The End of Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) ?
By Rocky Biggs on May 21, 2010
There was some news today by a certain Mountain View based company that might just put much of Apple Inc’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) weaker products out of business. Let’s forget for a second all the jabs taken at Apple in yesterday’s Google I/O conference where Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced their Google TV plans.
The more immediate danger is that Google has gone from a simple flirtation with the phone industry through Android, to practically a plan to take over every waking hour of people’s lives by being in the living room, in people’s offices, in people’s phones and in their computers.
Apple Inc had similar plans – they wanted to branch out from being a company that produces consumer products to having their own platform and ecosystem. However, Apple simply doesn’t scale as well as Google can. Apple’s services can simply be replicated by competitors, which limits to what extent Apple can hold people within their own walls.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock fell 4.26% amid a wide spread concern about the state of the European economy as well increased job less claims across America.
Still, with Google putting Apple staples like iTunes, iPhone, iPad, AppleTV under threat – Apple needs to reconsider what it wants to do – an all out war with Google, or just focus on their core business. We will see in today’s session of trading how strongly investors of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock are confident about the company’s future.
Filed Under: Finance • Technology
NASDAQ dropped 4.11% on the same day… maybe its the end of the world?
We will see in today’s session of trading how strongly investors of … NASDAQ: stock are confident about the future.
Apple’s ideas have been copied/stolen by the likes of Microsoft for decades, and it hasn’t done much to stop AAPL, let alone the fact that AAPL now has clear widespread positive name recognition. so just because google sells androids @ 1/2 price to persons too cheap or too poor to buy apple products, doesn’t make them succeed in being leaders in innovation, remember with all their $$ google has yet to expand past their ad biz.
I might like to add a fact you probably are not aware of, that Steve Jobs was the person who first introduce/help google get their start into online biz, even then apple inc was the innovator of picking the right company to pursue the them yahoo dominated market
NotAsheep is not wrong, but google is already embedded in our digital lives so yes, it does pose a serious threat to Apples’ consumer line. Ok, so Apple changed the game in those areas, google will build on that (not really innovate, but beat Apple at its own game); fine. Apple should indeed turn back to sharpening its core product line (can it get better?!!) and create more games and software that is innovative and helps innovate/create! This is Apple. Game changer, creating its own sub-economy, making so much space for and spawning newer creativity.
Google is awesome too, really wish they were friends again. :(
Increasingly, it is becoming obvious that Google is a one trick pony. There are huge technical problems with their ‘GoogleTV’ approach (see Appleinsider.com) and their Android ‘platform’ is already hopelessly fragmented.
Methinks Steve Jobs sleeps very soundly.
Apple’s about to take over the world. :)
The winner will be the company who best integrates all the various closed, premium content, etc., systems together. Google controls and protects their OS, search, marketplace, and advertising… Adobe protects their software platform… Apple protects their OS and marketplace and is now entering into Google’s ad space with iAd.
PC, music, smartphone, are all industries Apple entered and changed. It will be interesting to see the landscape in five years and count the number of times one says ‘we had no idea’ and which company did know and took advantage of it. My money is literally on Apple.
Google is a online advertising company at the end of the day.
All this stuff they are doing are just new vehicles to get ads rammed down our throats.
Awesome isn’t it?
Yes…the bell tolls for Apple’s death once again. Market reaction? Apple up 1.92% and Google down 0.62%.
Apple’s services can be replicated by competitors? Isn’t that also true for Google?
Google was brilliant when they designed and gave away the Droid operating system for free. They thought they would sell their Nexus Droid phone over the Internet. When that failed they showed how inept they were (there was no support line for users problems) they went to Verizon, who said they already had too many Droid phones. They gave away their product.
Meanwhile Apple delivered the iPad at half the price, twice the battery life, and twice the performance expected. It also can run the iPhone’s 200,000 apps, while developers write new ones for the iPad. Apple introduced the iPad after Microsoft and HP, Samsung Sony and Amazon announced new “slates” at CES. When Apple revealed the iPad, they all went back to the drawing boards. HP dropped Microsoft as the provider of it’s software and bought Palm for it’s operating system, Samsung canceled their release. They all know that Apple’s new A4 chip and patented battery design made their designs noncompetitive and now they are starting over. It should take at least a year before they can come close to today’s iPad. By then Apple will introduce the next new thing and a better iPad. Google and Microsoft are software companies. Apple does it all, it designs it’s chips, operating systems, and hardware, runs iTunes and supports their products through stores and the Internet.
