Since the return of Steve Jobs to Apple they’ve just gone from strength to strength with a few missteps along the way.
iMac
iPod
iPhone
iPad
iTunes
MacBook
MacBook Pro
MacBook Air
Apple Stores
the upcoming iCloud that we hope launches better than MobileMe
the App Store
That’s a lot of winners.
Now Apple is making inroads into the corporate market, the potential to become a massively dominant player is within their grasp.
Will they ‘screw the pooch’? Sad to say that a very possible scenario.
If you look at the recent launch of Final Cut Pro X you’d have to say that was pretty comprehensively screwed up. Apple managed to piss off a vast majority of editors with that one. I know they’re saying just wait for the updates and all will be good, but people don’t want to wait for the updates. They want it to be good when they get it.
That’s kind of like buying a Porsche and discovering that the wheels are on a boat from Outer Mongolia so you’ll just have to wait until they arrive and THEN everything will be really good. Promise.
The truth of the matter is that Apple do not, and appear to never have, understood the corporate market. Sure they understand it better than the Gnomes of Mountain View, but they don’t get it like Microsoft do.
I talked about this some time back in this old blog entry at Anthill. Apple just don’t seem to get corporate customers, but, there is a chance that this may change with the Commonwealth Bank deploying 4000 MacBook Air laptops to replace their fleet of Dell laptops.
If they don’t screw things up at the Commonwealth and they can learn about what corporates want, they might, just might, figure out how to crack this market sector.
That being said if anyone can screw up a deal like this its Apple.
Showing posts with label Cupertino. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cupertino. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO - its iMargeddon
It was always going to happen.
Jobs was never going to stay as CEO forever.
The fact that he resigned the way he did was smart, and good for Apple.
Despite what all the ADHD afflicted Wall Street wunderkinder think, dumping shares and claiming doom and gloom because their spreadsheet models say so, this isn’t as big a problem as everyone thinks.
Different situation. Gates resigned after the rot had set in and handed the reigns over to Monkey Boy. Vista was already in the works before Bill resigned, he just left the big steaming pile for Ballmer to deal with.
This time Jobs, appears, to be leaving with Apple going from strength to strength.
The other day I was in one of those Home Maker Super Centres.
The 5 year olds wanted to play with iPads and Macs. I mean all of them. They weren’t lining up top play with Windows 7 laptops or someone else’s tablet.
Want to know what tech trend to follow look at what floats the boat of a 5 year old.
I don’t really think iMargeddon is here - but if you do I’ll offer you a couple of bucks for your Apple shares.
Jobs was never going to stay as CEO forever.
The fact that he resigned the way he did was smart, and good for Apple.
Despite what all the ADHD afflicted Wall Street wunderkinder think, dumping shares and claiming doom and gloom because their spreadsheet models say so, this isn’t as big a problem as everyone thinks.
- Jobs is a long term thinker. He knew this day was coming and has been busy preparing.
- While the common view of Apple is that its a company built on one tent pole, and that tent pole is Steve Jobs - there’s more to the company that just him.
- Jobs brilliance lies in the fact that he can look at technology and distill it down to something that is accessible to the “I just want it to work” crowd.
- I’m willing to bet money that he’s been explaining this rationale to everyone in his inner circle.
- Apple’s product line for the next 2 years are already in the pipeline.
- Apple’s engineering mules for the next 4 years of possible products are in the pipeline.
Different situation. Gates resigned after the rot had set in and handed the reigns over to Monkey Boy. Vista was already in the works before Bill resigned, he just left the big steaming pile for Ballmer to deal with.
This time Jobs, appears, to be leaving with Apple going from strength to strength.
- The iPhone 5 due ‘real soon now’.
- The Mac grabbing market share like Ballmer grabs futile acquisitions.
- A very successful patent war being fought against Samsung. The timing on this is interesting too.
The other day I was in one of those Home Maker Super Centres.
The 5 year olds wanted to play with iPads and Macs. I mean all of them. They weren’t lining up top play with Windows 7 laptops or someone else’s tablet.
Want to know what tech trend to follow look at what floats the boat of a 5 year old.
