gdp's Comments

asymco : Tele Vision

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:15:57 +0000

"Unlike the Smartphone which could only have emerged to leverage the Internet, TV has no “smart content” to leverage. The “smartness” has to be not in the box but in the programming." Samsung's attempt to bring Apps to TV springs to mind. Although a smartphone enjoys an advantage in mobility, TV has a big display going for it.

asymco : Tele Vision

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:00:51 +0000

For more examples, see "We will Always" TV ad for iPad.

asymco : Tele Vision

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:53:08 +0000

Let us not forget Netflix's intent to get around incumbents by bidding for original content such as "House of Cards" against HBO. Not sure if the original content will scale compared to the long tail library of movies and TV shows.

asymco : Apple and comparables P/E ratios: Is punishment for growth being dispensed equally?

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:52:21 +0000

"The accepted idea that a common stock should sell at a certain ratio to its current earnings must be considered more the result of practical necessity than of logic." - Benjamin Graham, in "The interpretation of financial statements" Seems to be just as true as when it was written decades ago. How would the author and the audience interpret this statement in this day and age?

asymco : Apple and comparables P/E ratios: Is punishment for growth being dispensed equally?

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 11:31:45 +0000

please note typo in referencing notes [2], [3] vs [1], [2]

asymco : Polymath

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:46:01 +0000

An apt title.

asymco : Property rights for your living room

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:39:12 +0000

Would Apple offering a subscription model for streaming be symmetric competition to Netflix? Could Apple differentiate enough by offering the ability to buy and stream instantly such titles (like the DVD only titles in Netflix) unavailable for streaming under the subscription plan? It seems that Apple would not want to compete with Netflix on content availability. I wonder if that would reignite Apple TV sales. What are your thoughts?

asymco : Getting to one billion iTunes accounts

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 02:43:21 +0000

If iTunes accounts were to grow 4x-5x, will the economies-of-scale kick in? Will revenues from iTunes be better than the current break-even? Will Apple leverage this and increase the share to content creators?

asymco : Talent follows where business models lead: The Media Business Disruptions

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:35:28 +0000

Excellent post illustrating several aspects of disruption and business model evolution. Thanks.

asymco : The billion dollar Smart Cover

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 19:12:12 +0000

Bad choice of words. I was thinking that it would be hard for 3rd party vendors to beat the smart cover. It looks like a perfect design. As Apple says, it makes a few apps to show what can be done. So it is with the smart cover. It is a design that shows how good a case can be. 3rd party vendors have to make a much better design to have any chance for a buyer to choose their product over SC.

asymco : The billion dollar Smart Cover

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 12:02:21 +0000

Given your projections, the smart cover could by far be the most profitable accessory. 3rd party accessory vendors would be the biggest losers and would be enraged for Apple taking away this market. This bolsters your argument that "product" is consummate at Apple, and nothing is spared -- not even relations with accessory ecosystem partners.

asymco : The lives and deaths of mobile platforms

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 02:14:00 +0000

"The carriers still want a third ecosystem and the carriers want an open ecosystem, and that's the thing that drives our motivation." - Paul Otellini, CEO, Intel. From PC Pro "Intel CEO: Nokia should have gone with Android" http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/365362/intel-ceo-noki... Are iOS and Android the only two that matter in Nokia+Microsoft decision?

asymco : Android and iPhone: Conquistadors or pioneers?

Tue, 8 Feb 2011 15:40:06 +0000

There is still room for new comers. Motorola comes to mind. There is probably room for a new entrant that is focused exclusively on the emerging market - may be on the lines of Ovi.

asymco : Stephen Elop's ecosystem messages

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 12:19:03 +0000

Probably because, Mr. Elop was the public face of Microsoft's partnership with Nokia (August 2009), much before he became CEO of Nokia (in September 2010)

asymco : Samsung was the fastest growing major smartphone vendor

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 14:48:35 +0000

How much of this would be attributed to Samsung's multiple OS strategy? Samsung makes phones on all major licensable OSs including one of its own!

asymco : Canalys calls it on PCs

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 14:35:50 +0000

The Economist calls every mobile phone a computer. "Mobile phones are the world’s most widely distributed computers." http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubje...

asymco : Canalys calls it on PCs

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 10:54:56 +0000

Back to basics: A computing device takes user input in some form and produces output in a different form. Various form factors of computers serve different needs. A desktop PC is still the best device for intensive creation. A tablet on the other end is the best device for a presentation/slide-show. The suitability of a particular form factor depends a lot on the kind of input vs kind of output. IT departments will see tablet share increase in their device mix as mobile professionals perceive the elegance and increased mobility of a tablet device. consider the use case of sales/marketing PC. A person creating or updating a sales database or marketing material will be putting a lot of information in, and hence would much rather do it on a PC with a full size physical keyboard and a big screen -- a desktop. On the other hand, a person making minor editing to a marketing presentation or committing a small update to a sales database could avail the increased mobility and ease of a tablet device. A tablet adds more value for a person who is extracting more (presentation, reading, media consumption, etc) than input-ing A while ago, I wrote "What the iPad does best is to serve consumers’ needs for consumption (media), communication (VoIP, social media), and entertainment (games, media)." more at http://deviceconvergence.wordpress.com/2010/04/17... I have since changed my mind.

asymco : What has Android done for Apple?

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:53:46 +0000

Horace, I agree that the OS and platforms are not very sticky --but it is non-zero. The alternative for diversified brands would be to abandon non-smartphones altogether, and in effect not cash-in on whatever stickiness is still present. The question then becomes "do the costs of running a diversified product line justify the returns from diminishing stickiness and brand loyalty" While customer migration to Blackberry is complex logic, given that Andriod phones and iPhones have been around only a few years, their customers definitely come from other brands --- most users of iPhones and Andriod phones have been using a mobile phone for much longer. Diversified brands still have a huge market at the bottom-of-the -pyramid (BoP). BoP might not be as attractive in ASP terms, however, there is still a significant section of the population in lower income countries that is embracing a mobile phone for the first time. Current offerings from Blackberry, Android vendors, Apple are beyond the reach of BoP customers. Regards, Nalini

asymco : What has Android done for Apple?

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:10:11 +0000

"Why do vendors bother making any dumb phones at all?" - to keep customers loyal to their brand while the market evolves to produce smartphones with unsubsidized prices within the reach of current dumb phone users. If most phones will become smartphones, current feature phone users either upgrade to a smartphone from the same brand or switch brands. Major brands thus have their task cut out - moving feature phone users to smartphones and try to keep them with their brand. It is a tough task given the ease of switching brands and OS for smartphones - most of the data has short life and data with longer life is in the cloud, native apps or webapps on a different brand phone running same/different OS will easily carry on from a previous device.