Igor Delovski Board

[delovski]

Digg: Mac OS Market Share Spikes to 5.21 Percent - Up 35 Percent Year Over Year

"Apple's Mac OS X market share continues to rise. It's now up to 5.21
percent but the real news is that growth is accelerating."

[XNote]

Digg: Mac Sales 4X faster than Global PC Market; closing in on 3rd Place in U.S.

"Apple's Macintosh unit sales are growing more than four times faster
than the global PC market and have Apple closing in on 3rd place in the
U.S. PC market. While iPod sales contribute nearly 40% of Apple's revenue,
Mac sales still kick in more than half, which means the product's renewed
vigor is goosing Apple's sales and bottom line."

[Ike]

Ars Technica: Your ISP may be selling your web clicks

"David Cancel, the CTO of the web market research firm Compete Incorporated,
raised eyebrows at the Open Data 2007 Conference in New York when he
revealed that many Internet service providers sell the clickstream data of their
users. Clickstream data includes every web site visited by each user and in which
order they were clicked."

[Ike]

Slashdot: "Market Share" "Installed Base" and Consumer Electronics

"Analysts and reporters like to talk about market share statistics, but the
conclusions they draw are often misleading, RDM reports. Market Share
Myth 2007: iPod vs Zune and Mac vs PC takes a look at how numbers are
used to paint grossly inaccurate portrayals of the market share of the Zune
among iPods, and alternatively the Mac among PCs.

A follow up article, Market Share vs Installed Base: iPod vs Zune, Mac vs PC
demonstrates how the conventional wisdom of market share reporting can be
turned upside down by simply comparing what vendors actually sell. An eye
opening, in depth look at the real numbers behind PCs, music players, and
console games."

[Ike]

utilitybelt - Bad blood between Adobe and Microsoft

"Chizen used the marriage metaphor to describe the relationship with Apple
– sometimes you want to break up, but you can’t because there’s too much
history, and the relationship has to work for the sake of the kids."

[delovski]

Apple’s Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect

"... in 2001 when Apple opened its first retail store ... Experienced computer
resellers were struggling, and no computer manufacturer had ever found
success operating its own branded stores. Analysts predicted ... that Apple
would shut down the stores and write off the huge losses in two years."

[Ike]

Another take on the same subject: A Day in the Life of an Apple Genius

"It might seem hard to believe, but there was a time in the not-so-distant past
of 2001 that magazines such as BusinessWeek screamed, 'Sorry, Steve, Here's
Why Apple Stores Won't Work.' Retail consultants and online chatterers fell
all over themselves to join the nay-saying chorus - some chiming in right up
until the moment it was reported that Apple's 174 stores generate $4,032 in
annual sales per square foot. That beats Best Buy, Saks, and even Tiffany & Co."

[Ike]

How is an AK-47 like a QWERTY keyboard?

"Killicoat's goal is to understand what factors play a role in the varying price
of Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles across the world. For example, AK-47s are
much, much cheaper -- by an average of over $200 -- in African countries
than anywhere else. Why is this so?"

[Ike]

Slashdot: The Economist on Apple, the iPhone, and Innovation

"This week's Economist has a special report on Apple, Inc. and innovation.
'The fourth lesson from Apple is to "fail wisely". The Macintosh was born from
the wreckage of the Lisa, an earlier product that flopped; the iPhone is a
response to the failure of Apple's original music phone, produced in conjunction
with Motorola. Both times, Apple learned from its mistakes and tried again.

Its recent computers have been based on technology developed at NeXT,
a company Mr Jobs set up in the 1980s that appeared to have failed and
was then acquired by Apple. The wider lesson is not to stigmatize failure
but to tolerate it and learn from it: Europe's inability to create a rival to
Silicon Valley owes much to its tougher bankruptcy laws.' There is also an
article on the business of the iPhone and the future of the company."

[XNote]

Slashdot: A CIO's View of Ubuntu

"Well-known CIO John Halamka has rigorously tested six different operating
systems over the course of a year in an effort to find a viable alternative
to Microsoft Windows on his laptop and his company's computers. Here is
CIO.com's initial writeup on Halamka's experiences; we discussed their
followup article on SUSE. Now CIO is running a writeup on Halamka's
take on Ubuntu and how it stacks up against Novell SUSE 10, RHEL,
Fedora, XP, and Mac OS X, in a life-and-death business environment."

For the impatient, here's Halamka's conclusion: "A balanced approach of
Windows for the niche business application user, Macs for the graphic
artists/researchers, SUSE for enterprise kiosks/thin clients, and Ubuntu
for power users seems like the sweet spot for 2008."

[delovski]

Digg: 2007 Desktop Linux Survey results revealed

"According to DesktopLinux.com's just completed survey, the number of
Desktop Linux users has more than doubled in the past year, and Ubuntu
remains their Linux distribution of choice. Of significance, Ubuntu's growing
prominence has made GNOME surpass KDE as the most popular desktop
environment."