I don’t really think iMargeddon is here - but if you do I’ll offer you a couple of bucks for your Apple shares.
Monday, August 22, 2011
The Apple Double Play.
I just finished reading an article in PC Magazine that really got me thinking.
The piece was entitled ‘The Apple Product That Really Worries PC Vendors’.
It really got me thinking, especially in light of the fact that the Commonwealth Bank recently decided to arm their staff with MacBook Air laptops.
The interesting this about this was the following:
Branch visitors were free to use iMac, iPad, iPod and Asus touchscreen devices to browse foreign exchange rates, products, and to make appointments with CBA specialists – much like how Apple customers arranged to visit the vendor’s ‘Genius bar’.
The bank also planned to replace internal Dell desktops with MacBook Air notebooks nationwide, allowing employees to choose to operate on either Mac OS or Windows platforms.
Wow! I really mean WOW!
Think about this in terms of the the information from Canalys that I mentioned in this post ‘Wintel Market Share Slips’.
The Commonwealth Bank, the guys who hung on to OS/2 for years past its expiry date are doing a widespread deployment of Apple MacBook Air laptops. This is astounding news.
Here’s the really amazing potential - lets assume that they replace all 4000 Dell laptops with the MacBook Air. Here’s the really interesting maths:
4000 copies of Windows 7 Entreprise, even at the best possible price couldn’t be less that $175 a copy, lets call it $150 just to keep the calculations simple. Lion is $31.99.
That means a saving on OS upgrade costs of $472,040.
Half a Million Dollars saving on an Operating System upgrade!
Where would you want the half million, on your bottom line or on Microsoft’s?
Careful of your answer, your shareholders are watching.
The piece was entitled ‘The Apple Product That Really Worries PC Vendors’.
It really got me thinking, especially in light of the fact that the Commonwealth Bank recently decided to arm their staff with MacBook Air laptops.
The interesting this about this was the following:
Branch visitors were free to use iMac, iPad, iPod and Asus touchscreen devices to browse foreign exchange rates, products, and to make appointments with CBA specialists – much like how Apple customers arranged to visit the vendor’s ‘Genius bar’.
The bank also planned to replace internal Dell desktops with MacBook Air notebooks nationwide, allowing employees to choose to operate on either Mac OS or Windows platforms.
Wow! I really mean WOW!
Think about this in terms of the the information from Canalys that I mentioned in this post ‘Wintel Market Share Slips’.
The Commonwealth Bank, the guys who hung on to OS/2 for years past its expiry date are doing a widespread deployment of Apple MacBook Air laptops. This is astounding news.
Here’s the really amazing potential - lets assume that they replace all 4000 Dell laptops with the MacBook Air. Here’s the really interesting maths:
4000 copies of Windows 7 Entreprise, even at the best possible price couldn’t be less that $175 a copy, lets call it $150 just to keep the calculations simple. Lion is $31.99.
That means a saving on OS upgrade costs of $472,040.
Half a Million Dollars saving on an Operating System upgrade!
Where would you want the half million, on your bottom line or on Microsoft’s?
Careful of your answer, your shareholders are watching.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
More Thoughts on Googorola
I was talking to a friend of mine in the United States last night.
He was telling me that he thinks that Googorola is going to end up as a colossal corporate folly.
His take on the whole deal is that Google rushed the deal. They rushed the deal because they didn’t have the patent pool to defend Android and they were under pressure to find some way to defend it. So they zeroed in on the grandaddy of cellular technology, the guys that invented the thing and made them an offer they couldn’t sensibly refuse.
They rushed the deal because they crapped out with the Nortel patent portfolio auction a little while ago.
If the stories that this deal was put together in the last five or six weeks are true then Google was desperately seeking patents which puts the comments by Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha from about a week ago into perspective. He was playing brinksmanship with the Gnomes of Mountain View and they blinked, paying $12.5 billion for a company that lost $85 million last quarter!
Basically he said we’re gong to look at WinMoPho and sue the pants off all the other Android vendors.
