margins are falling which is a precursor to lower growth or negative growth
remember apple over the last two years? first the margins started to fall last year and the numbers only went bad early this year
I think this is it. Margins are lower PLUS Google stock has soared on unrealistic Wall Street expectations which it did not meet and it's bread and butter average "cost per click" continues to decline (6% year over year) as search moves from desktop to mobile phones and tablets iPads.
Interesting to me is that Google makes so little off of its freeware Android OS while Samsung makes billions off of selling Android phones. What's Google's strategy to monetize Android, and what will Samsung's response be? I really hope Google starts charging for licensing Android, while smaller droid manufacturers succumb Samsung balks and tries (again) to develop it's own OS which will copy iOS and Android resulting in both Apple and Google suing Samsung and Samsung's sales to plummet.
Apple and Google were once very friendly until Google got greedy and decided to go after Apple's market. With Google's purchase of Motorola look for a similar rift to develop between Google and Samsung. Samsung is a hardware company not a software company. Google/Android is Microsoft and Samsung is IBM circa 1990. (Well not exactly, but you know what I mean.)
Without Android, Samsung would probably either go to an in house OS, to more Windows phones, or a combination of the two. None of which are good solutions. Can't wait!
Microsoft is a mature company with lots of different sources of revenue.
Why is the market hating on Apple when they've got the phones, the ipods, the computers, the App store, iTunes customers, pro software, etc? Apple has many sources of revenue.
Google? Correct me if I'm mistaken, but doesn't Google make like 95% of its money via just one thing and one thing only: online advertising?
I know Google DOES lots of cool things, but their big meaningful source of moolah is selling ads.
So when the ad revenue goes down, what is left?
I don't get why Google is such a Wall Street darling in that case. All the eggs are in one basket, online ad sales.
Or am I missing something big? Probably lol.
As much as I hate WS criminals, they are pretty much right about Google right now. Google will continue to grow for next 2 years, but very soon the market will start to show saturation and competitors will build up their commercial activities which are faaaar easier to realize than quality product, like Apple does.
At the end the result will be: there is really only so much advertising space available and there are also competitors which Google practically doesn'T have at the moment in online advertising. At that point Google will start to fall, but people will still need a new phone or computer... Bottom line: there will ALWAYS be a market to grow for Apple, but there is only that much market for advertising.
It will be hilarious to see Google's effort to try to sell its cloud and other services they have used to give for free people without taste..
"I want to be very clear," said Microsoft CFO Amy Hood, according to The Wall Street Journal, "we know we have to do better, particularly on mobile devices."
Surface RT and Windows 8 RT run on ARM-based devices and do not support desktop applications. Imagine all your Steam games and existing Windows apps being effectively unsupported. I cannot imagine why it failed so miserably.
As with most things, not supporting their main OS isn't the problem. The iPad doesn't support OS X applications either. The problem is that there isn't a need for RT. People who want tablets using power efficient ARM have Android and iOS to choose from. Both have lots of app support. Why choose an RT tablet unless you're a Microsoft supporter?
The other problem is in Microsoft thinking that people want an iPad competitor in quality and price. Obviously, they don't. By cutting the price by so much, we can see that they finally understand that—perhaps. The problem is that their tablets really are well made. No matter what else we say about them, the hardware is well done. But that's a problem with the price cut. Either they are just barely breaking even, or are losing on every sale.
That's not maintainable. Since Microsoft developed those as a reference design, in a sense, coming out with an actually cheaper model may not rest well. This is always a problem for a company. If these sold well enough, for the price, Microsoft could come out with less expensive ones later. A high end line, and a moderate line. But with the drastic price cut, that destroys that idea. How can they come out with a $350 RT tablet that's more cheaply made when this one sells for that price now?
And we're seeing the very few third party RT tablets disappear from production, as their only differential with their cheaper build, was price. That's gone away now.
Of course, if Microsoft decides this is crucial to their future, they will find some way towards continued support. Remember the Xbox. While we read article after article about how it's been a success for them, it's cost them $9.5 billion in losses over the years. That's possibly a success for gamers who use it, but it's a failure for Microsoft, who has to suck down those losses.
