Category Archives: hardware

Apple Never Invented Anything

September 2, 2012 – 10:05 pm

Tweet“Monsieur Voiture, you hopeless [redacted French slur], you still can’t prepare a proper mayonnaise! I’ll show you one last time while standing on one foot…” [Bear with me, the connection with today's title will become apparent in a moment.] The year is 1965, I’m midway through a series of strange jobs that I take between [...]

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Summer Fun: The HR-Less Performance Review

August 12, 2012 – 8:54 pm

TweetThe idea for today’s off-topic note came to me when I read “Microsoft’s Lost Decade“, an aptly titled Vanity Fair story. In the piece, Kurt Eichenwald tracks Microsoft’s decline as he revisits a decade of technical missteps and bad business decisions. Predictably, the piece has generated strong retorts from Microsoft’s Ministry of Truth and from [...]

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Saving Private RIM

August 5, 2012 – 6:50 pm

TweetOver the past couple weeks, we’ve read a number of bedtimes stories about RIM’s next move. They all start with the same trope: Once upon a time, late last century, Apple was on the edge of the precipice and still managed to come back — and how! Today, RIM’s situation isn’t nearly as dire as [...]

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Business Model Dances

July 16, 2012 – 6:59 pm

TweetApple will licence the iOS. An unexpected disturbance is apparent in Apple’s vaunted Supply Chain. It’s not what’s there, but what isn’t: In the past, each new iPhone was preceded by an increase in orders for displays, batteries, memory, cases, etc. But now, as we approach the September/October launch of the new iPhone 5, the [...]

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iPad Mini: Wishful Thinking?

July 8, 2012 – 11:24 pm

TweetOr another killer product? Or, on the pessimistic side, a loser defensive move showing Apple’s fear of competitors such as Amazon, with its Kindle Fire, and Google’s 7″ Nexus tablet? Recent leaks from purported sources inside Apple’s traditional suppliers have ignited a new frenzy of speculation. And not just from the usual blogging suspects — [...]

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What’s next for RIM?

July 1, 2012 – 7:11 pm

TweetA sad coincidence provides a stark contrast between the fortunes of two high tech companies, titans present and past. Last week, on (almost) the same day that the iPhone celebrated its fifth birthday, RIM issued very bad quarterly numbers: Down 43% year-to-year to $2.8B; a $518M net loss compared to a $695M profit in the [...]

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Microsoft: Apostasy Or Head Fake?

June 25, 2012 – 12:23 am

TweetMy appetite whetted by three days of rumors, I went online last Monday and watched Microsoft introduce its Surface tablets. After the previous false starts — the moribund Tablet PC and the still-born Courier — Microsoft finally took matters into its own hands. Ballmer & Co. could no longer wait for OEMs to create vehicles [...]

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The Nokia Torture

June 18, 2012 – 10:04 am

TweetHow would you like to be a Nokia employee? Last week the bosses came up with more bad news: In order to cut 3B€ (about $3.8B) in expenses by the end of 2013, another 10,000 employees will be shown the door — this after earlier cutting payroll by 4,000 people. The news came couched in [...]

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Monday Note Exclusive: The Walmart Garden Smartphone

June 3, 2012 – 11:49 pm

TweetLast week was the 10th anniversary of the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital Conference, D10 for short. For the past three years it’s been held at the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, South of Los Angeles. If I leave in the wee hours and take an North and East detour around the Evil [...]

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The Apple-Intel-Samsung Ménage à Trois

May 13, 2012 – 10:29 pm

TweetFascinating doesn’t do justice to the spectacle, nor to the stakes. Taken in pairs, these giants exchange fluids – products and billion$ – while fiercely fighting with their other half. Each company is the World’s Number One in their domain: Intel in microprocessors, Samsung in electronics, Apple in failure to fail as ordained by the [...]

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