Apple’s excellent April financial report — revenue up 43% and year over year and profits up 36% — masked the disturbing news that Apple’s iPod business has basically stopped growing. iPod units were up only one percent year over year. Most of Apple’s growth came from the Macintosh business.
Although Macs are on a roll at the moment, it’s risky for Apple to rely only on the relatively mature personal computer market for all of its growth. With the iPod now saturating, Apple needs its new iPhone business to provide a second growth engine.
Can the iPhone be Apple's next big thing?
Apple’s excellent April financial report — revenue up 43% and year over year and profits up 36% — masked the disturbing news that Apple’s iPod business has basically stopped growing. iPod units were up only one percent year over year. Most of Apple’s growth came from the Macintosh business.
Although Macs are on a roll at the moment, it’s risky for Apple to rely only on the relatively mature personal computer market for all of its growth. With the iPod now saturating, Apple needs its new iPhone business to provide a second growth engine.
Ballmer to Yang: I Just Can’t Quit You
Two NYT journalists see Microsoft ‘needing a franchise’ as the software giant puts the moves on Yahoo all over again. Two weeks after walking away from takeover talks with Yahoo, …
The iPhone Work
Today was a good day. Fortune, WSJ, others covered us. Good day.
Apple iPhone: Successes/Challenges
The Apple iPhone is easily the most publicized new mobile device in recent memory. But despite all the discussion about the product, there’s relatively little hard information available to the public on its impact. How is it being used? What effect is it having on customers and on the technology industry?
To help answer those questions, Rubicon Consulting conducted a detailed survey of 460 randomly-selected iPhone users in the US. This report summarizes the findings from the survey, and what they mean for users and other companies.
What was Ford’s Alan Mulally thinking?
Unless you are selling talking beer openers or donuts, comparing your product to Homer Simpson defies conventional wisdom. When your product is a slow-selling car, your actions are certain to leave people saying, “D’oh!”
Yet, this is exactly what Ford Motor CEO Alan Mulally did recently. He wasn’t subtle, in a public speech he projected an image of Homer over a picture of Ford’s Taurus sedan while being critical of the design and talking up future models as much better. We can be pretty sure that this will not rally sales of the Taurus over the coming months, so has Mulally gone mad or is he actually smart?
2008 Trends Watch
It’s very risky to make predictions in the tech industry. If we knew for certain what the future would be, we’d all be retired and living on our stock investments.
Yahoo in 2008
It would be difficult to find a company that underwent more change in 2007 than Yahoo.
Winning Business Models: Innovation vs. Invention
Invention is the classic way to build a successful company. However, invention is much harder for a mature company or a mature technology. Business model innovation is an attractive option in many cases as a way to differentiate an offer, improve profitability or both. Below are five emerging business models.
- Culture & Leadership (146)
- Entrepreneurship (160)
- Featured (8)
- Market Power (216)
- onlyness (124)
- Social (80)
- Talks (29)
- Technology & Trends (78)
- The Personal Story (81)
- Uncategorized (195)