Then we have Bing. It's also costing them hundreds of millions in losses every year. And those losses have gotten larger as they need to pay more for each search. Now, it's incorporated into Win 8. No apparent way to get rid of it. They've learned their lesson from Netscape, where they claimed IE was an integral part of the OS, but wasn't. I can only imagine that at some point, Google will protest the bundling, and rightly so. What will happen to Win 8, RT and Win Phone if the EU decides it must be removable, and replaceable with a third party search engine? What if it happens here as well. Since the Feds have stopped looking over their shoulder, as per their agreement, Microsoft has been getting bolder.
Google's losses probably came from their Chromebook! LOL!
Actually the Chromebooks have picked up a lot of pace recently and are actually selling well. I have a Chromebox connected to a small TV in my kitchen which I use while cooking, I like it alot, simple, fast, never has any problems. I definitely see the appeal, especially now that you can install Ubuntu into a Chroot and use Linux applications along side ChromeOS, no rebooting. I even have Office 2010 installed and everything works.
As with most things, not supporting their main OS isn't the problem. The iPad doesn't support OS X applications either. The problem is that there isn't a need for RT. People who want tablets using power efficient ARM have Android and iOS to choose from. Both have lots of app support. Why choose an RT tablet unless you're a Microsoft supporter?.
Because the keyboard clicks when you connect it. And because you can zoom by drawing your fingers inward as in their TV ad.
There's nothing wrong with the concept of RT devices. I don't think the inherent concept is flawed-just the implementation.
Somehow I have a feeling the stock won't be down much tomorrow at all. Wall Street loves Google. Yesterday on CNBC they said that Google has missed the past 7 quarters in a row (not sure if they were referring to revenue or profit), yet the stock is up 50% over the past year. But Wall Street has blinders on when it comes to Google so no one talks about Google stock being a bubble that could pop like they did with Apple.
I only find it silly when people on here are angered by the difference. I mean you refer to Google's stock as being a bubble, and you probably don't invest in it. I suspect Apple's management foresaw this to a degree. You may recall the articles late last year that indicated several executives greatly reduced their stakes.
I only find it silly when people on here are angered by the difference. I mean you refer to Google's stock as being a bubble, and you probably don't invest in it. I suspect Apple's management foresaw this to a degree. You may recall the articles late last year that indicated several executives greatly reduced their stakes.
I call BS: Apple management had stock options vesting, which means a massive tax liability. When a significant part of your pay is in stock options or stock, that means selling part of them to pay the taxes. It happens everywhere where executives are paid in stock or options.
It does indeed. Contrary to those who think it's "not that hard," your confusion is exactly where Microsoft failed in marketing the two tablets.
They produced two tablets, gave them almost the same name, said both where running some kind of "Windows," same UI, marketed both in extremely similar ways (break dancing clicking ads), and at no point do they try to differentiate the two Surfaces in their ads. Of course you're confused.
I didn't even know there were really 2 different tablets. I assumed they just pulled the same marketing gimmick they did with the Home and the Professional versions of Office.
Neither MS nor GOOG is going to see much appreciable loss in investment confidence. Investors WANT to believe in what they're selling, even if it doesn't make sense from a financial perspective. This is true for Amazon as well and up to a point RIM had Wall Street on their side when they should have been dumped and/or accused of fraud.
Investors are emotionally invested in certain companies. It's true for Apple as well, but Apple has historically been on the wrong side of big investors for so many years that they still have trouble getting the respect (and in turn investment) from much of the Street. Lots of investors got in when they realized Apple was killing everyone else, but they've just as quickly gotten out or started to bet on a loss with Apple, thinking "they have to fall at some point".
They forgive everyone else for the bone-headed products and moves, but when Apple disappoints the Street by beating their (the Streets) baseless forecasts, they get punished. It's sad really.
Your comments are spot on, If Apple had done this they would murder the stock as they have done for far less. The wall street folks hate apple hated Steve even more, why, because apple does not play by their rules and they can not force apple to do the things they want so they can make money ever quarter. Wall street only understands one thing market share buy units, MS still sell more OS than any other company and Google still sell more online Ads than anyone else so they can screw up as much as they like as long as they can show they are number one at screwing up even if they loose money doing so. Wall Street fail to understand that Apple puts more money in the bank than another else, that seems to be wrong thing to make more than any other company by selling less products.
Was that courier tablet even close to being a physical prototype? How practical would it have been? Looks like it would be quite heavy and not sure how it would close. Would each display have its own battery?
quite heavy... just like all Windows tablets before Surface then?
