BlackBerry Sold 150 Million Phones In 12 Years, 15 Million Last Quarter
The real reason for RIM's eclipse is not the rise of Androids but their willingess to follow the iPhones & Androids into what I see as a dwindling market. The unemployed gamers, movie watchers, & web surfers who transformed the dominant smartphone demographic from business professional to slacker have already bought more phone than they can afford & can't afford to upgrade. Yet RIM insists on putting out yet another widescreen battery drain.
The new winner in the smartphone battle, if I read the market correctly, is the company who produces a worthy successor to the Treos & Curves. This will be a halfscreen phone w/ a full QWERTY keyboard, streamlined PDA functionality, & efficiency in anything else that enables the professional to get their work done w/out mobile tech frustrations. I do believe this will happen eventually -- and when it does that will be the marker of a true recovery, because that will mean enough professionals will have acquired new jobs w/ decent pay or sufficient raises to afford a decent, efficient smartphone.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Friday, July 9, 2010
Proposed New Measures
Today's Ahead of the Tape:
http://online.wsj.com/article/ahead_of_the_tape.html
(After today -- 7.9.10 -- click "Recent Columns" below the ads in the righthand column and look for "Bulls Look for Reason to Get Excited")
Bulk of my reply:
Nice AotT again (the bovine pheromone one). I take issue, however, w/ the double-dip reference (likewise w/ everyone else using the term). I know it refers only to the stock market, but I would prefer to develop a new indicator (this one might be impossible to gauge, but I have a concept at least). It would combine a measure of the following:
1) one of the major indices or a cross-sector sampling of stock prices as a percentage of what it would be if the constituent companies were operating at full capacity
2) workforce utilization -- full employment percentage of the available workforce (taking into account underemployment in some way)
The numbers could be added together to get something similar to alcoholic proof. If this measure is possible, I believe it would show the last 6 months to a year of "recovery" as mere flatlining (or "sideways" movement) at probably somewhere around 150-180.
But it might be easier to do something else, which I believe might demonstrate that we must go down some more before solid recovery begins. That would be measuring consumer purchases of indispensable goods (food, utilities, shelter) as a percentage of total consumer spending. This would show that items such as big-screen 3D TVs and iPads/smartphones as well as gaming consoles represent too high a percentage of consumer spending. We haven't fully engaged in the requisite belt-tightening which will position us to make our labor costs competitive w/ the rest of the world. Theirs are rising, but we must also make sacrifices in order to be able to sell our services at all in many cases (sorry, Best Buy & Apple).
http://online.wsj.com/article/ahead_of_the_tape.html
(After today -- 7.9.10 -- click "Recent Columns" below the ads in the righthand column and look for "Bulls Look for Reason to Get Excited")
Bulk of my reply:
Nice AotT again (the bovine pheromone one). I take issue, however, w/ the double-dip reference (likewise w/ everyone else using the term). I know it refers only to the stock market, but I would prefer to develop a new indicator (this one might be impossible to gauge, but I have a concept at least). It would combine a measure of the following:
1) one of the major indices or a cross-sector sampling of stock prices as a percentage of what it would be if the constituent companies were operating at full capacity
2) workforce utilization -- full employment percentage of the available workforce (taking into account underemployment in some way)
The numbers could be added together to get something similar to alcoholic proof. If this measure is possible, I believe it would show the last 6 months to a year of "recovery" as mere flatlining (or "sideways" movement) at probably somewhere around 150-180.
But it might be easier to do something else, which I believe might demonstrate that we must go down some more before solid recovery begins. That would be measuring consumer purchases of indispensable goods (food, utilities, shelter) as a percentage of total consumer spending. This would show that items such as big-screen 3D TVs and iPads/smartphones as well as gaming consoles represent too high a percentage of consumer spending. We haven't fully engaged in the requisite belt-tightening which will position us to make our labor costs competitive w/ the rest of the world. Theirs are rising, but we must also make sacrifices in order to be able to sell our services at all in many cases (sorry, Best Buy & Apple).
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