And you can bet that Carl Ichan (one of Motorola’s largest shareholders) was happily wringing his hands in the corner wondering if Hanukah had come early.
The real question is, how many patents do Motorola have that will really help Google defend Android?
Its not going to help them in their fight against Oracle and I doubt its really going to help them in their fight with Apple over UI look and feel and its questionable if its going to help them in their arguments with Microsoft.
So if these Motorola patents aren’t going to help them in these three major battles then why?
I mean Redmond is asking Samsung for $15 per Android doohickey and I doubt that is going to change and they got General Dynamics, the granddaddy weapons of death and destruction globocorp to shell out a licence fee per Android doohickey.
This tells me that there may be something to the patents they’re showing everyone to get them to agree to paying the royalty.
Could it be the fact that Motorola were suing Microsoft for patent infringement as a reaction to Microsoft suing them “In October 2010, Microsoft sued Motorola for allegedly violating nine patents with its Android smartphones. “The patents at issue relate to a range of functionality embodied in Motorola’s Android smartphone devices that are essential to the smartphone experience,” Gutierrez wrote in an Oct. 1 statement. Motorola later retaliated with an intellectual-property complaint of its own.”
This might be nothing more than posturing to negotiate a better “per doohickey” royalty fee.
I just wonder if Motorola just saw Google as desperate to wave a pile of patents at everyone and say “look at us…if you don’t play nice with us we’ll hit you with our patent portfolio”, especially after their debacle with the Nortel patents.
I also wonder if Motorola realise that their patent portfolio won’t help Google all that much which is why Google have to pay $2.5 billion if the deal DOESN’T go through. Like after they do their due diligence and find out that the patent pool of around 25,000 patents actually don’t help them all that much?
I really wonder how this is going to pan out for all concerned...
He was telling me that he thinks that Googorola is going to end up as a colossal corporate folly.
His take on the whole deal is that Google rushed the deal. They rushed the deal because they didn’t have the patent pool to defend Android and they were under pressure to find some way to defend it. So they zeroed in on the grandaddy of cellular technology, the guys that invented the thing and made them an offer they couldn’t sensibly refuse.
They rushed the deal because they crapped out with the Nortel patent portfolio auction a little while ago.
If the stories that this deal was put together in the last five or six weeks are true then Google was desperately seeking patents which puts the comments by Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha from about a week ago into perspective. He was playing brinksmanship with the Gnomes of Mountain View and they blinked, paying $12.5 billion for a company that lost $85 million last quarter!
Basically he said we’re gong to look at WinMoPho and sue the pants off all the other Android vendors.
And you can bet that Carl Ichan (one of Motorola’s largest shareholders) was happily wringing his hands in the corner wondering if Hanukah had come early.
The real question is, how many patents do Motorola have that will really help Google defend Android?
Its not going to help them in their fight against Oracle and I doubt its really going to help them in their fight with Apple over UI look and feel and its questionable if its going to help them in their arguments with Microsoft.
So if these Motorola patents aren’t going to help them in these three major battles then why?
I mean Redmond is asking Samsung for $15 per Android doohickey and I doubt that is going to change and they got General Dynamics, the granddaddy weapons of death and destruction globocorp to shell out a licence fee per Android doohickey.
This tells me that there may be something to the patents they’re showing everyone to get them to agree to paying the royalty.
Could it be the fact that Motorola were suing Microsoft for patent infringement as a reaction to Microsoft suing them “In October 2010, Microsoft sued Motorola for allegedly violating nine patents with its Android smartphones. “The patents at issue relate to a range of functionality embodied in Motorola’s Android smartphone devices that are essential to the smartphone experience,” Gutierrez wrote in an Oct. 1 statement. Motorola later retaliated with an intellectual-property complaint of its own.”
This might be nothing more than posturing to negotiate a better “per doohickey” royalty fee.
I just wonder if Motorola just saw Google as desperate to wave a pile of patents at everyone and say “look at us…if you don’t play nice with us we’ll hit you with our patent portfolio”, especially after their debacle with the Nortel patents.