Somehow I have a feeling the stock won't be down much tomorrow at all. Wall Street loves Google. Yesterday on CNBC they said that Google has missed the past 7 quarters in a row (not sure if they were referring to revenue or profit), yet the stock is up 50% over the past year. But Wall Street has blinders on when it comes to Google so no one talks about Google stock being a bubble that could pop like they did with Apple.
If the rumors are true, shorting AAPL stock will be an Olympic event soon. Go sports!
Ballmer will likely take the fall soon but I don't see him as the specific problem. The real problem is that MicroSoft attracts the wrong type of employee. MS needs people who aren't afraid to but heads with the management team and other departments in a constructive manner. If so things like Visual Studio would be more industry standards compliant with for example their compiler technology. Further MS would have had a more solid operating system experience if the engineers where better able to address security and other issues instead of pitting so many holes in the platform for marketing. In many cases Surface got dismissed out of hand not due to Surface per say but the reputation MS has accumulated in the marketplace.
It's possible that the ones who fit that mold are just fired or that management makes their lives harder. Culture is a very difficult thing to change in general.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rcfa
I call BS: Apple management had stock options vesting, which means a massive tax liability. When a significant part of your pay is in stock options or stock, that means selling part of them to pay the taxes. It happens everywhere where executives are paid in stock or options.
Of course they did. Had I thought to mention that I would have already. You commonly see them sell shares to pay taxes. Some of the ones late last year though were people offloading upwards of 50% of their stock. Did you want me to dig up the articles? The numbers were quite significant compared to what they would usually do to pay taxes.
Microsoft won't be obsolete in the short term, because the majority of their revenue comes from their business and server products and it will definitely. However, they will be absent from the majority of consumer electronics market in the short term except for some gamers. The tablet failure demonstrates that process.
I call BS: Apple management had stock options vesting, which means a massive tax liability. When a significant part of your pay is in stock options or stock, that means selling part of them to pay the taxes. It happens everywhere where executives are paid in stock or options.
Of course they did. Had I thought to mention that I would have already. You commonly see them sell shares to pay taxes. Some of the ones late last year though were people offloading upwards of 50% of their stock. Did you want me to dig up the articles? The numbers were quite significant compared to what they would usually do to pay taxes.
I was under the impression at the time, that it was a large percentage of the stock they were granted, which makes sense given the significant capital gains tax obligations, due to the significant increase in stock price from when the stocks were granted.
Some may have had other reasons, like buying an (expensive) house, which if large parts of your compensation is in stock, would require liquidating some holdings.
If there was other stuff going on, it slipped past my attention, but if it were based on inside knowledge, then they'd have to be careful not to have insider trading violations levied against them, and in today's litigious environment that would have happened quickly if there had been anything fishy with these sales.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by al_bundy
margins are falling which is a precursor to lower growth or negative growth
remember apple over the last two years? first the margins started to fall last year and the numbers only went bad early this year
I think this is it. Margins are lower PLUS Google stock has soared on unrealistic Wall Street expectations which it did not meet and it's bread and butter average "cost per click" continues to decline (6% year over year) as search moves from desktop to mobile phones and tablets iPads.
Interesting to me is that Google makes so little off of its freeware Android OS while Samsung makes billions off of selling Android phones. What's Google's strategy to monetize Android, and what will Samsung's response be? I really hope Google starts charging for licensing Android, while smaller droid manufacturers succumb Samsung balks and tries (again) to develop it's own OS which will copy iOS and Android resulting in both Apple and Google suing Samsung and Samsung's sales to plummet.
Apple and Google were once very friendly until Google got greedy and decided to go after Apple's market. With Google's purchase of Motorola look for a similar rift to develop between Google and Samsung. Samsung is a hardware company not a software company. Google/Android is Microsoft and Samsung is IBM circa 1990. (Well not exactly, but you know what I mean.)
Without Android, Samsung would probably either go to an in house OS, to more Windows phones, or a combination of the two. None of which are good solutions. Can't wait!
Quote:
Originally Posted by 512ke
Microsoft is a mature company with lots of different sources of revenue.
Why is the market hating on Apple when they've got the phones, the ipods, the computers, the App store, iTunes customers, pro software, etc? Apple has many sources of revenue.
Google? Correct me if I'm mistaken, but doesn't Google make like 95% of its money via just one thing and one thing only: online advertising?
I know Google DOES lots of cool things, but their big meaningful source of moolah is selling ads.
