Last year we began offering revenue and operating income comparisons between Apple and Microsoft. It was becoming evident that the iOS franchise was beginning to overtake both in revenue and profitability the Windows franchise. To offer more dimensions of comparison this time I am adding Google’s top and bottom lines for comparison (click image for … Continue reading “The world's biggest startup”
It’s perhaps fitting that an industry that produces illusions is in itself an illusion. The absence of public scrutiny of its finances and business model leads to a lot of myths or misconceptions. Some of these are discussed anecdotally in books and other works[1], but the absence of data makes the anecdotal evidence unsatisfying to … Continue reading “Hollywood by the numbers”
Yesterday’s post described the history of personal computing platforms over the past 37 years. It showed a distinct shifting of “eras” between traditional personal computing and the emergent mobile computing represented by device-based platforms. Underlying these lives (and deaths) of platforms were the growth (and decline) of fortunes of companies and people. I hoped that … Continue reading “The conditions for survival and prosperity”
Thanks to Jeremy Reimer I was able to create the following view into the history of computer platforms. I added data from the smartphone industry, Apple and updated the PC industry figures with those from Gartner. Note the log scale. The same information is available as an animation in the following video (Music by Nora Tagle): … Continue reading “[Updated] The rise and fall of personal computing”
Here are the highlights from RIM’s latest quarter: 14.1 million BlackBerry smartphones shipped, 13 million sold through 150k PlayBook shipped with sell-through slightly higher. 800k PlayBooks shipped so far. BlackBerry subscriber base up to 75 million High growth cited for U.K., France, South Africa, Mexico and Argentina, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. RIM is the #1 … Continue reading “The parable of RIM”
Guessing the next Apple product has become the parlor game of choice for a whole generation of technology journalists and analysts. The premise of the game is that given a track record of breakthrough products, there is always another one just around the corner. Being the one to predict this next breakthrough product creates credibility … Continue reading “Hiding in plain sight”
Andy Zaky at Bullish Cross wrote a great post on Apple’s valuation, showing the deep discount of Apple’s earnings vs. an average company. It essentially states that Apple’s money is not green. Felix Salmon took it forward by enumerating a few explanations that might be used for the despondent valuation. None are successful arguments, but that should … Continue reading “The thermodynamics of Apple's share price”
Microsoft is a stable business. Apple isn’t. The following charts compare the two. The two charts on top show revenues, subdivided into product lines. Microsoft is on the left and Apple on the right. Note that the vertical scales are the same (zero to $30 billion/quarter). The lower two charts show operating income by division/product … Continue reading “Where is Microsoft's growth going to come from?”
There is finally enough information to try to give an estimate of the smartphone market as a subset of the overall phone market. The chart to the left shows the overall picture. To sum up: The smartphone market has now reached over 30% of shipments. Non-smart devices are at 69% of total. The individual phone … Continue reading “The Global Smartphone Market Landscape”
On October 27th, Nintendo published half year results for the fiscal year ending in March 2012. Management stated that the company lost over $900 million with a negative outlook. Nintendo cited weaker than expected sales of Nintendo DS hardware and 3DS software and Yen appreciation as the main reasons for the miss. Is this the … Continue reading “The end of the dedicated portable device”
