Apple's Mobile Space: Sizzling

Granted Apple did not invent the mobile space or the digital music space like it invented the Personal Computer space, but it has done a very good job of reinventing. You could argue Microsoft was not first with word processing, spreadsheets and operating systems, but it did a slam dunk job of defining and totally taking over that space, the PC software space.

It is interesting to me how Apple has so reinvented itself. The creative genius of Steve Jobs has been at play. You could argue Yahoo did not perform a similar second act. Maybe Yang made the big mistake of making someone else the CEO for a few years. Also Yang never declared that Google won the search war like Jobs declared Microsoft won the PC war, that war is over, he said upon taking back the helm at Apple in the late 1990s. But then it is hard to see many directions that Yahoo could go right now. How would it differentiate? Or has it become an old, tired company?

But Apple continues to be at the high end market. It sells its products to people who will buy at any price. It is about cool, not cheap.



Apple's mobile space has been sizzling. It keeps relaunching its hit products. Like there would be Windows 95, then again Windows 98, the iPhone is the god that keeps giving. And with the genius stroke of opening up the platform to outside developers, perhaps learned from Facebook, things really took off, both for Facebook and Apple.

The ecosystem of the computing experience has become so much richer. More is to follow, for sure. The company continues to fascinate, the founder continues to fascinate. And all the while Apple keeps tinkering with the PC space, its original space.

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In The News

For Apple, 2008 Was a Very Good Year PC World Over the past twelve months, the number of Apple-branded products on the street has become so broad and ubiquitous.... a year that easily ranks as one of the most significant in its 31-year-history. ..... all data on a lost or stolen phone to be remotely wiped .... The App Store concept may prove more revolutionary to the smart phone industry than the iPhone itself. ...... In March, iTunes became the No. 1 music retailer in the world, ousting Wal-Mart from the top spot. ...... With Snow Leopard, Apple will focus on performance and code bloat -- aiming to speed things up and reduce the amount of hard drive space the software required. ..... a leaner and significantly faster operating system. .... innovation ruled Apple in 2008 .... Apple has always been an innovative company, but perhaps no more so than in 2008. Even as other companies pull back from exploring new ground because of the economic downturn, Apple continues to be a pioneering company on a variety of fronts. I won't speculate at this point about what's ahead for the company in 2009, but I expect that there will be at least one or two surprises.
What 2009 May Bring for All Things Google
Dell Turnaround Hits Bump With Reorganization Woes CNNMoney.com the 10-month-old restructuring program of the world's second-biggest computer maker is in trouble. ..... Since the beginning of the year, Dell's stock price has fallen 58%. ..... Jarvis was in charge of a corporate image makeover intended to promote the company as an innovator of cutting-edge products, rather than a discount maker of commodity PCs.
Is Hewlett-Packard eyeing stake in Satyam? Economic Times The global market for computer services is estimated to be around $748 billion. .... IBM has over 73,000 professionals in India and Accenture some 37,000.
I woke up this morning and my Zune was gone CNET News
Yahoo, Intel have high hopes for Internet TV CNN Intel concluded that unlike the PC, TVs are social. ..... Another difference from PCs: it must be simple and reliable .... People in the U.S. spend about 5 times more time watching TV than using a computer, Bell said. Globally, it's a factor of 25 ...... advertising-supported television ..... And nobody wanted yet another remote control. .... Few, though, wanted a full-on Web browser, nor a keyboard to clutter up the room.
Has Chrome Pushed Google Over The Evil Edge? eWeek If you have a browser, you wield a great deal of influence over the Internet software market. ...... Imagine if Google could duplicate the ad-serving success of search on Chrome. .... Chrome effectively put Google in Microsoft's league, just on the Web instead of the desktop.
Google's Top Ten Products (More Or Less) Washington Post Google's main search engine tops the list with an estimated 136.6 million unique visitors in the U.S. Then comes Google Maps (36 million), Image Search (31.7 million), and Gmail (10.5 million). ...... YouTube would be second with 70 million unique U.S. visitors, and Blogger would be in the top 5 with 23.5 million .... Book Search visitors are now at 8.4 million vs. 7.4 million for Google News
What 2009 May Bring for All Things Google PC World Android will at best keep pace with Apple's mobile juggernaut in 2009
A Tough Year for Yahoo New York Times the failed merger negotiations with Microsoft and the failed advertising partnership with Google ...... two rounds of layoffs, seemingly endless rounds of reorganizations and a sense that they were riding on a rudderless ship. ..... a peek at one of the company’s high profile product efforts: a version of its popular Yahoo Mail that was rebuilt into a powerful communications hub
Alaska Air Taps Oracle To Build Customer Loyalty InformationWeek
IBM ThinkPad T43 Laptop: $394.99, save $355.01 Cheap Laptop
IBM bares next five tech innovations Inquirer.net SOLAR technology in clothes, “talking” to the Internet and personal “digital shopping assistants:” ...... “thin-film” solar cells, a new type of cost-efficient solar cell that can be 100 times thinner than silicon-wafer cells and produced at a lower cost. ....... your doctor will be able to provide you with a genetic map that tells you what health risks you are likely to face in your lifetime and the specific things you can do to prevent them, based on your specific DNA — all for less than $200. ...... Genetic mapping will radically transform healthcare .... In places like India, where the spoken word is more prominent than the written word in education, government and culture, “talking” to the Web is leapfrogging all other interfaces ...... “voice sites”
Micron Links with Sun to Bolster Lifespan of Flash-Based Storage Trading Markets
You Need AMD In 2009 Motley Fool
Russia prepares to halt gas supplies to Ukraine Reuters
Microsoft: Zune Glitch Caused By Leap Year Clock Bug CNNMoney.com

