I think I meant more the "not buying Apple" part. Do you mean don't buy Apple products?
Ok, I'll bite. First off, I didn't say "don't buy Apple", I said that the high profits are not a reason to. There are other reasons, such as high build quality, innovative features, or good support. But the fact that Apple keeps next to 30% of the revenue (mind you, after paying for the research that went into the novel features and for the better quality materials) is not the right reason to choose Apple's products.
This is a very graphic and convincing reason why one should want to buy AAPL, but not Apple.
Haha true! AAPL is certainly doing well.
But that chart also shows that people ARE buying Apple. People like Apple products... even if the other guys sell more.
This whole notion that Apple is in trouble because they don't have enough market share is silly. Every time someone mentions Mac vs Windows, or their near-bankruptcy in the 90s.... gosh.
Apple is on a roll because they make good products. Period. I think Apple has already realized their mistakes from 15 years ago... and have completely reinvented themselves.
When I hear "Learn from mistakes or you are doomed to repeat. Look at history" I have to ask... "Have you even been paying attention to Apple lately?
obviously, google is an amazing company. they are evil when they can and that is a pre/requisite for any company, even apple.
Can you cite any instances of Apple being "evil"?
I have been dealing with Apple for 33 + years (since June 1978)... as a reseller, a client, a consumer, a user, an observer and as a participant in a joint project.
During all those years, in all those roles and thousands of interactions, I have always been treated fairly by Apple -- I trust them with my data and my privacy.
Ok, I'll bite. First off, I didn't say "don't buy Apple", I said that the high profits are not a reason to. There are other reasons, such as high build quality, innovative features, or good support. But the fact that Apple keeps next to 30% of the revenue (mind you, after paying for the research that went into the novel features and for the better quality materials) is not the right reason to choose Apple's products.
That's what I think, at least... flame on...
Ok, high profits aren't a reason to buy Apple's products. I don't think anyone is trying to say that you should buy Apple's products b/c of their high profit margin. I think people are saying that b/c of Apple's high profit margin they feel comfortable in Apple's future, which makes it an easier decision to buy their products. Actually, I'm not sure if anyone has even been saying this, but it sure makes a lot more sense to me. If they had small market share and were barely skating by on profits, would their stock or products feel like as good of an investment? If you're worried they could go under from a bad quarter or 2, certainly not.
4) It's all about profit. For whom? As a consumer, I don't give a rat's ass about any company's profit, unless I'm an investor and own stock in them. I find cheerleading on a company's profits (by non-investors) to be absurd. And this is something you only see among tech geeks. How many gearheads go around bragging about how much money their favourite automaker made?
Only "tech geeks" care about the health of a company yet you state in previous sentence that "unless I'm an investor" so you do realize that people with an investment in a company would care. This isn't just buying stock, but being into an ecosystem as a consumer or a developer. As good as Windows Phone 7 is I'm not going to consider switching until they have secured a solid place in the market. Why is it wrong to hold an investment that works and not get into one that may not be successful? You really think RiM's health shouldn't affect a buyer who is looking to get into a 2 year contract and mobile OS ecosystem investment? That's your folly, not mine.
It's not ridiculous. It's exactly as it was with the Mac back in the eighties. More profit doesn't mean success. It means failure in the end. Apple ended up with 1% market share. Niche player. They barely survived. Then again Apple seems to be happy with 1-3% share.
The odd thing about the this particular failure is that Apple's computers have seen growth in sales and market share and continue to contribute to Apple's bottom line at a margin close to 30%. In fact, in classic B-school parlance if they were not seeing growth computers might be considered a cash cow for Apple. Not at all like, Tandy, Amiga, Sinclair, Wang, or others that got out of the business like IBM which have been failures in the classic sense requiring the selling off of their assets and ceasing sales. If it were not for IBM, I believe Apple might hold the record for continuous production of computers, certainly they hold the longevity record for the production of personal computers. Again not generally an indicator of failure.
You are ignoring the facts if you think market share is the true measure of success. Not only are Apple's margins the envy of every device manufacturer their capitalization exceeds that of each market share leader in their business sectors as well as any consumer electronics manufacturer, further their capitalization exceeds that of Microsoft and Google. I think somewhere along the line your understanding of what it means to be a failure and what it means to be a success got muddled.
