An apology

This site is fairly new. It has been around for only about 6 months. In that time there have been 393 postings and 586 comments. It has been read 100k times and I’ve moved it three times to accommodate this growth. Lately, thanks to links from John Gruber’s Daring Fireball, views have increased dramatically (to over 10k/day). This has been a blessing but also a dilemma because the traffic is overwhelming for the humble hosting setup I have. So much so that the site was down due to overload much of yesterday.

I apologize for this downtime.

I am trying to find a solution and have implemented a few optimizations (thanks to my lovely wife’s suggestions).  I also turned on full text RSS feeds so readers don’t need to hit the site for full articles.  In the mean time I hope readers will be forgiving and return even if the site is overwhelmed.

Additional suggestions on how to maintain a high quality of service are welcome.

Double dip, with sprinkles on top

Apple just had its best quarter ever with net income rising 78 percent to $3.51 per share. Revenue rose 61 percent, to $15.7 billion.

On average, Wall Street analysts had expected Apple to report net income of $3.12 a share on revenue of $14.75 billion.

If this is a double dip recession, then I’ll take triple dip with sprinkles on top.

Mobile asymco

Asymco.com is now touch friendly. Visit this site with an iPhone for a touch optimized experience. Mobile theme is WPtouch.

This posting is also made using the WordPress app for iPhone and geotagged with my approximate location. At this location one has to do with only Edge and no broadband (or electricity or running water). Fortunately the iPhone and iPad can be charged from a boat battery via a regular car charger.

5 billion and no saturation in sight

An Ericsson survey shows that the number of global subscriptions to mobile phone services has passed over 5 billion. The global population is estimated at 6.9 billion.

It’s hard to estimate what 100% penetration in this industry is but there is a strong possibility for another billion accounts to be added in the next year. This estimate includes all service accounts, not individuals. As users begin to carry multiple devices (i.e. phones and iPads), the number of subscriptions could easily exceed the global population. In some countries, penetration above 100 percent is already the norm.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100709/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_global_phone_use

Analysts upgrading AAPL

Susquehanna Financial’s Jeff Fidacaro: To $335 from $325.

Kaufman Bros.’ Shaw Wu: To $340 from $320.

Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster: To $348 from $340.

Caris and Co.’s Robert Cihra: To $325 from $310.

Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty: To $332 from $310.

International Strategy & Investment Group’s Abhey Lamba: initiate with $320.

Cowen’s Matthew Hoffman: initiate with $326.

At yesterday’s closing price Apple was trading at a 12-month trailing P/E multiple of 23 despite revenue growth that may exceed 50% and EPS growth that may exceed 70%.

Using the highest target of $348 price target as an example, it prices the shares at a P/E of less than 30 times the most recent 12-month earnings which does not take into account the contributions from the iPad. Continue reading “Analysts upgrading AAPL”

Unlocked iPhone 4 priced at €600

Factory unlocked iPhone 4 Sold by Apple in UK, Canada & France!! | All on the iPhone, iPod touch & iPad.

Unlocked iPhones are being made available at UK, Canadian and French Apple stores for the equivalent of $740, £500 and €600.

This will go some way toward making the iPhone available to a larger population, especially in developing countries.

Ballmer on leadership changes aka voluntary retirements

“And I think i’ve been quite public about the fact that I chose to make a set of leadership changes in the team of people building and executing on our Windows Phone software.

“We had to do a little cleanup, change things around,” Ballmer said

via AppleInsider | Microsoft CEO hopes to reenter phone market, disputes PC shift.

“I chose to make leadership changes” and Robbie Bach the ultimate leader of Windows Phone “retiring”.  Did he jump or was he pushed?

Time Inc. could not be more excited

We see the next flood of new portable color touchscreens headed to market in the next 18 months as a game changer. It will be the opportunity that content producers like Time Inc. have been waiting for to reestablish value for quality digital content. It’s argued that it will be impossible to get consumers to pay for digital content since they’ve grown up getting everything for free. We disagree.

The tablet restores something we lost when we went to the Web. Our readers can once again literally touch our content while still having that familiar “lean back” experience of a magazine. In real time, they can link in instead of linking out to the rest of the story on Time.com.

The advertising can be so good it can become content itself. It can help you evaluate products. And when you’ve made your decision it can help to find you a place to buy them.

As more and more hardware manufacturers come in with these e-readers there is just huge demand for our product, for our video product, for my print product—it’ll all be combined. We think very healthy business models will be coming out of it. We’ll be making more money in those businesses than we’ve been making with our traditional dot-coms.

People are paying. We know people will pay for it … it’s a business model that is just really very delicious.

via Time Inc. Is Really, Really Excited About Tablets « The Biz Blog – Forbes.com.

Using the politically correct terms “tablet” or “touchscreen” or “e-readers” to describe the iPad like it was PC for music companies to talk about “MP3 players” when referring to iPods.