[XNote]

Economist.com - Who's afraid of Google?

"Just as financial institutions grew to become repositories of people's money,
and thus guardians of private information about their finances, Google is now
turning into a custodian of a far wider and more intimate range of information
about individuals."

[delovski]

Slashdot: Is Apple Doing All It Can to Beat Vista?

"The New York Times is running an article on the narrowing window that
Apple has for beating Microsoft's Vista. According the Times, not enough has
been done to capitalize on the Mac user experience versus the 'world of hurt
that is Vista'.

It also points out that that restructuring of Apple leaves ambiguities about
Apple's exact commitment to the computer end of its business. The article
calls MS Vista's certified vendors, developers and driver writers a flywheel
that takes a while coming up to speed - and then becomes unstoppable."

[delovski]

Digg: How Apple Can Keep Its Value

"It’s official. Apple is the most valuable computer maker in the world. In the
wake of the company’s better than expected earnings in the quarter ended
Sep 30th, Apple’s shares rose by nearly 7 percent, making the company’s
total market value $162 billion. But what accounts for this success?"

[delovski]

starryhope.com - Ubuntu: Just how popular is it?

"However, they do seem to show that Ubuntu has managed to gain a large
portion of the Linux mind share, at least amongst the tech community."

[Ike]

hbs - Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win?

"Ghemawat and Casadesus-Masanell chose to explore the fundamental
competitive dynamics question: Will OSS ever displace traditional software
from its market leadership position?"

[Ike]

Digg: Mac market share breaks 8% mark in 2007's final days

"For December as a whole, Apple Inc.'s machines accounted for 7.3% of all
systems that browsed the 40,000 sites monitored by Net Applications Inc.,
up significantly from 6.8% during November. At the beginning of 2007, Net
Applications pegged Mac OS X's share at 5.7%, putting the one-year growth
rate at about 28%."

[XNote]

Slashdot: Gartner Analysts Warn That Windows Is Collapsing

"Computerworld has an article about a presentation from Gartner analysts
in Las Vegas claiming that Windows is 'collapsing', and that Microsoft 'must
make radical changes to the operating system or risk becoming a has-been.'

Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald provided an analysis of what went wrong
with Vista, and what they feel Microsoft can and must do to correct its prob-
lems. Larry Dignan of ZDNet has his own take, and while he agrees, he sug-
gests that the downfall of Windows will be slow and drawn-out."

[XNote]

daringfireball.net - The Phone Company

"But even more remarkable is this — measured by revenues, Apple has
become the world’s third-largest mobile phone supplier. I know this sounds
crazy, but it’s true — as measured in revenues, not units, Apple has become
the third largest mobile phone supplier."

[XNote]

iw - iPhone Claims Nearly Two-Thirds Of Mobile Browser Share

"How could a device like the iPhone, which sold 33% fewer units, be garne-
ring 67% of mobile Web browser's eyes? It is real simple. Browsing on the
iPhone is a pleasure."

[Ike]

abovethecrowd.com - Google Redefines Disruption: The Less Than Free
Business Model

"Here was the big punch line – because Google will give you ad splits on se-
arch if you use that version! That’s right; Google will pay you to use their
mobile OS. I like to call this the “less than free” business model. This is a
remarkable card to play."

[delovski]

businessinsider.com - Inside Apple's Huge New Industry

"Based on the sales and ranks of our very own Weather HD, we estimate
that the Top 1,000 iPad paid applications are making about $372,000 per
day, which sums up to about $136 million per year. This figure is based
on there being only 500,000 iPads in the market, and is accounting only
for the application sales in the United States."

[delovski]

Charlie Stross - The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

"Secondly, HP are buying Palm, apparently for Palm's WebOS — with rum-
ours of plans to deploy a range of WebOS tablets to rival the iPad — at the
same time, they're killing their forthcoming Windows 7 slate, just as Micro-
soft are killing the Courier tablet project."

[delovski]

reddit - DAE feel that all of the so-called "iPad killers" are pretty much
dead-on-arrival?

"UI isn't about pretty, it is about not pausing for 3 seconds not knowing if
pushing this button will hide the keypad, or close your current screen.

UI isn't about pretty, it is about pressing the search key, and nothing coming
up, because you are in a subscreen.

UI isn't about pretty, it is about the iPhone safari uses scroll up for address,
whereas you need to learn how to get the address bar to show on the andro-
id browser."

[Ike]

reddit - Why Apple's Winning in Tech Support and Satisfaction

"Some say it's not entirely fair to compare Apple to HP, Dell and Lenovo, but
consistent wins in PCMag's Readers' Choice can no longer be ignored."

[delovski]

theregister.co.uk - When Dilbert came to Nokia

"Nokia had developed a touch screen UI called Hildon, which became Series
90, starting in 2001 - and that should have been the basis for Nokia's iPhone
competitors today. But it was canned in 2005.

"We produced a quite enormous number of rather average products. It would
have been smarter to make fewer - and better," says one interviewee."

