tundraboy

22july2013 said:

Apple's market penetration of the PC marketplace has been stuck under 10% for over 25 years. One way Apple tried to remedy this in the 1990s was to grant licenses to other companies to build Mac clones.

WIKIPEDIA: From early 1995 through mid-1997, it was possible to buy PowerPC-based clone computers running Mac OS, most notably from Power Computing and UMAX. However, by 1996 Apple executives were worried that high-end clones were cannibalizing sales of their own high-end computers, where profit margins were highest.[18]

A total of 33 companies made Mac clones, fully licensed. Apple could take this approach again if it wants to crack the 10% market penetration of MacOS. There's no need for anyone to ridicule me for suggesting this, as I'm already sure nobody will agree with me that Apple should try this again. However what's different this time around is that many countries are hassling Apple for not allowing competition on their devices, and if Apple licensed other manufacturers to build hardware clones and/or to replace the OS on Apple's devices, that would likely reduce the cries of "monopoly."

Charges of 'monopoly' have been leveled against the iPhone not Macs.  At 10% market share, Macs are in no danger of being accused of monopolizing the personal computing market.

Stock analysts present an existential conundrum.  If you are so good at predicting the fate of companies and the price of their stock, why are you sharing your predictions for free instead of making a killing in the stock market?

crofford said:

Free Market Capitalism works perfectly everywhere except where it comes in contact with government.

This is an ignorant statement.  If you allow markets to operate unregulated, competing companies will just band together, act as a monopolist and raise prices.  Not only that, they will stifle innovation just like how Microsoft in its heyday killed any innovation that threatened the DOS-Windows stranglehold.  That includes OS-2 which tech experts agree was superior to Windows.  It can be validly argued that Microsoft held back personal computer innovation for about 20 years.

I have no problem with antitrust regulation, in fact I am all for it.  Anyone who's taken introductory Econ in college should know that unregulated free markets will, as DAalseth said, drift towards monopoly.

The problem I have with this proposed law is that the legislators sponsoring it have poor or no understanding at all of the industry and technology they want to regulate.  The old antitrust paradigms just don't apply in a market where network effects have both positive and negative aspects.  In my view they are particularly oblivious of the security risks involved in forcing platforms to open up to other app stores and even worse, side loading of apps.

I have corresponded with one of the sponsoring senators about my concern for the security of all the private information I keep in my phone and their response is that they have consulted tech experts who assured them that the security risk is minimal.  Well, have they consulted tech experts who hold the opposite view?  Why are they listening only to 'expert' opinions that they agree with? This is cover-your-ass not true fact finding.  Furthermore, have they asked smartphone users like me who are willing to pay more for maximum security and whose choice they want to remove from the market?

You'd think someone so good at forecasting Apple's fortunes would keep all her forecasts and opinions to herself and just use it to make a lot more money investing in AAPL?

Or maybe that's why Morgan Stanley stopped her from covering Apple?  Hmmm.