Google is tremendously successful at creating devices and services to expand the number of screens and internet properties upon which to display their paid advertising, and as such offering the Android OS for free may be the most successful lost leader program in history. Google is not in the phone business, it is in the media business just as surely as ABC and Fox are in the media business, but instead of producing TV shows to attract eyeballs in order to sell advertising, they create platforms. Android gets reported as the fasted growing mobile platform, but what most people fail to understand is that it is the world's fastest growing media platform and that is what matters to Google. Google doesn't need to make a dime on the Android OS, they need to to attract eyeballs in order to increase the number of impressions and click-throughs so their revenue stream continues to grow. This is why Google continues to develop and test for iOS and MacOS. Android is Google's way of making sure that smartphones make it into the hands of people who can't justify or afford and iOS device. You might think this is about market domination, but it is actually about assured growth.
4) It's all about profit. For whom? As a consumer, I don't give a rat's ass about any company's profit, unless I'm an investor and own stock in them. I find cheerleading on a company's profits (by non-investors) to be absurd. And this is something you only see among tech geeks. How many gearheads go around bragging about how much money their favourite automaker made?
Flip it the other way... do you care if a company doesn't make profit?
Plus we can't forget the supposed 4.4% increase in activations week over week. Math has already been used to show their increase has dropped to 1.3%, but if they were able to maintain a 4.4% increase in activations week in and week out for 3 years, they would be activating over 20M people a day. It wouldn't take anywhere near 27 years to sell an Android phone to every person on the planet, but with no increases, it would take 27 years to sell one to every person currently alive.
If the 4.4% weekly increases were still real, I'd guess somewhere between 5 and 7 years to have enough sales to equal everyone on the planet. Maybe sooner. I don't have an easy way to do the running total at work
EDIT: Ok actually I figured out an easy way to do it. Starting with 700k sales/day for the first week and adding 4.4% every week, after 200 weeks (less than 4 years) there would have been 7,067,269,738 Android sales. Hack the planet indeed.
Rubin didn't state it was 4.4% growth rate 200 weeks ago, he did it only 6 months ago, well after Android OS was established, so the major drop off in growth rate should be of concern to Google and their vendors.
That said, we do need to acknowledge that 1) Rubin's 4.4% w/w comment was during an unusual dry spell when the iPhone was at the end of its expected flagship release cycle, 2) that the significant drop was during the iPhone 4S announcement and release time (even if were only talking about less than half the duration of that cycle), and 3) a drop in growth rate is going to happen even if you saturate a market.
Overall, the question that should be asked is whether 4.4% of 500k is a lower increase per week in activations than 1.4% of 700k. The answer is yes! 22,000 increase per week average 6 months ago compared to only 10,000 additional activations per week average now. That's the really damning evidence here. Only 10k more per week for the entire world for smartphones, PMPs, tablets, and I think there are some notebooks running Android OS now.
Rubin didn't state it was 4.4% growth rate 200 weeks ago, he did it only 6 months ago, well after Android OS was established, so the major drop off in growth rate should be of concern to Google and their vendors.
I know, I was running the future numbers starting w/the 700k per day comment. So basically this time 2015 is when Android would have had 7B activations (starting fresh from that day) if that 4.4% was something sustainable, but you had already shown it hasn't been.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
Overall, the question that should be asked is whether 4.4% of 500k is a lower increase per week in activations than 1.4% of 700k. The answer is yes! 22,000 increase per week average 6 months ago compared to only 10,000 additional activations per week average now. That's the really damning evidence here. Only 10k more per week for the entire world for smartphones, PMPs, tablets, and I think there are some notebooks running Android OS now.
That being said, 700k increasing to 710k to 720k (roughly) still means over 15M activations in a 3 week period, which is a lot, even if it is a much slower growth. This is kind of like when people were touting the 100+% (and greater) increases Android made when they had an install base of 100k phones and jumped higher. Of course, when you have companies putting Android on low end phones and offering 2 for free to get people to come on board, what do you expect? AT&T sent me a letter trying to get me to sign up and offered me 2 LG Phoenix phones. No interest whatsoever, and I still have LG Lotuses on Sprint until tax time heh. I'd rather wait another month and get the phone I really want.
MacVicta askes "What exactly counts as an Android device? Does it include the Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook Color?"
Do these count for the activations? What about forked versions of Android in China?
