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In 1984, Apple pioneered the Graphical User Interface (GUI)’s usage on computers and began the killing of the mainframes along with IBM. They were the first, real PC company although they didn’t really benefit from the PC boom over the next decades. Thankfully, Steve Jobs retained his visionary instincts to launch the iPod at a time when Apple was a lackluster competitor in the ever-increasing competition of the PC industry. Its integrated software-hardware approach to making computers was not going to hold against Dell and Microsoft in their respective strongholds.

Faced with increasing ecosystem pressures, the business organism we know of as Apple, simply evolved. From Apple Computer Inc to Apple Inc, the Apple of 2007 made more than a cursory semantic change in its name, but a paradigm-shifting strategy that had taken shape over the past 5 years. Apple and Steve Jobs (to be used interchangeably here) realized they were no longer in the business of digital education, as was the 19080s vision of Bill Gates who wanted to “put a computer in every family”. No, Steve Jobs just hated being beaten to that goal by Gates. So what did he do when he lost at that game?

He changed the rules and created a new game. Read the rest of this entry »

For those who watched the iPhone keynote address at Macworld 2007, and even for those who didn’t, Steve Jobs had 3 different executives come up on stage to talk about their partnerships with Apple - Eric Schmidt (Google), Jerry Yang (Yahoo) and Stan Sigman (Cingular).

While Jobs was at the top of his game, and Schmidt and Yang weren’t too boring either, Stan Sigman stood out like the sore thumb he was, dressed in a suit and speaking from cue cards. Here’s what Presentation Zen thought of him (entire article here) :

I am tempted to call this the difference between “old school” business presentations (stiff, dull, cue-cards, etc.) and “new school” business presentations (passionate, interesting, conversational, etc.). But that would be a mistake because what seems like a “new school” approach is really not new at all. And what appears to be merely a conservative “old school” approach has never been recommended.

While the comment appears to be an affront to business school graduates like myself, I must sadly agree. Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Jobs predicted that the iPhone will ensnare about 1% of the global phone market, which was about 1 billion last year. So he expects to sell about 10M phones, probably in 2008 when the iPhone is available worldwide.

I have been wondering about how to value the stock since I watched the iPhone keynote address (Sidenote: which might turn out to be as revolutionary as the first imac or iPod keynote). I found this nice comparison chart from Seekingalpha:

Some key observations, based on the criteria of comparison in this chart:

1. Expect Cingular to announce a $100-$200 price subsidy. The iPhone is way overpriced now compared to the rest in terms of retail price and we have yet to know how Cingular intends to package this product to the market.

2. Enterprise email services is a glaring weak point of the iPhone. All the other smart phones are compatible with services such as Intellisync, Visio, Blackberry, Visto, MS Exchange. This chart lists iPhone as having none. We shall await for more confirmation of this from Apple as the launch date nears. This point is crucial for the enterprise market to consider the iPhone as a replacement product since the price point may be too high for consumers and college students.

There is also more on the smartphone market from this BusinessWeek report on the Future of Apple.

Market research firm M:Metrics estimates that fewer than 6.2 million smartphones were in use in the U.S. as of the end of November. Of those, 2 million were based on Microsoft (MSFT) software, 1.76 million were BlackBerries, 1.72 million were Palm devices, and some 669,000 ran the Symbian operating system from London-based Symbian Limited, which is jointly owned by several companies, including Nokia, Ericsson (ERIC), Siemens (SI), and Panasonic (MC).

More analysis on the iPhone launch and the AAPL stock can be found here.

Update: the iPoor. A creation by Brian who decided to do something about the iPod Divide in our society. Now everyone can own one.

Cool Leather iThong or Overpriced Leather (Italian) Case from Apple? Is your love for the Apple brand worth a $79 premium?

You can’t deny the iPod White fits the bathroom furnishings flawlessly. Not especially if they even include these features of the iCarta:

• 4 Integrated high performance moisture-free speakers deliver exceptional clarity and high quality sound
• Charges your iPod while playing music
• Audio selector allows you to play iPod shuffle or other Audio device
• Integrated Bath tissue holder that can be easily folded as a stereo dock
• Requires AC Power (AC Adapter included)
• Easy to remove from Wall Mount

Those moisture-free speakers almost makes the iCarta a no-brainer purchase, if you want music to go along with your reading and other hygiene activities in that Private Booth of your home.

