Why I'm posting so much
As if you couldn't tell, I've had an inordinate time to be chatty today. Some of it is due to the fact that I'm on a run of cards so cold at my poker games right now, I couldn't catch cold. The other is the fact that things slowed down for me a good bit this afternoon.
Based on the numbers that came out today, that looks like that could change soon:
Apple Computer Inc.'s (NasdaqNM:AAPL - News) quarterly profit blew past even the most optimistic Wall Street targets, powered by sales of iPods, Macintosh computers and Mac minis, but Apple's revenue forecast was less rosy and the stock edged down.5.31 million iPods!!! That's more than Apple sold in the quarter ending at Christmas! Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick.
Profit rose more than sixfold on sales of its iPod digital music players, the Mac mini personal computer and new PowerBook notebook PCs. Apple sold 5.31 million iPods, accounting for 31 percent of the company's revenue.
With that in mind, I thought I'd link to this post on Mark Cuban's blog that I thought was interesting, given what Apple has done with the iPod so far:
BAck in the day , it was all about the desktop PC. Starting with the Altair in the 70s and accelerating with the IBM PC in 1981, the desktop PC was the focus of personal computing innovation.I think he's got a good read on the way the technology is evolving, and given Cuban's track record in this field, he's someone I would definitely listen to. He knows what he's talking about, and he's always been a geek on the tech edge. Now that he can afford anything he wants pretty much, I would imagine that feel for the tech edge is even greater now.
Used to be all the good stuff started as an add on for the PC and found its way on to the motherboard. It was an all too predictable obsolesence curve. Remember the AST 6 Pack, Hercules Graphics Cards, 3com Network Cards, US Robotics Modems ? When you bought a PC, you used to have to buy all these cards to make it get where you wanted it to go. How many slots the PC had was actually an issue because any power or corporate user expected to add features via cards. There was even a time when it seemed like a good idea to try to upgrade the CPU .
[snip]
Not any more. Could the PC desktop be any more boring these days ? Could it be any more emblematic of a mature product ?
Sure, HP, Dell , IBM, Gateway are trying to liven it up. The hard drives are bigger and faster. THere is more memory. The graphics cards can do more . The industry tried to juice the PC by coming up with a faster , better express slot on the motherboard, but next to nobody is even using it !
[snip]
Remember the frustration of shopping for a PC in the 90s. EVery couple months the PC would have something new and cool in it, and the price would drop. It was tough to know what to buy and whether you should do it now or wait.
Thats exactly what is happening in the portable.mobile device market. My Ipod, My Sidekick, my hard drives,my PSP,my Xbox even my laptop all have overlapping features. Each is getting closer to each other in feature set every day.
Which means that the war for my pocket is on. Which is going to allow me to only fill one pocket rather than the 2 , or 1 plus beltclip that Im filling now.
Here's hoping Apple comes up with a way to stay ahead of the pitch.
posted by Hankblog @ 4/13/2005 08:25:00 PM
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