Stockstradamus AKA Stocky’s Blog

Sometimes I read a news story that makes me laugh for the moment and sometimes there are those stories that the more you think about them later the more you laugh. For days on end.

I came across a DJ News Service story posted on a message board that has MSFT puffing out their chests and bragging how they, not AAPL or GOOG, will dominate the mobile/smart phone market.  

First of all, who knew MSFT was big into this market? Second of all, I guess that explains all the crappy UI’s on all those phones.

But let’s go to the story:

In short, some new and very powerful forces are attacking Microsoft´s leading position in the business of creating new generations of smarter cellphones, a business that Microsoft says is increasingly key to its future.

What is Microsoft going to do? In essence: Nothing different, according to Scott Rockfeld, Microsoft´s mobile products manager.

Do nothing different?? Sounds like a winner of a strategy there Scott.

Meanwhile, its new rivals in Google and Apple are starting from scratch in a complex business they don´t know much about, illustrated best by Apple´s recent stumbles introducing its iPhone.

Apple’s recent stumbles with the Iphone!!!????? You gotta be fucking kidding me. It was only the most succesfull release of a consumer electonics device in the history of mankind!!! What delusional fuckwads.

“We´ve emerged as a leader and are positioned for long-term success,” Rockfeld said.

Microsoft hasn´t changed much in how it sells its phone software, but it has been tinkering with how it adopts and implements its mobile strategy. As a consequence, in recent weeks, Microsoft´s mobile software unit has been reorganized, and two veterans of Microsoft´s Xbox videogame unit now play key roles.

XBOX360?!?!?!????? You mean the product that has yet to make a penny profit and who’s losses are above 6 BILLION dollars and still counting?????

Don’t stop there Scotty, why don’t you bring in some key veterans from The Zune. Or if they are too busy working on their resume’s you could pull some people from the Vista team. Unless they are too busy providing help for customers who are trying to roll back to Win XP after installing Vista. Geeze what dolts.

Microsoft is confident it not only can continue leading the market but also be the one responsible for driving its overall growth.

“What we´re doing is sticking to our strategy,” Rockfeld said. “We are built to scale and can grow as rapidly as the smart-phone market grows.”

MSFT shipped 11 million “smart phone units” in 2007. AAPL shipped 1 million Iphones in Q4 2007 and expecdts to ship 10 million Iphones in FY 2008. That comes to …. 11 million Iphones. Imagine that. The same number as MSFT shipped in 2007. While AAPL is just getting rolled out worldwide.

That MSFT strategy of not changing anything sure sounds good to me.

Could these MSFT Morons do any worse if they were trying to run the company into the ground??

Buy AAPL.

Man, it’s hard not to laugh at all these dopes who hacked their shiny new Iphones and  got to watch them self destruct in front of their eyes after they applied the first software update from Apple.

The best part is that Apple warned everyone that this would happen if they hacked the phone to avoid AT&T and then applied the software update. But they all applied the update anyway.

That sound you hear is all the AT&T executives laughing and high fiving each other. All other potential Apple business partners take note: Our man Steve Jobs gots some serious street cred. Customers will do what they’re told or he’ll bring his pimp hand down hard on their sorry asses. 

You have to admire the fact that they did this and in typical Apple style the way they did it has a certain elegance. If you hacked your phone and then installed the updates you are definitely fucked. The phone don’t work. Unless you have an emergency that is. There are some reports that you can still dial 911 but nothing else with the shiny Ibrick.

Daddy Steve knows you did a bad thing and reluctantly delivered some “tough love” to you with that software update but he really loves you and wants to make sure you stay safe.

How funny is that?

Of course there is some serious bitching and moaning going on at macworld.com interspersed with sentiment like this:

If Apple warned us not to hit our iPhones with hammers, there would be like 1% of users who would hit them with hammers and then whine about how Apple should have made them hammer-proof. As a long time Mac user I feel justified in saying buh-bye, do not let the shiny glass door of the Apple Store hit you on the ass on the way out. Who needs you? Get a Vista PC and a Windows Mobile, that will give you something to complain about.

Get a Vista PC????? Man, that’s cold.

I picture these uber-geeks fretting over their predicament in their Mom’s basement wondering  how they’re going to keep their dungeons + dragons themed Myspace page updated without their Iphone.

Too bad loser. Cough up the dough and sign up with AT&T. As part owner of the company I want my share of your monthly phone bill.

Get your ass down to an AT&T store NOW!

