Monday, January 28, 2013

Has Apple Peaked? (2)

Image representing Apple as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase
Netizen Has Arrived: A Link From AVC
"Has Apple Peaked?"
Has Apple Peaked?
Has Apple peaked?
at one point some $57 billion was wiped off Apple’s market capitalisation, roughly the equivalent of the entire value of Ford, a carmaker..... First, Steve Jobs, Apple’s founder and creative genius, is dead. The iPhones and iPads he sired still generate gargantuan profits. But his successor, Tim Cook, has yet to prove himself capable of bringing new breakthrough products to market. Second, Apple’s fantastic profit margins—38.6% on sales of $55 billion—attract competitors like sweetshops attract six-year-olds. ..... The firm’s price-earnings ratio—11.6 at close of business on January 23rd—is not much different from Microsoft’s .... Only one of 60 analysts tracked by Bloomberg had a “sell” recommendation on Apple before this week’s stockmarket fallout. ..... Apple bungled the introduction of its new mapping app, and there were rumours of cuts in component orders for the iPhone 5. ..... Apple could produce an iPhone for less than $150 to broaden its appeal. .... the best way for the company to prove it is not past its prime would be for it to disrupt another big market ..... All eyes are on television (though Apple is also exploring the potential of other markets, such as wearable computing ..... Competition is now tougher in its core markets. Rivals will not let it disrupt new ones so easily. ..... Apple won’t crumble, but it has peaked.
Suing Samsung was the beginning of the end of Apple. That was Apple saying it was not going to innovate anymore, not fast enough, not for enough people. Apple suing Samsung was a symptom.

Apple messing up maps on the iPhone was also a symptom. Apple firing Scott was another symptom. Scott messing up maps was Scott telling Tim Cook, you are no Steve Jobs. If Scott had apologized as Tim Cook had demanded Tim Cook would have kept him around? That is not the tech way. It is not about apologizing. It is about "simply working."

Apple is no longer in the lead in either the smartphone or the tablet space. And it is not going to be able to do TV. Apple is done. To put it politely, Apple has matured.
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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Samsung On The Swing

English: Samsung Logo Suomi: Samsungin logo
English: Samsung Logo Suomi: Samsungin logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Samsung is quite a success story.

Samsung's road to global domination
in the weeks following the launch of Apple's iPhone 5, Samsung sold a record-breaking number of its own signature smartphone, the Galaxy S III. ...... Last year it overtook longtime leader Nokia to become the No. 1 player in cellphones, with 29% market share worldwide. In smartphones, those high-end devices with advanced computing power, Samsung is also No. 1 globally and in a dead heat with Apple in the U.S. ..... Apple sells one device, the iPhone, while Samsung offers 25 unique smartphones in the U.S.) "Samsung is on fire," says John Legere, CEO of mobile operator T-Mobile USA. ..... Thanks to tight control over an extensive supply chain (Samsung makes everything from screens to memory chips), it's been able to move quickly to meet the rising demand for its mobile devices, churning out more than 215 million smartphones globally last year. ..... last summer Verizon Wireless (VZ), T-Mobile, Sprint (S), and AT&T (T) agreed to launch the Galaxy S III phone simultaneously -- a major coup for Samsung. ...... it doesn't wield much control over the wireless ecosystem -- the mobile operating system, application store, and other software services that have helped make smartphones so popular ...... Samsung, which means "three stars" in Korean, started out as a small supplier of dried fish and noodles in the city of Daegu back in 1938. ..... In the most popular of the anti-Apple commercials -- the one that aired during the iPhone 5 launch, it turns out that one of the hipsters waiting in line for an Apple phone is actually holding a spot for his parents. Ouch. ..... Researchers are currently experimenting with innovations like bendable screens .... One of its largest components customers? Apple. .... "One could estimate that there would be at least a quarter's advantage due to internal control of all operations." ...... Today it makes 45% of all Android-based phones ...... it will make a phone that runs on Tizen -- an open-source operating system backed by Intel .... To help beef up its software know-how, the company is expanding its footprint in Silicon Valley. In December, Samsung announced it would soon open a new startup incubator in Palo Alto. The company is also building out a 1.1-million-square-foot R&D center in San Jose. ..... With a proprietary operating system, Samsung could enable its TVs to talk to Samsung-made phones and even washing machines. Applications and content could easily be shared among the different devices, making Samsung's entire line of consumer electronics much, much stickier with consumers.

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