Those are fair questions.
And here's a fair answer. Posted by 9to5 after a Verge interview with Google reps, it's reported this way, and it's as simple and clear as can be.
"In a clearing up the ?confusion? around Andy Rubin?s recent numbers releases (here and here), the Verge spoke to a Google source on what constitutes an ?Android device activation.?
We?ve now gotten some additional clarification from trusted sources on what Google considers an ?Android device? for the purposes of counting activations (which would presumably apply to every activation count Google has released in the past). It?s actually really simple: you need to activate Google services on the device. In all likelihood, Google?s counter actually jumps the moment you sign into your Google account on the phone or tablet, whether that be the first time you turn it on or when you?re prompted after jumping into something like Gmail or the Android Market. And as Rubin says on Google+, it only happens once per physical device.
It turns out that Google is only counting activations it activates (I know!). It is not counting devices that use Android code, because it does not have control over -or no way of- counting like the Kindle Fire or Barnes and Noble Nook (I know!).
So there you have it. Simple, reasonable and understandable.
And here's a fair answer. Posted by 9to5 after a Verge interview with Google reps, it's reported this way, and it's as simple and clear as can be.
"In a clearing up the ?confusion? around Andy Rubin?s recent numbers releases (here and here), the Verge spoke to a Google source on what constitutes an ?Android device activation.?
We?ve now gotten some additional clarification from trusted sources on what Google considers an ?Android device? for the purposes of counting activations (which would presumably apply to every activation count Google has released in the past). It?s actually really simple: you need to activate Google services on the device. In all likelihood, Google?s counter actually jumps the moment you sign into your Google account on the phone or tablet, whether that be the first time you turn it on or when you?re prompted after jumping into something like Gmail or the Android Market. And as Rubin says on Google+, it only happens once per physical device.
It turns out that Google is only counting activations it activates (I know!). It is not counting devices that use Android code, because it does not have control over -or no way of- counting like the Kindle Fire or Barnes and Noble Nook (I know!).
So there you have it. Simple, reasonable and understandable.
So what is a Google service? If a Kindle Fire signs into Gmail from Silk is it not then accessing a service by Google? What about a Nook Color that was rooted and flash with some ROM found on the internet. Does that now become a Google activation he checks his email?
So what is a Google service? If a Kindle Fire signs into Gmail from Silk is it not then accessing a service by Google? What about a Nook Color that was rooted and flash with some ROM found on the internet. Does that now become a Google activation he checks his email?
Simply having a Gmail account isn't Google Services which includes the Android Market, Google Maps, and Google Sync which uses your GMail ID to pull all the services together under one account. Now if the Nook is rooted to use stock Android with access to the Google Services suite of products, I could see it now being counted as an Android device based on what I've read. So for giggles throw 1 million Nooks in the figures if it makes you feel more secure in the figures. With 700K activations per day, that 1M is immaterial.
What's more important is that it dismisses the notion that returned and resold smartphones, flashing with 3rd party ROMS, Chinese forked versions and all the other silliness count as Google activations. It's really pretty straightforward.
Simply having a Gmail account isn't Google Services which includes the Android Market, Google Maps, and Google Sync which uses your GMail ID to pull all the services together under one account. Now if the Nook is rooted to use stock Android with access to the Google Services suite of products, I could see it now being counted as an Android device based on what I've read. So for giggles throw 1 million Nooks in the figures if it makes you feel more secure in the figures. With 700K activations per day, that 1M is immaterial.
What's more important is that it dismisses the notion that returned and resold smartphones, flashing with 3rd party ROMS, Chinese forked versions and all the other silliness count as Google activations. It's really pretty straightforward.
1) This informations is answering many of the long standing questions that have been asked. That's a good thing. I sure you didn't think it was good to get ambiguous half-truthed answers from Google on this matter.
2) As for making a statement to make me feel more secure. Bite me! I neither need your assistance in formulating an argument nor think that 1M Nook Color users are using custom ROMS.
Comments
No, "grown-ups" don't talk like this. Please don't do it again.
Sure. I was only defending myself, and this was not the first time with this poster.
I'm curious as to DrDoppio's point that buying AAPL (but not Apple) is a good idea. Could you elaborate?
It's quite obvious -- I would think that it is a good idea to invest in a healthy company with large profits, such as Apple -- or, buy AAPL.
