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Archive for February, 2008
February 29, 2008
the senior vice president of Sony’s IT product division said the tiny $299 notebook could potentially shift the entire notebook industry.
“If (the Eee PC from) Asus starts to do well, we are all in trouble. That’s just a race to the bottom,” said Mike Abary.
Dude, that’s what happens if you compete with an undifferentiated product in a competitive market! Here’s the thing to remember, not every market segment is yours for the taking. Concentrate on the ones that you want, serve them well, and forget about whatever Asus does. Can Sony do that? It doesn’t like it can:
As for Sony, though it did start offering lower-priced notebooks last year in the $800 range, don’t expect the company to go any lower just yet. Abary says so far the company is just “keeping an eye” on the Eee’s activity.
Abary, dude, folks who buy Sony products may be in the market to purchase a Eee, but the reverse isn’t true, so sell to your core and serve them well. Abary is working on the assumption that every sale of Eee is a lost sale opportunity for a Sony VIAO. It’s not so. Sheesh, is that so hard to understand?
If anything, this showcases Sony’s utter lack of confidence on the part in its products.
George Ou finds a new Mac vulnerability
February 26, 2008Macs are crime magnets! George says, “Secure those Macs, Apple!”The Brooklyn Paper:
Burglars stole a $1,200 laptop from a Wythe Avenue apartment on Feb. 6.The 23-year-old tenant of the unit, which is between Broadway and South EighthStreet, said the iMac was still there when he left home at 5:30 pm.But when he returned just an hour later, it was gone.
Gawker adds it up:
We noticed that much of the stolen booty was Apple-related, and graphed it out for further analysis. Out of all computers stolen, 78% were Macs.
Man gets bitten by goose, sues railroad
February 26, 2008Thanks for clogging up the legal system with this:
Aaron E. Richards claims he was assigned to perform a brake test on a train in the Keyser Receiving Yard near Ravenswood at 1:15 a.m. on April 23, 2005.
“As Plaintiff performed the required inspection, a goose which was previously known by Defendant to have nested in its yard area, suddenly jumped out from under one of the railcars, striking Plaintiff, and causing him to fall resulting in injuries and damages,” according to the lawsuit filed Feb. 4 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia at Huntington.
What a quack!
This is how Black Swans happen
February 26, 2008Forecasting is a fun business. I got my latest financial Market Strategy update this morning from Raymond James. In it they forecast how the stock market may move this week. Key quote:
“While it looks to us as if the current wedge pattern has no “slant” (up or down), the DJIA is clearly coiling its way toward the apex of the wedge. In fact, this is the week the DJIA should either break out to the upside, or the downside, of said “wedge.”"
Put more simply, they are saying the stock market could either go up or down this week. Later in the same memo they point out that the market could also move sideways.
So caught up in the technical jargon and can’t see the sh*tstorm thats about to hit them!
No armors for our military, but plenty of iPods for the CEO
February 25, 2008In addition to the foregoing, in 2005, Mr. Brooks purchased 375 30-GB Apple iPods with a corporate American Express card which were not for company use. The cost for these iPods totaled approximately $122,000.
Despite whatever those dumbasses who are freaking out in Eric Savitz’s site, I’d rather the idiot spend money on producing more armor and less on iPods.
Speaking of the morons commenting on Tech Trader Daily, I hope people realize that these assholes who crowd Yahoo boards and often exercise their constitutional rights with anti-semitic language (among other things), are not Apple fans. Just the same morons who abuse anyone they deem threatening their investment.
Those of us who follow Apple could care less about the ups and downs of the stock. And Eric Savitz doesn’t deserve this from asses who are probably losing their shirt in AAPL and taking it out on Eric.
Why do pundits want firms to consolidate?
February 25, 2008Vinnie enquires:
Microsoft should buy SAP. So counsels MIT Professor Michael A. Cusumano. Forget Yahoo! Be like Larry and buy deeper into enterprise software.
Larry Dignan at ZDNet talks about challenges like EU approval around such a transaction.
My question is more basic. As I have asked before why are we in such a hurry to consolidate software? In the last 15 years, there have been 200+ enterprise software acquisitions done by Oracle, IBM, CA, HP, Microsoft, Infor and Sage.
IMHO the answer is really simple:
1. The “market” (i.e. analysts) deem it necessary so they can sustain their six-digit bonuses through successful merger fees.
2. Large firms have given up on any notion of organic growth (also, “scale” is the answer to everything).
3. What’s a customer to do? Move to open-source? Bwah ha ha ha ha.
Apple fails with product that doesn’t exist
February 24, 2008Is Apple’s New Device to Outshine the iPhone? We’ll See
Rumors say Apple is developing a new touch device with more sophisticated technologies than the iPhone, but Gary Krakow says this sounds a lot like the ill-fated Newton.
Ha ha ha, the Newton. Such a massive fail. If its one thing we know about Apple, its that they never learn from their mistakes, right? Why not go out on a limb about a crazy rumor, make equally crazy assumptions, and draw even crazier conclusions. After all, Cramer does it all the time.
TheStreet.com “business press maven” makes this observation regarding a crazy ass apple rumor:
the rumor was about rapper Jay-Z starting the record label at Apple. The Business Press Maven just adapted it to point out the verbal constructions that the business media use to justify a completely useless rumor from a cockamamie Web site and use it as legitimate foundation for an article
No irony here!
Hey, Mr. Maven, give your fellow street fools a call.
MacBook Air influences eating disorders?
February 22, 2008“My 12-year-old daughter and I were looking at the MacBook Air online, and the words right out of her mouth were, ‘Wow, look how thin that is!’ ” she said. “Of course that’s appealing to young people. It’s what they’re used to believing is the ideal.”
McCartney-Simper can’t help but consider the parallels between ultrathin computers and people who are striving to be ultrathin. “These laptops are really thin and portable — almost like you can hide them,” she said. “And then you take that to another level, and you think of how women so often want to hide their bodies.”
Taken to another level, the MacBook Air is probably the cure for fat America!
Nearly two out of every three Americans are overweight or obese.
One out of every eight deaths in America is caused by an illness directly related to overweight and obesity.
I say plaster this ad everywhere between Ohio and Colorado. Not only will it draw new Apple customers (other than those traditionally restricted to the coasts), but also, evidently, it will cure America’s obesity problem.
OK. I apologize for the snark, but equating an Apple’s ad for a computer with the image problems faced by women is a stretch. This is a legitimate crisis and trying to fight silly battles like this diminishes the issue.
