T charges what the market will bear. It may seem high but that is what people are willing to pay.

Palm is lucky in that they can sell to Sprint without much competition, yet. They may have enough breathing room to establish a niche. Time will tell if poor handset quality and poor sales will sink them.

Why the Dow Is Headed to 6000

The arguments given are pretty weak. These are black and white descriptions of a nuanced reality. I don't know the future but I can argue with these points.

1. Not only the government is spending money. AAPL, RIMM and others are spending heavily on R&D. Other industries are also doing well. This is why we measure things, to get a handle on complex situations.

2. Unemployment is rising. Yes, and it is expected to keep rising for a while as it is a lagging indicator. This is not unexpected.

3. Wages are depressed. Really? Wall street is still handing out bonuses. Other companies have given raises. How about some measurement of the net effect of raises and trimmed salaries?

4. Boomer retirement. It would be nice to have a study done on this. What will be the effect of boomers postponing retirement? Is it a good thing that they keep working? Would it be better to have them retire and then start spending some of their nest eggs and contributing to consumer consumption?

5. Catch 22. Complex issue. No comment.

6. Government Tapped Out. I'll plead ignorance but it seems we still have a number of options open to us.

7. US can't export itself out of this problem.
I'll agree with that given we've been running a trade deficit for quite some time.

The Economy Can't Be That Bad if Thousands Can Pay $100 for a Ballgame

It is very difficult to gauge the success of a business by the feel of the crowd. I'll agree, the upscale restaurants I've been to lately have been quite crowded. On the other hand, if business is down 10% that means just one empty table or one empty seat at the bar, or people are ordering the less expensive dishes or wines.

Also, spending $100 on something is not that important. In fact, $100 purchases might increase in a down period. If I decide not to purchase a car or home this year I can then spend several thousand on small purchases and still come out tens of thousands to the good. This is why we measure things and keep statistics. Anyway, I was born in 1951 and as a kid I recall that ten cents bought a good candy bar which now goes for about a dollar so while $100 is an emotional benchmark it's not what it used to be.

Finally, I have to disagree with Mark about unemployment. The official rate may be near 10% but alternate sources put it closer to 20%.
www.shadowstats.com/al...

The official rate is a narrowly defined statistic. It only counts people actively looking for work and excludes many others. It is not true that if the unemployment rate is X% then (100-X)% are employed.

Over-Regulating Derivatives Dealers Could Increase Risk

I'm skeptical of the many conditionals you invoke. Things may not work the way you think.