iPads Cannibalizing Macs And Even More PCs

There was not a lot of talk today about post-PC on Apple's financial call.  But there was a bit of talk about Cannibalization of the Macs and PCs.

In fact, we should see more of this going forward as Apple's iPad gains acceptance and added functions that will allow users to see it as their main source of mobile computing needs than PCs.  

iPad sales has grown nearly 3x from a year ago to 9 million iPads, 

According to Techcrunch, Tim Cook, COO of Apple is fine with the loss of Mac sales to iPads because there are more sales to be taken away from Windows-based PCs.  And truly, Apple is in an enviable position.  It has virtually a sole ownership of a new market while it takes sales away from rivals.  

And this could potentially continue for years as consumer and enterprise sentiment regarding tablets becomes increasingly more positive.

Apple Hits It Out of the Park with Record Revenue

#Apple:   20 million iPhones sold! 9.5 million iPads, 3.95 million Macs (they blew it...), 7.5 million iPods

Revenue came in at $28.57 billion and $76 billion in cash.

On the Mac number, most people thought Apple would achieve 4 million Macs sold.  

Asked about WSJ Report Of Board Looking At HIs Replacement, Steve Jobs said...

"Hogwash".  To be more exactly, Daring Fireball reportedly said Steve Jobs answered "I think it's hogwash" when asked about a WSJ report that Apple's board was looking to replacement.

I agree.  Apple isn't a company that you think will look for a new leader given the condition Steve Jobs is in without already having something planned.  In fact, given the lack of any kind of actual evidence that Apple had before looked for a replacement for Steve Jobs, is looking for someone to replace Steve Jobs, or has plans to start looking for a replacement for Steve Jobs, the answer is obvious.

It's someone from within Apple.  My money's on Tim Cook.  

Google Getting Into Ring In Patent War; Apple Not Likely To Settle; Mobile Devices Consider Non-Android Options

"We have seen an explosion of Android devices entering the market and, because of our successes, competitors are responding with lawsuits as they cannot respond through innovations" 

Those words came from Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google, when asked about the patent wars between Android foes and Google allies.  Specifically, he was referring directly to the ITC judgment againt HTC that it had voilated two of Apple's patents (Apple has more than a dozen more patents it accused Android makers of violating).

Looks like open war is coming between Apple and Google.  Today, Eric Schmidt of Google vowed to support HTC and promised that they will prevail in its struggle against Apple.  From all indications, it'll be an epic war or empty words in a moment of fleeting bravo encouraged by a friendly crowd.  Which will it be?

I came from a background where you work hard, you use your smarts, and you prevail.  And if you earn it (innovate it), it's yours.  However, the corporate world is rarely that simple.  Life isn't that simple.  I'm sure there is a lot of Android that you can easily see that was copied from Apple.  

Then, the same can be said of Apple copying someone else.  

And with lawyers involved, the truth is rarely black and white.  What I do know is that Google entry into the patent war, if its heart is truly in it, could boost the morale of the Android camp.  

Promises Fulfilled And Mobile Nirvana.  When Google announced the Open Handset Alliance back in late 2007, none of its partners thought they would be in this predicament.  It was after all, "open".  Years later, Android is a thriving mobile platform and has generated tens of billions in profit for device makers and Google.  

It appears that there is nothing to stop Android from gaining the kind of dominance that Microsoft enjoys with Windows on the PC.  In fact, there is still a chance the patents will do nothing except to slow the Android advance but for a moment.  

And Android served as a balance to the walled garden that is Apple's iPhone and iTunes ecosystem.  Ironically, Apple became the boogeyman or Big Brother that they railed against in their original ad in 1984 based on the theme from the book 1984 by George Orwell.

Microsoft was stumbling through to find an answer to the iPhone and Android that at times lacked leadership from its executives.  RIM was convinced that messaging and emails was all that it needed to excel at.  So long as the enterprise users were happy with them, all will be fine and they can bring that to the consumers.  And then there's Palm with its innovative Web OS. If there is ever an MBA course on bad time, Palm would be a case study as it releases product after product at the same time its larger competitors release theirs (Pre released just as the iPhone 3GS came onto the market)  

Perception And Promises. Schmidt's words could be timed to allay fears of partners of the increasing cost of patent payments and litigations from Android in their mobile devices.  And timing is everything here and Google has to proceed carefully.  There is going to be a lot of hand-holding by Google and it'll cost them as well if Google puts money where its mouth is.  

Google itself is being sued by Oracle for Java damages, Microsoft is asking just about everyone who makes Android device a certain amount per device now, and, then there is Apple.  More than these ongoing issues, there is the perception that Google cares nothing beyond selling ads through Android.  After all, it is how it makes money from mobile and search.  

How can this perception be correct?  Though Google made the initial $1 billion bet on Nortel's 6,000+ patents, they failed to win the bid.  Instead, the bid went to a coalition head by none other than Apple.  Only Intel joined Google. All the way, Google's follow-up bids were of numbers that really did not give anyone a sense that it was serious about the process. Pi as a bidding number?!

Furthermore, one has to ask where were the rest of the Open Handset Alliance members?  More than a few of them had deep pockets that could have contributed to help Google secure a winning bid.  Perhaps, it was a sign that they see a vision of the future that did not favor Google.  Take Sony, an Android device maker, that sided with Apple instead of its mobile OS benefactor.

If Google and the Open Handset Alliance was not serious about winning the Nortel patents, what does it say about patent protection and Schmidt's words that HTC will prevail against Apple's patent suits?