So when the ad revenue goes down, what is left?
I don't get why Google is such a Wall Street darling in that case. All the eggs are in one basket, online ad sales.
Or am I missing something big? Probably lol.
As much as I hate WS criminals, they are pretty much right about Google right now. Google will continue to grow for next 2 years, but very soon the market will start to show saturation and competitors will build up their commercial activities which are faaaar easier to realize than quality product, like Apple does.
At the end the result will be: there is really only so much advertising space available and there are also competitors which Google practically doesn'T have at the moment in online advertising. At that point Google will start to fall, but people will still need a new phone or computer... Bottom line: there will ALWAYS be a market to grow for Apple, but there is only that much market for advertising.
It will be hilarious to see Google's effort to try to sell its cloud and other services they have used to give for free people without taste..
I would say: leave mobile.
As with most things, not supporting their main OS isn't the problem. The iPad doesn't support OS X applications either. The problem is that there isn't a need for RT. People who want tablets using power efficient ARM have Android and iOS to choose from. Both have lots of app support. Why choose an RT tablet unless you're a Microsoft supporter?
The other problem is in Microsoft thinking that people want an iPad competitor in quality and price. Obviously, they don't. By cutting the price by so much, we can see that they finally understand that—perhaps. The problem is that their tablets really are well made. No matter what else we say about them, the hardware is well done. But that's a problem with the price cut. Either they are just barely breaking even, or are losing on every sale.
That's not maintainable. Since Microsoft developed those as a reference design, in a sense, coming out with an actually cheaper model may not rest well. This is always a problem for a company. If these sold well enough, for the price, Microsoft could come out with less expensive ones later. A high end line, and a moderate line. But with the drastic price cut, that destroys that idea. How can they come out with a $350 RT tablet that's more cheaply made when this one sells for that price now?
And we're seeing the very few third party RT tablets disappear from production, as their only differential with their cheaper build, was price. That's gone away now.
Of course, if Microsoft decides this is crucial to their future, they will find some way towards continued support. Remember the Xbox. While we read article after article about how it's been a success for them, it's cost them $9.5 billion in losses over the years. That's possibly a success for gamers who use it, but it's a failure for Microsoft, who has to suck down those losses.
Then we have Bing. It's also costing them hundreds of millions in losses every year. And those losses have gotten larger as they need to pay more for each search. Now, it's incorporated into Win 8. No apparent way to get rid of it. They've learned their lesson from Netscape, where they claimed IE was an integral part of the OS, but wasn't. I can only imagine that at some point, Google will protest the bundling, and rightly so. What will happen to Win 8, RT and Win Phone if the EU decides it must be removable, and replaceable with a third party search engine? What if it happens here as well. Since the Feds have stopped looking over their shoulder, as per their agreement, Microsoft has been getting bolder.
Actually the Chromebooks have picked up a lot of pace recently and are actually selling well. I have a Chromebox connected to a small TV in my kitchen which I use while cooking, I like it alot, simple, fast, never has any problems. I definitely see the appeal, especially now that you can install Ubuntu into a Chroot and use Linux applications along side ChromeOS, no rebooting. I even have Office 2010 installed and everything works.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-10/google-chromebook-under-300-defies-pc-market-with-growth.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2013/03/22/chromebooks-are-taking-off/
http://www.zdnet.com/the-google-chromebook-suddenly-is-an-enterprise-contender-7000006018/
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/491619/20130718/google-chromebook-samsung-windows-8-laptop.htm
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/07/12/2311251/limitations-and-all-chromebooks-appear-to-be-selling
Because the keyboard clicks when you connect it. And because you can zoom by drawing your fingers inward as in their TV ad.
There's nothing wrong with the concept of RT devices. I don't think the inherent concept is flawed-just the implementation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogifan
Somehow I have a feeling the stock won't be down much tomorrow at all. Wall Street loves Google. Yesterday on CNBC they said that Google has missed the past 7 quarters in a row (not sure if they were referring to revenue or profit), yet the stock is up 50% over the past year. But Wall Street has blinders on when it comes to Google so no one talks about Google stock being a bubble that could pop like they did with Apple.
I only find it silly when people on here are angered by the difference. I mean you refer to Google's stock as being a bubble, and you probably don't invest in it. I suspect Apple's management foresaw this to a degree. You may recall the articles late last year that indicated several executives greatly reduced their stakes.
