Apple vs. Palm: Fresh shots across the bow

[Originally posted July 24, 2009 on Fortune.com]

To the delight of an armada of tech writers, Palm (PALM) has responded to the shot Apple (AAPL) fired across its bow last week with a cheeky little blast of its own.

The issue is whether Apple will continue to allow the Pre to sync seamlessly with iTunes, the feature of Palm's whizzy new smartphone that got the most attention in advance of its launch in early June.

Apple unleashed an iTunes software update last week that shut down the feature. It was accompanied by a sharply worded warning that -- uncharacteristically -- named names. The update, it said, had "disabled devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre."

Palm responded with a quick workaround. In its description of the new features of an operating system update released Thursday, Palm's official blog saved the best -- Steve Jobs-style -- for last:

Apple's Q3 2009: Analyzing the analysts

[Originally posted July 22, 2009 on Fortune.com]

Tuesday was not a good day for professional analysts as a class -- and Merrill Lynch's in particular.

Not only were most caught off guard by the strength of Apple's (AAPL) record third-quarter results -- see here -- but the men and women who track the company for banks and brokerage houses were bested once again by a bunch of bloggers, day traders and amateurs analysts.

In the color-coded chart excerpted above -- and pasted in full below the fold -- the estimates that were closest to the mark are highlighted in green and the worst highlighted in red.

IT on the iPhone: 'Use at your own cost and peril'

[Originally posted July 12, 2009 on Fortune.com]

Ever wondered why your company will support Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry but not the iPhone? Does it seem like the corporate deck is stacked against Apple (AAPL)?

A conference call with four chief information officers organized by Morgan Stanley's Kathryn Huberty last week might have confirmed your worst fears.

Of the four guests, only one -- the CIO of a multi-billion dollar company who runs a Mac shop for the "creatives" who work there -- actively supports the iPhone.

The other three dismissed the device with varying degrees of curiosity and contempt.

Why Google's CEO had to leave Apple's board

[Originally posted Aug. 3, 2009 on Fortune.com]

Much has changed since Eric Schmidt joined Apple's (AAPL) board of directors in August 2006, almost three years ago.

Schmidt, the former chief technology officer of Sun Microsystems (JAVA) and now the CEO of Google (GOOG), brought to Apple's board deep expertise in Web search and advertising, a shared distrust of Microsoft (MSFT) and almost no conflicts of interest.

But in the past three years the areas of overlapping interests -- from smartphones to browsers to operating systems -- have grown so great that the Federal Trade Commission in May opened discussions with the two companies about whether Schmidt's presence on Apple's board constituted a violation of the Clayton Antitrust Act. (link)

And on Friday the Federal Communications Commission launched a pointed inquiry into Apple's decision to bar a powerful Google voice mail management program from its iPhone App Store -- an inquiry that put Schmidt and Apple CEO Steve Jobs on opposite sides of a Federal investigation.
Finally Jobs announced on Monday what had come to seem an inevitability: that Schmidt was off the board.

“Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” Jobs said in a prepared statement. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.” (link)

Although pressure on Schmidt to step down had mounted in recent weeks, Schmidt told attendees at a technology conference as recently as July 10 that he saw "no issue" with his remaining on the board. (link)

But Apple's decision to reject Google Voice -- an important application into which Google had sunk a lot of time and money -- may have been the last straw.

"If nothing else," writes TechCrunch's Erick Schoenfeld in Why Schmidt Had to Go, "last Friday's letters from the FCC [were] a wake-up call to Apple that Google stands on the opposite side of the fence when it comes to the evolution of the mobile Web. Google wants the mobile Web to be as open as the Internet. ... Apple is not about being open. It never has been...

"Google wants to diminish the importance of any single computing device in favor of Web apps which sit in the cloud and are accessible from all devices -- mobile phones, Macbooks, Dell laptops, or whatever. As much as is physically possible, it wants to replace the operating system with the Web.

"Ultimately, that is a bigger threat to Apple than Microsoft ever was."

See also:

• The FCC is asking Apple and AT&T all the right questions
• Antitrust inquiry: How Apple and Google compete
• Google CEO Schmidt leaves Apple board

[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]

Antitrust inquiry: How Apple and Google compete

[Originally posted May 5, 2009 on Fortune.com]

Given the looming presence of Microsoft (MSFT) on the PC desktop, we tend to think of Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) as corporate best friends united by a common enemy.

But the news Monday night that the U.S. government has opened an inquiry into the two companies' "interlocking directorates" under the Clayton Antitrust Act has prompted a fresh look at the extent to which Apple and Google are, in fact, competitors.

We assume, by the way, that the red flag that caught the attention of the Federal Trade Commission is Google CEO Eric Schmidt's seat on Apple's board, since the only other overlap is Arthur Levinson, former chief executive of Genentech (DNA), a gene-splicing company.

Schmidt is known to recuse himself from Apple board meetings when the iPhone is discussed. That makes sense. It wouldn't be fair for Google's team Android to get inside information about Apple's plans for future mobile devices.

But does Schmidt leave the room when Safari comes up? Or iTunes? Or MobileMe?