You can now truly Enhance that Bathroom Experience. Truly an iPod Lifestyle.

From Macworld UK,

• Apple's iPods are made by mainly female workers who earn as little as £27 per month
• In one of the factories, i.e. Foxconn's Longhua plant,  200,000 workers, a population bigger than Newcastle, is hired to make iPod. 
• The same workers (above) live in dormitories that house 100 people, and…
• visitors from the outside world are not permitted.
• Workers toil for 15-hours a day
• Another factory in Suzhou, Shanghai, makes iPod shuffles. The workers are housed outside the plant, and earn £54 per month - but they must pay for their accommodation and food, "which takes up half their salaries", the report observes.

Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, gets restless every few years by what it considers “irritants” that threatens its hegemony in the software industry. It started off by crushing Apple in the ’80s and dominating the desktop OS market, then notably the Netscape browser in the late ’90s unfairly by bundling its Internet Explorer and distributing it for free with its Windows platform. Crsushign these rivals consolidated its position today as the cominant software maker for PCs.

But the PC age is dead. In the new Web era, Google is the new threat but thats another story.

It is the resurgence of Apple that it wants to suppress and kill again, especially when the uber-cool iPod and its accompanying iTunes are dominating the digital music market. Check out the array of alliances and weapons Microsoft is gathering in its arsenal against the iPod/ iTunes Generation.

The latest Microsoft (military) campaign is named:

Against the dual Apple combination of iTunes as the software (for downloads and PC playing) and iPod as the hardware (MP3 player), Microsoft has a 3-component combination as a competitive alternative:

1. the Windows Media Player,

2. URGE, a collaboration with MTV

3. MP3 player partnerships

Somehow, neither the Zen, clix, Urge, Playsforsure has the same buzzword appeal as an iPod. The iPod appeal is more than just a hodgepodge mix of disparate components. Its an integrated user experience.. some call it a religion. And more proof of it below:

The new Apple “Church” at 5th Avenue, New York City.

Here’s the Pope of the Apple Religion.

To beat a religion, you need to be another religion. Somehow, Microsoft is far from it.

Windows-related products just dun evoke the same passion. The sentence “Microsoft is coollll… ” is simply a misnomer.

Just read that Apple will be celebrating its 30th anniversary this coming April 1st and might find it opportune to launch some new products too. Rumor has it that it could be a new iBook so that it makes it in time for the May K-12 school-buying season or a full-screen video iPod.

I wouldn’t have paid much attention to such speculatio except for this comment:

In addition, he noted reports of Apple shutting down production of the current generation of the video-iPod.

“The other event that could signal the imminent arrival of the video iPod are reports coming out of Asia that Apple has materially reduced its orders of the iPod with video viewing capabilities that it introduced last October. One hypothesis is that sales of this model have fallen below Apple’s previous expectations for he quarter. An equally plausible hypothesis is that Apple is draining inventories of the iPod from the distribution channel in advance of its introduction of the new model.”

Wtf. Maybe I shouldn’t have bought that 1G video iPod last December. It doesn’t pay to be a first-mover in Apple’s Universe.

Apple always launches significant changes to its iPod offering every year. Now that we are past the 2005 hype of the “video-or-not” iPod evolution, 2006 is no different as the marketing guys start building market buzz on what they “may” release this 2006 holiday season for the 6G iPod.

Here’s a teaser:

Yup, a full-screen display that is controlled by multi-digit/(finger) touchpad interface. Think of a tablet PC with touchscreen controls by the user and apply that to the iPod. I own a video iPod myself and yes, although the screen is 2.5 inches small, i can live with it, but I will kick myself if they launch a souped-up iPod with 3.5 inch full-screen video capabilities this year. Just exactly when will the Mp3 player stop innovating so i have the best digital device out there to watch videos and listen to music? lolz.. Great innovation fuels even greater revenue models, some part of me wishes they keep doing this forever... hhaha (but please hire me!)