I also wonder if Motorola realise that their patent portfolio won’t help Google all that much which is why Google have to pay $2.5 billion if the deal DOESN’T go through. Like after they do their due diligence and find out that the patent pool of around 25,000 patents actually don’t help them all that much?
I really wonder how this is going to pan out for all concerned...
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Google buys Motorola Mobile
Lawyers all over the United States woke up happy this morning on hearing the news that Google has splashed out cash, to the tune of $12.5 billion to acquire Motorola Mobile and its portfolio of around 25,000 patents.
Googorola? Motorogle?
I like Googorola personally. It sounds like something that would go on a rampage and flatten Tokyo for our matinee entertainment.
I’m guessing that Google plans to unleash their mutant matinee monster in Redmond and Cupertino hoping for a Godzilla meets Tokyo like result and with such a large patent portfolio you’ve got to start wondering how long it’ll be before their army of lawyers will end up rolling into action like London teens looking for a night of looting and pillaging.
The really interesting story here is the effect on LG, Samsung and, especially, HTC.
HTC is now between the devil and the deep blue sea. On one side their wildly successful Android based business and on the other their not so much Windows MoPho based products.
The good news for them (!?), now, is that they’re going to be competing directly against their key suppliers. Microsoft and Nokia, who have recently announced that they’re going to drop prices to buy marketshare in the US for the good of Finland, Redmond and the WinMoPho way. Googorola who have now got a hardware/software end to end experience and they control Android too. Unless it now somehow forks.
Publicly HTC, Samsung and LG aren’t going to be too vocal about this. They won’t want to piss off the Gnomes of Mountain View, but you’ve got to wonder about the long term effects on their businesses.
If the Gnomes really wanted to go for a scorched earth policy they should have bought Nokia, I mean with their share price it wouldn’t cost a whole lot, and then move the whole company to Android and leave Ballmer standing with his WinMoPho in his hand.
As for Samsung, between their problems with Apple and now facing down Googorola, Tokyo’s not all that far from Seoul after all, they’ve got some real problems especially since they’re only just starting to make serious inroads into the market place with the Galaxy S II.
LG look like they’re going to be the big losers in this one because they don’t really have major market penetration outside Korea.
I’ll talk a bit more about this over the next couple of weeks because this is a landscape mover.
I wonder if any IP Law Firms have floated? That’s where I’d be putting my money.
Googorola? Motorogle?
I like Googorola personally. It sounds like something that would go on a rampage and flatten Tokyo for our matinee entertainment.
I’m guessing that Google plans to unleash their mutant matinee monster in Redmond and Cupertino hoping for a Godzilla meets Tokyo like result and with such a large patent portfolio you’ve got to start wondering how long it’ll be before their army of lawyers will end up rolling into action like London teens looking for a night of looting and pillaging.
The really interesting story here is the effect on LG, Samsung and, especially, HTC.
HTC is now between the devil and the deep blue sea. On one side their wildly successful Android based business and on the other their not so much Windows MoPho based products.
The good news for them (!?), now, is that they’re going to be competing directly against their key suppliers. Microsoft and Nokia, who have recently announced that they’re going to drop prices to buy marketshare in the US for the good of Finland, Redmond and the WinMoPho way. Googorola who have now got a hardware/software end to end experience and they control Android too. Unless it now somehow forks.
Publicly HTC, Samsung and LG aren’t going to be too vocal about this. They won’t want to piss off the Gnomes of Mountain View, but you’ve got to wonder about the long term effects on their businesses.
If the Gnomes really wanted to go for a scorched earth policy they should have bought Nokia, I mean with their share price it wouldn’t cost a whole lot, and then move the whole company to Android and leave Ballmer standing with his WinMoPho in his hand.
As for Samsung, between their problems with Apple and now facing down Googorola, Tokyo’s not all that far from Seoul after all, they’ve got some real problems especially since they’re only just starting to make serious inroads into the market place with the Galaxy S II.
LG look like they’re going to be the big losers in this one because they don’t really have major market penetration outside Korea.
I’ll talk a bit more about this over the next couple of weeks because this is a landscape mover.
I wonder if any IP Law Firms have floated? That’s where I’d be putting my money.
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