Apple clobbers the competition—Commentary: The carnage of Apple’s spectacular success

Market Watch ^ | 09/24/2010 | By Ashley Allen and Douglas McIntyre

[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

[Lurker]

I’m running the Bria app. Thanks for the tip on the others.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

You have nothing rational to add.

Please see post 59.

Thanks.

[Larry Lucido]

Mmmm, apple cobblers.

[Mears]

My grandaughter and her friends,high school freshmen,all got MacBooks for school.

They are the “in” thing for the kids.

[Lurker]

You’d need access to an IP enabled phone system to make it work. Then your sysadmin sets up the app just like it was a hard phone. Voilà it works anywhere you can get a decent signal.

[microgood]

reading on the beach? nope, we read in bed at night instead of watching the tube, and appreciate the iPad for reading in the dark so we don’t disturb our spouses.

to each his own...

Yep. I was just responding to the article which said the Kindle is doomed, which is highly inaccurate.

[Lurker]

See if you have an IP PBX at work. If you do then all you usually need is a user or SIP license and they can build you an extension. Then you’re on the company PBX.

[PA Engineer]

Please see post 59.

All I see is one huge ego. Travel and name dropping is meaningless for those of us that have been doing it for over three decades.

You have much to offer elsewhere on FR, but for some perverse reason you destroy your reputation here on the Apple threads. Think about it.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Yeah, no PBX here - I work alone...:) So I "built my own" International PBX via cheap VOIP (My Divert) and Skype so that I can have an International presence wherever I am. Run a common client on everything so I don't have to learn a bunch of different UIs and it's been quite functional for me.

VOIP on portable devices simply rocks! I'll check out Bria... Looks like a pretty nice option!

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Do you have anything to offer other than attacks? Do you use VOIP/SIP clients on your devices? Just wondering...

[Lurker]

I’ll have to do some research on your method. I hadn’t considered that at all. I appreciate the information.

Thanks

[BunnySlippers]

Please leave us alone.

[driftdiver]

“If you don’t like Catholics do you go on Catholic threads? If you don’t like Palin do you go on Palin threads.”

Are tech threads now religion threads? I thought the whole purpose behind FR was to educate and discuss.

Bunny, why are you so down on free speech?

[Gay State Conservative]

How about you guys just stay off the Apple threads?

Jim,I've done a bit (admittedly,*only* a bit) of research on "swordmaker's" posting history.In the three or four pages of his posts I checked I found *one* post that wasn't connected to,and in abject praise of,Apple.Sounds like an employee and/or stockholder to me.

Does he post here because he can't afford to buy time on Home Shopping Network or CNBC? Is blatant commercial promotion what FR's about...or are we folks who discuss the political/social issues of the day....with a bit of frivolity thrown in from time to time?

Just askin'....

[BunnySlippers]

See post 50.

[driftdiver]

“Hilarious! You always call out for reinforcements.”

Yes Swordmaker always does call out for backup to fight his battles.

[Mr. Blonde]

You said they were losing market share and in the next sentence said they are really good at marketing to their existing customer base. What conclusion am I to draw? Please explain further.

[SamAdams76]

Well in September of 2003, I finally decided to get one of those MP3 players. Now at that time, the iPod had been out for a couple of years, but I never really considered purchasing one. Instead, I bought the Sony MP3 player because I felt at the time that Sony was a better brand than Apple and that Sony would eventually dominate the MP3 player market in the same way they dominated the portable audio market with the Walkman a decade or so earlier.

That ended up being a bad decision. When I got the Sony MP3 player home, it was incredibly frustrating and cumbersome to get music loaded onto it. I had to load this special program and then learn how to navigate all these commands to first import the files from my hard drive (into the special program) and then to push them into the device. Using a 1.1 USB interface, it took about 10 minutes to load about 30 songs (about three or four albums worth of music).

Once the music was on the device, there was no easy way to bring up what you wanted to hear. There was a limited display and you had to wait as the song title and artist slowly crawled across the tiny screen. I very quickly got tired of hearing the songs you loaded but it was such a painful experience putting new songs on it, I didn't bother after the first 2-3 times. The device was about the size and weight of an empty cigarette lighter. It did not take long for the device to get all scuffed up. Within just a few weeks, I put it on a shelf and forgot about it.

Now I own iPods, several of them. Had I known better back in 2003, I'd have bought all the Apple shares that I could have afforded.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

The market overall is growing faster than Apple’s market.

Example: 100 people bought smartphones yesterday, and Apple sold 14 of them. They have 14%.

Today, 110 people bought smartphones, and Apple sold 15 of them. They now have 13.6% of the market share. Even though they sold more absolute numbers.

Tomorrow, 130 people will by smartphones, and Apple will sell 16 of them. They now have 12.3% of the market.

In each case, Apple’s absolute sales are increasing, but their share of the market is dropping. Essentially, the market is growing faster than Apple’s share of it.

I thought it was rather intuitive - absolute sales and market share are not the same thing.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Glad I could be of help! It’s not the cheapest - costs me about $45 per month, but I have a “local” number in 5 countries, all with voice mail, and all able to ring me wherever I may be in the world.