Airspan Selected for WiMAX Network in Okinawa, Japan CNNMoney.com
wireless broadband CNET News
Telcos look to benefit from broadband funding CNET News

There’s Gold in Them iPhones Washington Post The mobile-computing space looks a bit like the early days of personal computers, when different operating systems were competing to be king.

5 predictions for 2009 CNet
Web 2.0 entrepreneur
counts his blessings
For Zune, a rocky
start to new year
Macintosh at 25: Still the innovation leader On January 24, 1984, the Macintosh came into the world, starting the second major revolution in the personal computer industry. Steve Jobs and team took some lessons from Xerox PARC and created the first user-friendly, mass market computer.
China lifts roadblock for 3G phones
Daily Tidbits: Amazon isn't alone in its success
Dell regroups around four customer segments
A computer revolution through a child's eyes
Networking predictions for the new year money will be as tight as a Minnesota Senate race next year
Gawker Media sells Consumerist blog
HP upgrading Home Server lineup, Apple may follow suit
What's in store at CES 2009 Thin TVs will be big. .... a new line of ultrathin laptops from Dell
12-inch Eee PC spotted
Quad-core MacBook Pro on the way?
What good are Steve Jobs and Bill Gates without Josh Silver?
2009: Netbook or notebook?
Microsoft outlines pay-per-use PC vision
Music moguls’ latest strategy: Zig then zag
Universal Music seeing ’tens of millions’ from YouTube
Lifestreaming in Obamaland Citizens and paparazzi armed with camera phones and a variety of other multimedia devices will chronicle every movement he makes in public and post it online. ..... The forthcoming Obama White House will be treated like a reality TV show or West Wing, broadcast 24x7 on the Internet.



A Backlash Grows in Bangalore Over Tech Revolution BusinessWeek fewer than 5% of Bangaloreans have ever been inside an airplane ..... The software industry, he says, has turned the city into a glorified sweatshop. "Where is the innovation?" ....... with growing tax revenues, the city has been able to add bus lines and is building a subway system
Bringing Broadband to the Urban Poor
Tesco: 'Wal-Mart's Worst Nightmare' Tesco will continue to grow at an average of 11% annually through 2012, enabling it to overtake France's Carrefour (CARR.PA) to become the world's second-largest retailer by 2012. ......... unrivaled ability to manage vast reams of data and translate that knowledge into sales ....... the best and broadest range of house brands from any retailer. ...... runs the world's largest and most successful online grocery operation and is Britain's biggest private-sector employer, with 280,000 staff
Ten Stories that Defined Broadband in 2008 more than 400 million broadband users around the planet .... In sharp comparison to the U.S., WiMAX technologies are taking off in emerging telecom economies such as India, a trend that is predicted to gather momentum in 2009 and 2010.
GigaOM Network: On Twitter, Followers Aren't Really Friends
GigaOM Network: Cisco's Misguided Foray Into the Living Room
GigaOM Network: Apple's Got a War Chest of Cash
Gazprom Stokes European Energy Worries
Slovakia Joins Decade-Old Euro Zone
Britain's GDP Will Decline at Fastest Pace Since the 1940s expects the UK’s gross domestic product to decline by 2.9 per cent in real terms over the next year ..... Business investment – forecast to collapse by more than 15 per cent in 2009 ..... “Despite the public declarations by the government that the banks ought to be lending more it is clear that the primary concern of many of our largest banks is to shore up their balance sheets and, for those on the end of the government bail-outs, to pay back their Treasury paymasters.” ...... “With few incentives for banks to behave otherwise, credit availability to businesses may become even worse during 2009.”
More and More Africans Risk Sea Crossing to EU Right wing interior minister Roberto Maroni said on national radio that the migrants will be swiftly thrown out. ...... a significant proportion were also fleeing conflict zones, such as Somalia and Eritrea. .... Malta recently passed a law to automatically detain illegal migrants for 18 months ..... since 1988 at least 9,400 people have died at sea trying to get to Europe