Posted on 09/24/2010 5:34:41 PM PDT by Swordmaker
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Apple Inc. is a Death Star. It pulls in most of what comes into its orbit and either overtakes or assimilates it.
The success of the company is particularly spectacular because it is largely a four-product enterprise, consisting of the iPad, iPod, Mac, and iPhone. It also produces a suite of supporting software that includes its OSX, the Safari browser, iTunes, and the App Store. These non-hardware products knit together the “iProduct” universe.
Apple’s product line stands in stark contrast to tech giants like Microsoft Corp. (MSFT 24.75, -0.03, -0.10%) , Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ 41.02, +0.04, +0.10%) , Oracle Corp. (ORCL 26.96, -0.16, -0.59%) , and Cisco Inc. (CSCO 22.17, +0.08, +0.36%) , all of which have a multitude of product lines that spreads risk and increases sales opportunities. As a result, Apple’s revenue run rate, is only over $60 billion — much smaller than that of Cisco.
Some consumers are wondering whether a tablet like the iPad can replace a laptop for travel purposes. On a recent trip to Paris, Walt Mossberg decided to find out, saying au revoir to his laptop and relying on a tablet and smartphone for work and play.
However, despite the competition’s size, Apple’s market cap is $240 billion, more than those of Oracle and Cisco combined. Perhaps the thing that Wall Street loves most about the company is that it is growing quickly, especially for a company of its size.
The reason behind its growth is simple: Apple clobbers the competition.
The Blackberry
Amazon’s Kindle
Asus
Microsoft Windows
Mozilla’s Firefox browser
Sony
Adobe Flash
Google
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Thanks for your post that most PCs and Macs are more than what a real world (many of them being computer dumbasses) user actually needs to get through his day at work and at home. I have posted for months to you that Apple laptops and desktops were ornate overkill, too expensive and too capable for what most users needed. But you played the game of denial. Now you back up all I posted. Now you are the cheerleader for underpowered iPads
I have nothing against underpowered iPads with minimal storage but this only confirms that low end PC laptops and desktops at Best Buy will do the trick for 85% of consumers. They have no need to spend 3x more on Apple laptops and desktops./
You go ahead and claim what you want, DennisW... but people who buy Apple computers do NOT WANT poorly designed Windows driven crap computers, no matter what the specs—and THAT is the bottom line—not what you keep claiming. Most of them have already BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, and have made their decision not to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Doing that, according to Einstein, is insanity.
So, Dennis, they made their choice and made their change to a Mac and are quite happy... getting a result that they have found is a vast improvement over what they had before. All the ranting you are doing is not going to change that.
So give it a rest.
Contractor or regular employee?
For how long have you worked there?
Do you have management authority or do you make hiring or purchase decisions?
All questions are in earnest -- I've never seen a current employee of a place bashing it so much in a public forum before...
Cheers!
It's a tautology. As soon as someone buys from Apple then they become by definition "part of the base": someone to be mocked or excluded.
Kind of like Obama's "jobs created or saved."
Cheers!
And you're class of '98?
Lead by example!
Post a thread to hold a FReeper used book sale.
FR could take 10% of the cut; hey PRESTO, no FReepathon!
Jim, did I just re-invent the square wheel? ;-)
Puget, I don't know how to break this to you, but...
Post #126 was a picture of you.
(Infantile ~ "immature" and all that...)
Cheers!
Then you should pay better attention, the person I was replying to, Sam, is of the opinion that pads will replace workstation machines.
Pads, i and otherwise, are portable webTV. Capable of some small apps, but not of desktop level application usage. And no 75% of the desktop enterprise machines don’t only browse the web and do e-mail, you’re just plain making up stats on that one.
How much storage you have is meaningless if the document you want isn’t there and the cloud has gone down. The problem with cloud computing, on any level pad or otherwise, is that where you are, where anybody is, is one lightning strike away from being “off the cloud” for a few hours. I live in the lightning capital of North America, every summer my work internet goes poof. Maybe you live in an area of calm peaceful weather, but out in the wild world the cloud isn’t that stable. Lightning, hurricanes, tornadoes, car crashes (lost my internet because somebody ran into the wrong box once), if you’re pushing the cloud as an enterprise level solution you damn well better be concerned.