When you start to look at the hundreds of software products Apple and Google make -- especially on the Web -- things quickly get pretty complicated. Here's a partial list of the areas in which we know Apple and Google compete:

Apple's Q2: Analyzing the Analysts

[Originally posted April 23, 2009 on Fortune.com]

No analyst we know of correctly predicted Apple's (AAPL) second fiscal quarter results for 2009, in which the company proved that computer makers don't have to slash prices or build "junky" $400 netbooks to weather an economic storm. But some analysts did better than others.

Who did best?

Let's look at the numbers. The table below represents the estimates of all the Wall Street analysts whose numbers we could get our hands on, as well as those of three of the most prominent blogger analysts. (We could have included lots more bloggers; everybody these days seems to have an Apple earnings spreadsheet in their hard drive.)

In our chart, the actual results and the most accurate estimates are highlighted in green. The worst estimates are highlighted in red. There were several ties.

Bearish grunts from a pair of Apple bulls

[Originally posted April 21, 2009 on Fortune.com]

You know Apple (AAPL) is in for a bumpy quarter when both Gene Munster and Andy Zaky sound bearish notes in advance of the company's fiscal Q2 earnings report -- due out Wednesday after the markets close.

Munster, a senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, is one of Apple's strongest supporters among the mainstream analysts. And Zaky, who writes a blog called Bullish Cross, is best known for his quarterly analyst smackdowns, in which bloggers who follow the stock challenge the pros to do a better job than they at predicting Apple's numbers.

Neither man has turned negative on Apple. Munster retains his "buy" rating and is sticking to his price target of $180 a share -- one of the highest in the industry. And Zaky, while acknowledging that the Street's consensus estimates for Q2 -- earnings of $1.09 a share on revenue of $7.94 billion -- are "more fairly stated" than they've been in recent quarters, still expects Apple to beat them.

Munster, however, issued a report to clients Tuesday in which he predicts that Apple will miss the Street's consensus on both revenue (by a hair) and earnings (by a mile). See chart:

All about Microsoft's "Lauren"

[Originally posted March 31, 2009 on Fortune.com.]

Her hair is red, her eyes dark brown, her physique slim. She stands 5'2" in her stocking feet and weighs 113 lbs. in her birthday suit.

Her name is Lauren De Long, and she set a million geek hearts aflutter with her spunky performance in the now famous "you find it, you keep it" PC ad, in which she chose an HP (HPQ) Pavilion running Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Vista Home Edition over any computer in the Apple (AAPL) store.

She also set off Apple 2.0's hottest flame war — 402 comments and counting — with the line "I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person." (See How Microsoft put Apple owners on the defensive.)

She was supposed to be an ordinary American who answered a Craigslist ad for a market-and-research job and to her surprise found herself starring in a multi-million dollar Microsoft advertising campaign.

But a little inspired sleuthing by the wife of a Seattle-based investigative reporter turned up her film and television credits, her Now Casting bio and resume, her IMDB listing, her MySpace photo gallery and her official website.

Apple vs. Palm: Geeks with grudges

[Originally posted Jan. 26, 2009 on Fortune.com]

The bad blood between Apple (AAPL) and Palm (PALM) that bubbled to the surface last week has a history that long predates Palm's launch of the Pre, a smartphone that flatters Apple more sincerely than any of the other iPhone imitators.

When asked at Apple's earnings call last Wednesday how the iPhone was going to going to stay ahead of competitors nipping at its heels, you could hear the heat in acting CEO Tim Cook's answer.

"We think competition is good. It makes us all better. And we are ready to suit up and go against anyone.

"However," he added, his voice rising, "we will not stand for having our IP [intellectual property] ripped off, and we'll use whatever weapons that we have at our disposal. I don't know that I can be clearer than that." (link)

Palm was quick to respond to what it perceived as a shot across its bow.
"If faced with legal action," a spokesperson told Digital Daily, "we are confident that we have the tools necessary to defend ourselves."

But the bad blood between Palm and Apple goes deeper than a patent dispute, as my colleague Brent Schlender presciently pointed out when the venture capitalists at Elevation Partners made their first big investment in Palm -- a $325 million cash infusion just a few weeks before the iPhone hit the market.

In a column written at the time of the loan, Schlender noted that both the giver -- Elevation partner Fred Anderson -- and the receiver -- Palm executive chairman Jon Rubenstein -- had long, complex relationships with Apple.

Apple awarded iPhone patent

[Originally posted Jan. 27, 2009 on Fortune.com]

Tim Cook must have known.

One day before Apple's acting CEO told Wall Street analysts that his company would not stand for having its intellectual property "ripped off" -- a remark clearly aimed at certain iPhone-like features of the Palm Pre -- the U.S. Patent Office awarded Apple Patent No. No. 7479949.

This 358-page document, originally filed on Sept. 5, 2007, is the mother of all iPhone patents. Signed by 21 Apple (AAPL) employees -- starting with Jobs, Steven P. and Forestall, Scott -- it covers everything from the way a finger or fingers touch the screen to the heuristics that turn those touches into commands.
Other smartphones introduced since the iPhone came out have avoided using the multi-touch technology covered by this patent. The Palm Pre may have crossed the line. See Apple vs. Palm: Geeks with grudges.