It's quite obvious -- I would think that it is a good idea to invest in a healthy company with large profits, such as Apple -- or, buy AAPL.
I think I meant more the "not buying Apple" part. Do you mean don't buy Apple products?
I think I meant more the "not buying Apple" part. Do you mean don't buy Apple products?
Ok, I'll bite. First off, I didn't say "don't buy Apple", I said that the high profits are not a reason to. There are other reasons, such as high build quality, innovative features, or good support. But the fact that Apple keeps next to 30% of the revenue (mind you, after paying for the research that went into the novel features and for the better quality materials) is not the right reason to choose Apple's products.
That's what I think, at least... flame on...
^^^
This is a very graphic and convincing reason why one should want to buy AAPL, but not Apple.
Haha true! AAPL is certainly doing well.
But that chart also shows that people ARE buying Apple. People like Apple products... even if the other guys sell more.
This whole notion that Apple is in trouble because they don't have enough market share is silly. Every time someone mentions Mac vs Windows, or their near-bankruptcy in the 90s.... gosh.
Apple is on a roll because they make good products. Period. I think Apple has already realized their mistakes from 15 years ago... and have completely reinvented themselves.
When I hear "Learn from mistakes or you are doomed to repeat. Look at history" I have to ask... "Have you even been paying attention to Apple lately?
obviously, google is an amazing company. they are evil when they can and that is a pre/requisite for any company, even apple.
Can you cite any instances of Apple being "evil"?
I have been dealing with Apple for 33 + years (since June 1978)... as a reseller, a client, a consumer, a user, an observer and as a participant in a joint project.
During all those years, in all those roles and thousands of interactions, I have always been treated fairly by Apple -- I trust them with my data and my privacy.
Ok, I'll bite. First off, I didn't say "don't buy Apple", I said that the high profits are not a reason to. There are other reasons, such as high build quality, innovative features, or good support. But the fact that Apple keeps next to 30% of the revenue (mind you, after paying for the research that went into the novel features and for the better quality materials) is not the right reason to choose Apple's products.
That's what I think, at least... flame on...
Ok, high profits aren't a reason to buy Apple's products. I don't think anyone is trying to say that you should buy Apple's products b/c of their high profit margin. I think people are saying that b/c of Apple's high profit margin they feel comfortable in Apple's future, which makes it an easier decision to buy their products. Actually, I'm not sure if anyone has even been saying this, but it sure makes a lot more sense to me. If they had small market share and were barely skating by on profits, would their stock or products feel like as good of an investment? If you're worried they could go under from a bad quarter or 2, certainly not.
4) It's all about profit. For whom? As a consumer, I don't give a rat's ass about any company's profit, unless I'm an investor and own stock in them. I find cheerleading on a company's profits (by non-investors) to be absurd. And this is something you only see among tech geeks. How many gearheads go around bragging about how much money their favourite automaker made?
Only "tech geeks" care about the health of a company yet you state in previous sentence that "unless I'm an investor" so you do realize that people with an investment in a company would care. This isn't just buying stock, but being into an ecosystem as a consumer or a developer. As good as Windows Phone 7 is I'm not going to consider switching until they have secured a solid place in the market. Why is it wrong to hold an investment that works and not get into one that may not be successful? You really think RiM's health shouldn't affect a buyer who is looking to get into a 2 year contract and mobile OS ecosystem investment? That's your folly, not mine.
It's not ridiculous. It's exactly as it was with the Mac back in the eighties. More profit doesn't mean success. It means failure in the end. Apple ended up with 1% market share. Niche player. They barely survived. Then again Apple seems to be happy with 1-3% share.
The odd thing about the this particular failure is that Apple's computers have seen growth in sales and market share and continue to contribute to Apple's bottom line at a margin close to 30%. In fact, in classic B-school parlance if they were not seeing growth computers might be considered a cash cow for Apple. Not at all like, Tandy, Amiga, Sinclair, Wang, or others that got out of the business like IBM which have been failures in the classic sense requiring the selling off of their assets and ceasing sales. If it were not for IBM, I believe Apple might hold the record for continuous production of computers, certainly they hold the longevity record for the production of personal computers. Again not generally an indicator of failure.