END OF DAY UPDATE:

Great action today. Volume and price building in the last 2 hours to a close of $153.17. Right near the top of the price range. 

Hopefully we’ll get some followup and/or consolidation tomorrow.

This is a MONSTER stock!!!!!

End of Update

Stocky is not huge on Chartology, preferring fundamentals like earnings, business model and sector analysis.

But that doesn’t mean a review of the charts isn’t part of the analysis.

In the case of AAPL, the stock/company is a runaway train. It’s going much higher. That’s all there is to it.

However, what we have today(Sept 25, 2007) is a case where the technicians out there may pile into the stock along with the rest of us who are in it for the earnings and/or fundamentals.

AAPL is sitting at a nice “double top” chart pattern of $149-150. With yesterdays upgrade we’ve seen several bounces off the 52 week high. If we could get a push beyond $150 we could see this stock really run.

On a side note, you have to love Jobs’ approach to the hackers. From todays WSJ comes a story of AAPL poetntially disabling Iphones that are hacked in order to use non-Apple business partner carriers. 

Apple itself, though, has recently suggested it might make deliberate attempts to counteract the effects of the unlocking programs. When asked about the topic in a recent interview, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said he wasn’t worried about the impact of such programs. “It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” Mr. Jobs said. “We have a lot of really good cats.”

Go get’em Stevie. Wouldn’t it be sweet to see some techno nerd’s Iphone blow up in his face after he hacked it to use another carrier. No more youporn.com in your pocket for you dude.

There is so much good to write about with Apple that Stocky almost does not know where to start.

I’ve come full circle on my views of Apple. I used to be like every other Windows bigot and look at Apple as a Macintoy. Used by artsy nerds and pony tailed do-gooders.

My eyes first started to open a few years ago when I walked into an Apple store to look at this new fangled thing called an Ipod. I was immediately put off by the store staff. You know the type. The pony tails, the piercings, the know it all attitude. Even as a total Apple convert I still have to supress the urge to slap the shit out of some of those Apple weenies in the stores. But I digress.

The other thing I noticed on that first trip to the Apple store was the line of people waiting to buy stuff. Man, people are really into this shit, I thought at the time.

Once I got the Ipod home and installed the Itunes software the product really got me. Not the Ipod even though it’s a great product but the Itunes software. To me that was the key. It was really well done, ran flawlessly and was easy to use. Mind you this was Apple software modified to run on a Windows platform. Yet it was head + shoulders above the crap that’s become the norm for Windows applications.  

That’s when I stopped looking down my nose at Apple and seriousy thought about where the company could go. I started paying attention to all the coverage of the company and have gotten to the point where when I hear Becky Quick on CNBC talk about the Friday “Jobs” report I wonder if she’s talking about Steve.

I eventually built a position in AAPL at a level higher than it should have been. Especially given that maddening pullback on huge volume to $49 a while back. If only I had the balls to pull the trigger on more shares at anywhere near that level. Oh well. It’s still the best stock in my portfolio and I have no intentions of selling anytime soon.

In fact, even at these levels($144) I think AAPL is still a screaming BUY. For me, AAPL still has tremendous untapped upside potential. I think ultimately, the “end” of the APPL story will be how they moved into the Enterprise and really delivered a well deserved beatdown to Microsoft.

A very good and under read publication is ComputerWorld. Lately they have been doing more and more coverage of AAPL. These 2 stories on APPL + the Enterprise really say a lot.

Story 1 talks about a company that is going full speed ahead with dumping Windows and going to the Macs. Note the sidebar on the Iphone. They are buying 50 Iphones to hand out to their sales people. 

July 16, 2007 (Computerworld) — It’s little things like the small silver Apple logo on CIO Dale Frantz’s crisp white shirt that signal the sea change in the works at Auto Warehousing Co.Over the next 60 days, AWC will begin systematically pulling the plug on all Windows-based PCs in its cavernous auto processing shop and power up Macs to execute virtually all of its revenue-generating operations. The move comes on the heels of a quiet wholesale replacement of Windows-based servers for data storage and Web operations, which are now running on Apple Inc.’s Xserve RAID machines.

All good stuff there.

With the ability to run Windows if you have to why not get a Mac? Stocky’s next PC/Laptop purchase will be a Mac. If a former windows bigot like me is making the switch many many others will too.

Story 2 Details Apples NON interest in cracking the enterprise market. Huh? Why not? This is the “untapped potential” part of the story. I believe that AAPL just has not gotten around to making a push in this market yet. Remember that they had to pull resorces from the Leapord O/S effort to support the Iphone rollout. The Leapord release has been delayed until October demonstrating that as good as Apple execution has been up till now, there are limits to what they can do.