I call BS: Apple management had stock options vesting, which means a massive tax liability. When a significant part of your pay is in stock options or stock, that means selling part of them to pay the taxes. It happens everywhere where executives are paid in stock or options.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
It does indeed. Contrary to those who think it's "not that hard," your confusion is exactly where Microsoft failed in marketing the two tablets.
They produced two tablets, gave them almost the same name, said both where running some kind of "Windows," same UI, marketed both in extremely similar ways (break dancing clicking ads), and at no point do they try to differentiate the two Surfaces in their ads. Of course you're confused.
I didn't even know there were really 2 different tablets. I assumed they just pulled the same marketing gimmick they did with the Home and the Professional versions of Office.
I still think your pretty, why don't you move that fine a** a little closer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmgregory1
Neither MS nor GOOG is going to see much appreciable loss in investment confidence. Investors WANT to believe in what they're selling, even if it doesn't make sense from a financial perspective. This is true for Amazon as well and up to a point RIM had Wall Street on their side when they should have been dumped and/or accused of fraud.
Investors are emotionally invested in certain companies. It's true for Apple as well, but Apple has historically been on the wrong side of big investors for so many years that they still have trouble getting the respect (and in turn investment) from much of the Street. Lots of investors got in when they realized Apple was killing everyone else, but they've just as quickly gotten out or started to bet on a loss with Apple, thinking "they have to fall at some point".
They forgive everyone else for the bone-headed products and moves, but when Apple disappoints the Street by beating their (the Streets) baseless forecasts, they get punished. It's sad really.
Your comments are spot on, If Apple had done this they would murder the stock as they have done for far less. The wall street folks hate apple hated Steve even more, why, because apple does not play by their rules and they can not force apple to do the things they want so they can make money ever quarter. Wall street only understands one thing market share buy units, MS still sell more OS than any other company and Google still sell more online Ads than anyone else so they can screw up as much as they like as long as they can show they are number one at screwing up even if they loose money doing so. Wall Street fail to understand that Apple puts more money in the bank than another else, that seems to be wrong thing to make more than any other company by selling less products.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogifan
Was that courier tablet even close to being a physical prototype? How practical would it have been? Looks like it would be quite heavy and not sure how it would close. Would each display have its own battery?
quite heavy... just like all Windows tablets before Surface then?
If the rumors are true, shorting AAPL stock will be an Olympic event soon. Go sports!
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalclips
Heartbreaking isn't it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Ballmer will likely take the fall soon but I don't see him as the specific problem. The real problem is that MicroSoft attracts the wrong type of employee. MS needs people who aren't afraid to but heads with the management team and other departments in a constructive manner. If so things like Visual Studio would be more industry standards compliant with for example their compiler technology. Further MS would have had a more solid operating system experience if the engineers where better able to address security and other issues instead of pitting so many holes in the platform for marketing. In many cases Surface got dismissed out of hand not due to Surface per say but the reputation MS has accumulated in the marketplace.
It's possible that the ones who fit that mold are just fired or that management makes their lives harder. Culture is a very difficult thing to change in general.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rcfa
I call BS: Apple management had stock options vesting, which means a massive tax liability. When a significant part of your pay is in stock options or stock, that means selling part of them to pay the taxes. It happens everywhere where executives are paid in stock or options.
Of course they did. Had I thought to mention that I would have already. You commonly see them sell shares to pay taxes. Some of the ones late last year though were people offloading upwards of 50% of their stock. Did you want me to dig up the articles? The numbers were quite significant compared to what they would usually do to pay taxes.
Microsoft won't be obsolete in the short term, because the majority of their revenue comes from their business and server products and it will definitely. However, they will be absent from the majority of consumer electronics market in the short term except for some gamers. The tablet failure demonstrates that process.
[SIZE=7][B]Apple Is Doomed.[/B][/SIZE]
I was under the impression at the time, that it was a large percentage of the stock they were granted, which makes sense given the significant capital gains tax obligations, due to the significant increase in stock price from when the stocks were granted.
Some may have had other reasons, like buying an (expensive) house, which if large parts of your compensation is in stock, would require liquidating some holdings.
If there was other stuff going on, it slipped past my attention, but if it were based on inside knowledge, then they'd have to be careful not to have insider trading violations levied against them, and in today's litigious environment that would have happened quickly if there had been anything fishy with these sales.