You are ignoring the facts if you think market share is the true measure of success. Not only are Apple's margins the envy of every device manufacturer their capitalization exceeds that of each market share leader in their business sectors as well as any consumer electronics manufacturer, further their capitalization exceeds that of Microsoft and Google. I think somewhere along the line your understanding of what it means to be a failure and what it means to be a success got muddled.
Google is tremendously successful at creating devices and services to expand the number of screens and internet properties upon which to display their paid advertising, and as such offering the Android OS for free may be the most successful lost leader program in history. Google is not in the phone business, it is in the media business just as surely as ABC and Fox are in the media business, but instead of producing TV shows to attract eyeballs in order to sell advertising, they create platforms. Android gets reported as the fasted growing mobile platform, but what most people fail to understand is that it is the world's fastest growing media platform and that is what matters to Google. Google doesn't need to make a dime on the Android OS, they need to to attract eyeballs in order to increase the number of impressions and click-throughs so their revenue stream continues to grow. This is why Google continues to develop and test for iOS and MacOS. Android is Google's way of making sure that smartphones make it into the hands of people who can't justify or afford and iOS device. You might think this is about market domination, but it is actually about assured growth.
4) It's all about profit. For whom? As a consumer, I don't give a rat's ass about any company's profit, unless I'm an investor and own stock in them. I find cheerleading on a company's profits (by non-investors) to be absurd. And this is something you only see among tech geeks. How many gearheads go around bragging about how much money their favourite automaker made?
Flip it the other way... do you care if a company doesn't make profit?
Pretend your favorite carmaker is Saab.
You'd be pretty sad right now...
Plus we can't forget the supposed 4.4% increase in activations week over week. Math has already been used to show their increase has dropped to 1.3%, but if they were able to maintain a 4.4% increase in activations week in and week out for 3 years, they would be activating over 20M people a day. It wouldn't take anywhere near 27 years to sell an Android phone to every person on the planet, but with no increases, it would take 27 years to sell one to every person currently alive.
If the 4.4% weekly increases were still real, I'd guess somewhere between 5 and 7 years to have enough sales to equal everyone on the planet. Maybe sooner. I don't have an easy way to do the running total at work
EDIT: Ok actually I figured out an easy way to do it. Starting with 700k sales/day for the first week and adding 4.4% every week, after 200 weeks (less than 4 years) there would have been 7,067,269,738 Android sales. Hack the planet indeed.
Rubin didn't state it was 4.4% growth rate 200 weeks ago, he did it only 6 months ago, well after Android OS was established, so the major drop off in growth rate should be of concern to Google and their vendors.
That said, we do need to acknowledge that 1) Rubin's 4.4% w/w comment was during an unusual dry spell when the iPhone was at the end of its expected flagship release cycle, 2) that the significant drop was during the iPhone 4S announcement and release time (even if were only talking about less than half the duration of that cycle), and 3) a drop in growth rate is going to happen even if you saturate a market.
Overall, the question that should be asked is whether 4.4% of 500k is a lower increase per week in activations than 1.4% of 700k. The answer is yes! 22,000 increase per week average 6 months ago compared to only 10,000 additional activations per week average now. That's the really damning evidence here. Only 10k more per week for the entire world for smartphones, PMPs, tablets, and I think there are some notebooks running Android OS now.
Rubin didn't state it was 4.4% growth rate 200 weeks ago, he did it only 6 months ago, well after Android OS was established, so the major drop off in growth rate should be of concern to Google and their vendors.
I know, I was running the future numbers starting w/the 700k per day comment. So basically this time 2015 is when Android would have had 7B activations (starting fresh from that day) if that 4.4% was something sustainable, but you had already shown it hasn't been.
Overall, the question that should be asked is whether 4.4% of 500k is a lower increase per week in activations than 1.4% of 700k. The answer is yes! 22,000 increase per week average 6 months ago compared to only 10,000 additional activations per week average now. That's the really damning evidence here. Only 10k more per week for the entire world for smartphones, PMPs, tablets, and I think there are some notebooks running Android OS now.
That being said, 700k increasing to 710k to 720k (roughly) still means over 15M activations in a 3 week period, which is a lot, even if it is a much slower growth. This is kind of like when people were touting the 100+% (and greater) increases Android made when they had an install base of 100k phones and jumped higher. Of course, when you have companies putting Android on low end phones and offering 2 for free to get people to come on board, what do you expect? AT&T sent me a letter trying to get me to sign up and offered me 2 LG Phoenix phones. No interest whatsoever, and I still have LG Lotuses on Sprint until tax time heh. I'd rather wait another month and get the phone I really want.