I think that as the Iphone rolls out around the world and Leapord gets released, some time after that will be the time AAPL trains it’s guns on the enterprise. With only 5% of the PC market now, even small increases in market share will have massive impacts on the Top + Bottom lines of AAPL.

Even without the Enterprise push AAPL has started to kick ass in the Mac sales department. This is highlighted in a story from thestreet.com

People familiar with the company say Apple is selling computers at a blockbuster pace. The Cupertino, Calif., company is expected to sell 2.35 million iMacs and MacBooks this quarter, TheStreet.com has learned.

A sales number that high would beat analysts’ estimates by nearly 400,000 units. Pegging the average Mac sales price at a conservative $1,500, a beat of that magnitude stands to boost Apple’s top line by about $600 million. Analysts expect the company to post fiscal first-quarter revenue of $5.94 billion.

To say nothing of a rumored new product.

Looking ahead, people inside the company and those close to Apple’s plans say there will be a big announcement regarding a so-called subnotebook Mac. The ultra-thin device will have a 10-inch to 12-inch screen; sleek, rounded edges; and weigh less than 2 pounds.

The subnotebook’s introduction is planned for next quarter, and the product is expected to be available for the holiday sales season. In preparation for a big year-end sales push, Apple has told some employees to cancel vacation plans “between Thanksgiving and Christmas,” says one source familiar with the memo.

This could also be the long awaited (by Stocky anyway) Flash Hard drive laptop. Toss in some touch screen technology from the Iphone and you coul have another killer product.

With a revamped Ipod line, Iphones selling like crazy

September 20, 2007 (Reuters) — Apple Inc. has prepared plans to nearly double its iPhone production in the fourth quarter, financial news Web site TheStreet.com reported, citing people familiar with the company.

And a new O/S release in Oct spurring Mac sales, AAPL will have a MONSTER holiday quarter.

There are already rumblings about Apple being the new Microsoft and from a stock standpoint that is music to Stocky’s ears. However, I think as long as Jobs is running Apple it will never become anything close to the hated behemoth that is Microsoft.

I can say that based on Jobs’ own words. He was asked recently about what he planned to do with the massive amount of cash AAPL has on it’s balance sheet. The questioner wondered why AAPL didn’t put the cash to work creating new products.

Jobs answer was “Creating new products is more than just writing a check. If that’s all it took, Microsoft would have good products”.

Classic. 

What is it about AAPL that brings the morons out of the woodwork? Neil Cavuto on Fox News delivered a pathetic end of show “commentary” that showed how little he understands about Wall St., product marketing and for that matter the pop culture of the Iphone. I happened to catch his performance on the air and was stunned at how much he got wrong in his folksy “commentary”. Maybe he should take a page out of the Katie Couric and Dan Rather playbook and have some low level staffer write these “from the heart” commentaries. (more…)

Being a CNBC addict, I’ve watched countless reports from Jim Goldman. He’s the “tech” reporter usually doing a standup outside some Silicon Valley company after they’ve reported earnings.

Besides looking like he just finished sucking on a helium gun before going on the air, Goldman has a self-important air of smarminess about him. Like he’s the expert on all things tech and we should consider ourselves lucky to hear his “insight”.

It was after reading his post about being “Flamed” on his blog that I knew I had to get off my ass and start my Blog. Mind you, reading Jim Goldmans blog is not something I’m proud of. What a waste of friggin time you’d say. (And you’d be right) But I stumbled on it after catching up on Diana Olick’s very good housing blog.

Anyways, back to Goldman. This post got my blood boiling. Here is the money quote:

In the media business, we have a term for the Mac (now iPod) faithful when we write or report some less-than-flattering comments and angles to the Apple story. We call it, “getting flamed.”  

 You gotta be friggin kidding me!! The CNBC Tech “Expert” thinks being “Flamed” is something he and his media insiders made up for and use themselves. What a fucking moron.

Flame wars have been going on in Usenet since shortly after Al Gore invented the Internet.

In fact, Goldman doesn’t even use the term properly. Getting boatloads of Email telling you what a clueless Dolt you are is not getting “Flamed”. Flaming is typically done in an open forum like Usenet or some message board.

An important aspect of Flaming is the public humiliation involved as all your Usenet/Message board buddies get to watch you getting stomped on by the Flamer. Good Times.