Wow, internet tough-guy. You’ve never received a gift that you didn’t care for? I imagine, with your obvious tact and gracefulness, you wear the polyester reindeer sweaters and routinely change the water in your Jet Spa Foot Bath Plus, since you use it every day because your mom gave it to you. Geez. You must feel very superior....
Plus, no one has had the guts to take on my argument that the proprietary downloads are ridiculously EXPENSIVE. The worst thing about the Kindle...
“iPads aren’t for work”
I teach programming. Got mine so I could grade, test, and communicate with students anywhere anytime. It has paid for itself.
“nobody is going to be doing 100 WPM on those things”
Duh. And nobody is going to haul around a full-sized keyboard, dual monitors, multiple terabytes, and multiple media readers everywhere they go (clamshell notebooks being a rank compromise thereof).
“They’re supplemental, not replacement.”
This. So why are naysayers so he11-bent on burning the straw man of “you can’t do X on it”? iPads work great for some, not so much for others. Just because it satisfies 80% of my needs (leaving portability a non-issue for the other 20%) doesn’t mean you should throw away your computers and try to use an iPad for what it is not good at.
Apple cobbler, yes please I would love some.
Clobber? Oh,never mind.
Contractor, off-and-on for about 4 years.
And I’m not bashing! Don’t confuse not participating in “rah rah cheerleading” with bashing. I’ve not denigrated the product, but at the same time I don’t idolize it. It does it’s job, it does it well, but no more so than many, MANY other options.
I look at product share in the market as a guide about what people want, what works. It’s the ultimate proof of value, of product success. Product share in the market kind of proves the point - for MOST people, non-Apple solutions ARE the best solution. That’s what they buy. Hard to argue with what the market chooses, in terms of what the average person thinks has the best value...
And I’ve never said Apple should have zero value; however, I’ve pointed out why I think the stock is way overblown - it has a higher market cap than Microsoft, yet has less revenue, less profit, a lower profit margin, and less dominance in its core markets than Microsoft. Apple, IMHO, should not have a higher market cap than Microsoft; that it does indicates, to me, that it’s in a bubble.
Take two companies:
- Company one has a higher revenue, higher profits in absolute dollars, higher profit margin, complete domination (90%+ penetration) of its core markets, which are growing at 20%+ per year.
- Company two has lower revenues, less profit, lower profit margin, is not in the top 5 in its core markets, is losing market share in half of its core markets, and those markets are growing at about 20% per year.
You tell me which company should have a higher value...
That’s not bashing, that’s not even negative - that’s simply an objective look at reality. The fact that such statements would be perceived as “bashing” shows just how zealous many of the Apple fans have become!
Like I said, you Mac fans are rather “mature”. Just curious that Sword jumps all over what he perceives as attacks on “his group” but ignores anything going the other way...
Oh, and BTW it’s nothing to me, just pointing out the hypocrisy of the Apple fans who take any disagreement as an attack. But then, I’m just the greatest liar in the history of the Earth, a demon possessed hater, and in fact Satan himself according to some Apple fans around here...
Personally, I like eBooks, and am willing to pay MORE for them as compared to paperback or hardbound.
They’re all trivially easy to crack if desired (there is no such thing as secure files), so I can move them to any format I desire.
I do not have to worry about them getting burned up in a fire, or destroyed in a flood, or lost - I have copies on my laptop, my phone, my tablet, and backed up by Carbonite. Plus the copies in the stores (Amazon, B&N and Mobipocket).
And I can take a dozen books with me when I travel, with zero additional space or weight required. I like having a bookshelf with me when I am flying for 12 hours in a plane.
IMHO, the are not expensive, they are actually a bargain - I have an indestructible copy of a book that is zero weight and volume that can be retrieved from my virtual bookshelf wherever I am in the World.
They’re worth every penny, and then some!
Read the post I’m replying to. Sam is thinking the pads are going to replace desktops and laptops. I’m not putting up any kind of strawman, I’m replying to statements that were made.
Oh sure - I just wasn't an asshole about it.
And yes - I'm very superior to you...
Speak for yourself - you iCultists need to quit soiling your panties everytime your holy grail is questioned.
Yup.
Jim nicely suggested that you stay off the Apple threads in post 50, yet you persist.
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