MacVicta askes "What exactly counts as an Android device? Does it include the Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook Color?"
Do these count for the activations? What about forked versions of Android in China?
Those are fair questions.
And here's a fair answer. Posted by 9to5 after a Verge interview with Google reps, it's reported this way, and it's as simple and clear as can be.
"In a clearing up the ?confusion? around Andy Rubin?s recent numbers releases (here and here), the Verge spoke to a Google source on what constitutes an ?Android device activation.?
We?ve now gotten some additional clarification from trusted sources on what Google considers an ?Android device? for the purposes of counting activations (which would presumably apply to every activation count Google has released in the past). It?s actually really simple: you need to activate Google services on the device. In all likelihood, Google?s counter actually jumps the moment you sign into your Google account on the phone or tablet, whether that be the first time you turn it on or when you?re prompted after jumping into something like Gmail or the Android Market. And as Rubin says on Google+, it only happens once per physical device.
It turns out that Google is only counting activations it activates (I know!). It is not counting devices that use Android code, because it does not have control over -or no way of- counting like the Kindle Fire or Barnes and Noble Nook (I know!).
So there you have it. Simple, reasonable and understandable.
And here's a fair answer. Posted by 9to5 after a Verge interview with Google reps, it's reported this way, and it's as simple and clear as can be.
"In a clearing up the ?confusion? around Andy Rubin?s recent numbers releases (here and here), the Verge spoke to a Google source on what constitutes an ?Android device activation.?
We?ve now gotten some additional clarification from trusted sources on what Google considers an ?Android device? for the purposes of counting activations (which would presumably apply to every activation count Google has released in the past). It?s actually really simple: you need to activate Google services on the device. In all likelihood, Google?s counter actually jumps the moment you sign into your Google account on the phone or tablet, whether that be the first time you turn it on or when you?re prompted after jumping into something like Gmail or the Android Market. And as Rubin says on Google+, it only happens once per physical device.
It turns out that Google is only counting activations it activates (I know!). It is not counting devices that use Android code, because it does not have control over -or no way of- counting like the Kindle Fire or Barnes and Noble Nook (I know!).
So there you have it. Simple, reasonable and understandable.
So what is a Google service? If a Kindle Fire signs into Gmail from Silk is it not then accessing a service by Google? What about a Nook Color that was rooted and flash with some ROM found on the internet. Does that now become a Google activation he checks his email?
So what is a Google service? If a Kindle Fire signs into Gmail from Silk is it not then accessing a service by Google? What about a Nook Color that was rooted and flash with some ROM found on the internet. Does that now become a Google activation he checks his email?
Simply having a Gmail account isn't Google Services which includes the Android Market, Google Maps, and Google Sync which uses your GMail ID to pull all the services together under one account. Now if the Nook is rooted to use stock Android with access to the Google Services suite of products, I could see it now being counted as an Android device based on what I've read. So for giggles throw 1 million Nooks in the figures if it makes you feel more secure in the figures. With 700K activations per day, that 1M is immaterial.
What's more important is that it dismisses the notion that returned and resold smartphones, flashing with 3rd party ROMS, Chinese forked versions and all the other silliness count as Google activations. It's really pretty straightforward.
Simply having a Gmail account isn't Google Services which includes the Android Market, Google Maps, and Google Sync which uses your GMail ID to pull all the services together under one account. Now if the Nook is rooted to use stock Android with access to the Google Services suite of products, I could see it now being counted as an Android device based on what I've read. So for giggles throw 1 million Nooks in the figures if it makes you feel more secure in the figures. With 700K activations per day, that 1M is immaterial.
What's more important is that it dismisses the notion that returned and resold smartphones, flashing with 3rd party ROMS, Chinese forked versions and all the other silliness count as Google activations. It's really pretty straightforward.
1) This informations is answering many of the long standing questions that have been asked. That's a good thing. I sure you didn't think it was good to get ambiguous half-truthed answers from Google on this matter.
2) As for making a statement to make me feel more secure. Bite me! I neither need your assistance in formulating an argument nor think that 1M Nook Color users are using custom ROMS.