Apple, Apple, Apple. Perhaps, Google senses something that going on here and that's why Schmidt had to speak up when he did..  Many analysts, especially those in Asia, believe that this patent spat between Apple and Android device makers, are about money and cross-licensing of patents.  Once the amount is agreed upon, things will return to normal.

Microsoft might be content with nickel-and-diming the Android makers but that cannot necessarily be said to be the case with Apple.  When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone back in 2007, he made sure to point out that Apple made sure it patented everything it can to protect it.

First, it isn't in Apple's DNA to share.  Steve Jobs isn't interested in a couple of billion dollars a year.  

Second, Apple wants to preserve the uniqueness it perceives that is specific to the iOS, iPhone, and iPad.  Without it, why would anyone want to buy Apple product?  

Third, if Apple does allow some patents to be licensed, they will exact their pound of flesh.  And they'll only offer those that doesn't allow Android devices to gain parity with the iPhone.

There is a chance that Apple might settle with some Android device makers.  One quickly come to mind is Samsung.  Apple relies on Samsung for many parts like chips, memory, and screen for its iOS devices.  It could leverage that co-existence along with its ITC win against HTC against Samsung for other concessions  

Unfortunately for anyone like, they have very little to offer Apple.

Cloudy Path To Resolution.For the reasons above, HTC investors are not buying HTC's brave front or their attempt to stem their stock price with buybacks.  Nor as other Android device makers certain about the future.  

So muddy is the Android situation that some device makers are taking another look at other options such as Windows Phone.  After all, if they have to pay Micrsoft patent royalty, they may as well consider Windows Phone while avoiding legal battles inherent to Android.  

Some Chinese device makers have already been said to looking to Microsoft as an option.  Meego might also get another look as well.  Perhaps this was why Intel sided with Google during the Nortel bids.  Intel probably saw the writing on the wall and predicted an increase interest in its mobile platform.

For the most part, Apple and Google avoided direct confrontation.  These legal fights so far have been like proxy wars the US and the USSR fought during the cold war.  But it looks like Google is going to draw Apple out into an open fight.  

Things could quickly get ugly.  Things will escalate to the level no one imagined.  I can't wait.

Source:  Wireless Week, CNet, NextWeb

Google + App for iPhone Now Available

The title of this post says it here.  Apple has finally approved the Google+ app in iTunes and on your iOS devices.

Source: TUAW

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Borders - Liquidation Starts, 399 Stores to Close

It's over. I love Borders but they did not move fast enough to embrace the Internet at at the beginning and then again during the ebook revolution.

I got there as a child to read and buy books  I go there to study.  Sometimes after dinner in nearby restaurants, we do go there for coffee.  Now, that experience will be a thing of the past.  

I guess Barnes and Noble has still around and it has been granted a life-line with the Nook.  I just hope that BN will be able to innovate and move fast enough to continue to flourish and not to repeat any of Borders' mistakes.  

Source: Marketwatch.

iPad (And Other Tablets) Is Only The Beginning Of A Transition From PC - Post-PC Does Not Mean No PC

Here's a good sobering post from PC World on the iPad (tablets in general) and the post-PC era that we are in.  Rather, than true post-PC, I like to think we're on the transitional period when tablets take a more prominent role in our lives while still have a place in our home and work for the traditional laptop.

Think of it as when we transitioned from typewriter to the word processor on the DOS machines in the early 80s.  You could do a lot of things on a PC but when most people still went to their trusted electronic typewriter for the actual production of documents and manuscripts.  

But as the PC became more sophisticated with the Mac and Windows, we totally abandoned the old ways of writing and only worked on the PC.  We could be headed in that general direction with the tablet.  But for now, a lot of things can still be done better and easier on the laptop.  Typing, for one, quickly comes to mind.

In the post, the author pointed out the typing limitations.  I agree and I've become very comfortable with it in the last year or so.  What I find lack are still some apps that are not quite there yet.  

For instance, this is general a mobile blog, I try to write as much of my posts on the iPad, Android devices, and iPhone.  Call it practicing what you preach and write about.  The transiting between apps on the iPad or Android isn't the easier way to go about this right now.  Apple could be working on a solution in the next iOS update.

There is one thing I like to add.  Keyboards and mices are what we're used to.  We grew up on those two input devices for nearly thirty years.  And they'll be around for a while even as tablet evolve and gain new abilities.  Even now, the Asus Transformer tablet comes with an optional keyboard dock.  Also, Motorola's Atrix on ATT also has a laptop-like dock with screen and keyboard.  They serve to help us and to remind us that we are not just going to quit cold turkey on how we used to work on the PC.  

Why? As humans, we are creatures of habit.  And we can grow comfortable with what we know.  Most of us today grew up using the PC for our education and work.  And while that is likely to continue for a while, the tablet is now being added to that process.  And for the first time ever since the iPad was released, many parents are introducing to their toddlers the tablet rather than the laptop.  

With each year, more and more children will be exposed to the tablet until ten, fifteen, or twenty years later, we will have a generation of children who grows up using the tablet to do their school work rather than the PC.  And their entry into the workforce will compound the roles that the tablet play.  And in ten or twenty years, who's is to say that innovations will advanced far enough that will truly make the PC completely obsolete or relegated it to a corner of productivity that still needed it.

Again, I stress that the PC World post is about specific iPad experience as it is today.  It is not an indictment on the potential of the iPad or other tablets that will come after.  As with anything, transitions take time.  For the post-PC era, it will not be an all or nothing proposition for the tablet.  

Post-PC does not mean no PC.