It is true that this could be the first step to the end of Apple’s dominance in the phone and music player market. Apple is making the same mistakes they did with the Mac and history is repeating itself once again, but this time it’s Google instead of Microsoft. I thought Android was pretty lame when it first came out, but what they have shown this week was very solid. What’s most impressive is the speed at which Android is maturing. Apple is doing a major release of their OS only once a year, Google is doing one every few months and has now surpassed them in features. The leak of the new iPhone is a major blow to Apple, they really needed that press after what happened at Google IO, but the announcement is going to be pretty boring to most people. I’ve been long on APPL for many years, but if they don’t announce a Verizon phone at WWDC, I’m seriously considering selling my shares. Without a Verizon deal they are going to be in major trouble. They are going to have a very hard time competing with Google at the rate they are innovating and the amount of phones and carriers they are on. Everyone is sick of AT&T and now that there are some really decent Android phones and a very solid version of their OS, I see a lot of people choosing Verizon and possibly switching over from AT&T and giving up their iPhone. Very sad, but true.
Either way, I’d probably be long on Verizon and short AT&T, I think it’s safe to say that all other things aside, AT&T is going to come out the biggest looser in all this. I’m still not bullish on GOOG though. I recently sold my shares as it continued to decline. Even if Andoid destroys the iPhone, doesn’t mean Google’s profits are really going to follow.
Well the good news is Apple is not going nowhere and will be around for a while yet. Having worked at Apple for over a decade I remember the days back in the 90s where most people believed Apple went broke. They almost did but thanks to the very small but dedicated Apple consumers Apple was able to keep their business just ticking over. Their downfall then was due to bad management, too many models released in a short period of time, overly expensive products and not allowing 3rd party manufacturers to builld the hardware to run their OS (unlike Microsoft). Of course the iPod was their way out of the hole they dug. This allowed them to create a larger consumer base and offsell and market other products they had eg: iMac, iTunes app store and have now created recurring revenues through the App store. The other thing is Apple are geniuses when it comes to marketing. I remember when OS X first came out. It was a shockingly bad OS. From those days we were told to point out the benefits of the OS instead of focusing on the negative.This worked. Of course over time the OS matured and got way better. It was highly advantagous to Apple that Microsoft did not bring out much of an updated OS after XP was realeased for such a long time. Apple have continued to excel with their marketing and now there is an even greater loyal fan base that will die before switching to another companies technology. Now I know alot of people will say iPhone and other tech is revolutionary etc.. but when the iPhone came out there were several phones in the Japanese market that were better than the iPhone. They just weren’t marketed in the West and the way Apple knows how. My opinion is that Google will do very well at taking some of Apples business but there will always be people thinking they are cool owning or using an Apple product thanks to their style of marketing and the hype it creates. Its part of the Mac culture. Works for me too. I know I’ll never be out of work :-)
Hey – there’s only so much you can or want to do on a TV. Google TV? I watch TV so I can view a TV program, download a movie or watch a DVD. Google is assuming that I want to do all these things on the TV. I’m sorry – that’s way too much info on one device and to control it all with one remote. I like the idea of watching TV and browsing the internet if I want to with the iPad right in my lap. Perhaps that iPad will be integrated with apple TV like the iPhone is now. Logitech remote? Has anyone ever tried to program one of those? Sure you can program lots of activities but it still can’t figure out what input the TV is on. Let me watch my football game in peace. Get me away from my computer! Did Google forget that other people control the remote also. Oh – maybe Google will give a small TV to everyone in the family like they do their cheap phones.
Do you know how much money Google is making off of all those Android handsets being churned out by the millions? ZILCH. ZERO. Not a penny. You know what that does for Google revenue? Absolutely nothing. Google is basically baking pastry for free. I would not consider that one of the wisest business strategies in the tech world and neither do Google investors.
Apple’s business is selling hardware for the upper 20% of the markets, Google sells ads, both develop software to add value to their products. They are not direct competitors. I’m sure the Android platform will be successful, but there will always be a problem with open source and fragmented hardware/software market, the Hemoroid nickname is quite fitting.
You do get the point that Apple has innovated and managed the most successful products of this decade, and that each product has prompted imitation and copycat responses. Do you also get the superiority of their management and execution? Their marketing savvy? Their top rankings in service quality? Their mind boggling eps, and gross margins? Don’t think for a moment that Google TV (another copycat product) will outflank or outsell the new Apple TV that will be released this year. Do you really think that ATV is the “hobby” they say it is? What do you think they were referring to when they said they have more extraordinary products in their pipeline?
Buy the company not the worry about competitors.
Apple’s survived Microsoft and now is worth more than Microsoft on the S & P. Google is the new kid on the block and currently they are a one trick pony, trying to pull another rabbit out of a hat.
Your premise that Apple’s products are easily reproduced is incorrect, Microsoft has had the copy machine going for over 10 years now and they still just can’t get it. Google will suffer from the same problem, it may look like it but the formula is not easy to copy!
Some good comments here. Wishing Apple would go away is not a plan for the future. :-)
While Android may flourish, I have strong doubts that it will kill anything Apple.
Just a thought,
en