Apple and iPhone, a look from a technology life cycle

In 1984, Apple introduced the Apple I, the first line of computers that changed Apple and the computer industry. From that on, not a lot of people had heard of Apple computer but instead Compaq, Toshiba, Sony, Dell,... Sales of Apple's PC and Mac have been up in recent years, due to my own hypothesis that a lot of users who use iPod and especially iPhone have been getting more acquainted with the interface that is claimed to be user-friendly. Thanks to that, Apple's sales of PC and Mac are up, leaving the business unit alone, I'm not sure if they can reach the sales of $22bln for Mac FY 2010. (Source: Apple keynote for new Macbook air, iLife,...)

In late June 2007, Apple introduced a 'revolution' in Phone, the iPhone (which has come to iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 just from 2007 to 2010). iPhone has been a huge success for Apple so far in the smartphone industry. However, success in one phase of the technology life cycle does not guarantee success in the next phase (Stoelhorst, Building Resource-based Competitive Advantage Over a Technology Life Cycle). The thinking becomes more interesting when assessing which phase of the life cycle the smartphone industry is in (refer to the four phases in Stoelhorst's). Will Apple maintain its competitive advantage when the industry comes to the next phase? Or will Apple's start with the iPhone for the smartphone industry end up like the Apple I for the computer industry in 1980s? The question is to be observed in the next 5, 10 or 20 years. Yet, over the next writing, I would like to look and analyse Apple from a resource-based view on its competencies and its capabilities.

a little note on herd behavior

So in his recent book, John Authers summarized:

Institutionalized investment pushes investors to move in herds: Paying fund managers a percentage of the assets they manage and judging them against peers encourages them all to do the same thing.

This is making me wonder if this is really the fact, then shouldn't these investors do their job in Asia or those emerging markets where their own societies are said to be collectivistic. Since then, the chance that they follow each other is much higher than in the developed, and individual world. There's rarely a contrarian in Asian stock markets, compared to the Western markets. Because, a contrarian should have a lot of liquidity; and in the developed world, people are brought up and taught to be different, unlike the Asian countries.

Once participating in the emerging markets (the collectivistic), there could be a case that model is used to measure the herd behavior, with on-time and correct inputs. However, the markets should be big enough so that a few individuals cannot have effect on the markets which is sometimes the cases in the emerging ones.

Interesting talk - Zeigeist Europe 2010

a note for my quick observation

Subscribe your tweeter to Techcrunch or subscribe its RSS reader, you can get a day a hundred links for news of new tech stuff. I'm a daily reader of the site, to learn more about the internet industry which I do not really belong to (but I'm working for one kind of company). It occurred to me that there're lots of innovations and new things happen to the industry, news that can make you feel overwhelmed like things happen with the financial industry, even when it's in the crisis. The innovations in the industry to me, sometimes change as fast as the Dow.

The difference about the two is that the Dow can go up and down extravagantly, 14k when I was in the States in 2007, to 6,000 and now 10,000. But with the tech stuff, it seems that there's no deterioration, at least like the financial ones. Isn't it worth working for the IT and technology industry than working for a financial firm where you spend days by days with money, having no control of it, indeed? For developers, they would answer 'yes', I think, for the meaning of the job.
However, most of the young internet and media companies (I'll do the research for the stats when having some time) are financed by the venture capitalists and private equity firms. Still, the entrepreneurs need financial firms.

P.S: the job for a risk manager in the banking/ financial industry and the job of any kind of 'risk manager' in the internet area is difficult and head-aching as equivalent. Or is it not?

Review after a year

After one and a half year, TARP's money has brought a profit.

A year ago, this was the situations of Citibank, JP Morgan, BoA, and Wells Fargo. The numbers are not easy to attain or to watch, yet once it's on graph, it's not difficult to see Citi was in a big problem.

From left to right: Citi, BoA, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and Peer group

(Non-core funding dependence measures the degree to which the bank is funding longer-term assets (loans, securities that mature in more than one year, etc.) with non-core funding. Non-core funding includes funding that can be very sensitive to changes in interest rates such as brokered deposits .

the difference between non-core liabilities and short-term investments, divided by long-term assets.)