[Ike]

Global Stats - StatCounter

Top 5 Operating Systems in Croatia from Dec 09 to Dec 10.

[XNote]

netmarketshare.com - Apple's iOS Breaks 2% of All Browsing on The Web

"Apple's iOS which runs the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch reached 2.06%
of all global browsing in January, passing 2% for the first time. This gro-
wth trend accelerated over the holidays, which follows the typical pattern
for Apple consumer devices."

[Ike]

Horace Dediu - Flummoxed, again

"As the success of the product would become self-evident, predictions
of imminent demise would trail off. The pain of share loss would prompt
a wave of challenger copycats. Imitation would be the the best form of
flattery.

But no."

[Ike]

bgr.com - More letters to RIM; employees rally alongside anony-
mous exec

"BGR published an open letter to Research In Motion yesterday from an
anonymous high-level RIM executive who begged for senior management
to take notice of all of the issues within RIM. The exec explained how the
company should make some changes to focus on the talent and potential
within RIM, and also to focus on end users instead of carriers.

After we published the article, RIM responded. It wasn’t pretty, and it re-
ally didn’t address a single point that was made by the original plea. It
wasn’t just RIM that responded, however — we received dozens of ema-
ils from current and former RIM employees detailing their stories, and
essentially all agreeing with the open letter that was published on BGR."

[XNote]

bi - CHART OF THE DAY: Despite Android's Rise, It's Losing
Developer Support

"According to mobile analytics firm Flurry, developer support for Android
has been waning despite its incredible growth."

[XNote]

slashdot - Finding Fault With the Low, Low Price of Android

"Google's accusation of patent abuse toward its competitors has generated
many responses, some of which has asked whether Android's free price is
anti-competitive. Drawing comparisons to Microsoft's antitrust trial, in which
they were accused of giving away Internet Explorer to drive competitors out
of the browser market, Thurrott argues that Google's rivals are 'leveling the
playing field' through patent fees by removing an artificial price advantage
funded by monopoly search revenues.

'One could argue that Google is using its dominance in search advertising to
unfairly gain entry into another market by giving that new product, Android,
away for free. Does this remind you of any famous antitrust case?'"

[Ike]

An interesting look at the demographics between iOS and Android users

gallery.apartmenttherapy.com

[delovski]

asymco.com - Comparing top lines: Apple vs. Microsoft

"The Mac business generates more Revenue than Windows
iOS powered devices generate more revenue than all of Microsoft’s products
put together."

[Ike]

Mike Elgan - Why the iPad Is the Most Hated Gadget Ever

"As the Apple iPad succeeds beyond expectations, it leaves in its wake an
enormous body count of dead and dying products. While consumers love it,
several major industries have grown to hate it. And for very good reason."

[Ike]

asymco.com - The conditions for survival and prosperity

"The high mortality rate and short longevity of technology companies is a
consequence of a failure to manage innovation and disruption. Apple may
be an exception–one I think worth studying. Though not always prosperous,
it has managed to survive, being the only company from the early era of
personal computing to still be operating in the industry. Indeed, it’s now the
most prosperous. Maybe it’s a fluke, but I rather think it’s due to an ability
to re-define itself as the market shifts. Its essential quality being an ability
to disrupt itself."

and: The rise and fall of personal computing

[delovski]

asymco - Building and dismantling the Windows advantage

"Considering the near future, it’s safe to expect a “parity” of iOS+OS X vs.
Windows within one or two years. The install base may remain larger for
some time longer but the sales rate of alternatives will swamp it in due
course."

[Ike]

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/12/10/13/1919234/the-three-pillars-of-nokia-strategy-have-all-failed

[Ike]

asymco - Google vs. Samsung

"The reason I point this out is that Samsung’s success is dependent on
having ridden on the back of Android. Samsung’s ascent can be precisely
timed to their adoption of Android. The groundbreaking Samsung Galaxy
launch was the Galaxy S which shipped in June 2010.

Meanwhile, indications are that “mobile” is causing a contraction in Google’s
margins."

[delovski]

theGlobe&Mail - Inside the fall of BlackBerry: How the smartphone inventor failed to adapt

"This investigative report reveals that:

Shortly after the release of the first iPhone, Verizon asked BlackBerry to
create a touchscreen “iPhone killer.” But the result was a flop, so Verizon
turned to Motorola and Google instead.

In 2012, one-time co-CEO Jim Balsillie quit the board and cut all ties to
BlackBerry in protest after his plan to shift focus to instant-messaging
software, which had been opposed by founder Mike Lazaridis, was killed
by current CEO Thorsten Heins."

[Ike]

r - I was a ex-Apple Employee who rose up the ranks to management

"They have made someone like me who was an extreme introvert to an
extrovert. I have no problems delivering a speech in front of thousands
thanks to Apple training. This is only one of thousands of skills I've
acquired. The magic for me once I acquired management level was
watching my employees grow in front of my eyes."