Strategy in TECH...
Several reports have emerged saying that Apple, Inc. has told suppliers that it is committed to upgrading the displays on its popular iPhone from the current LCD-based touchscreen to an OLED display, starting in 2018. This decision has industry-wide ramifications and has suppliers scrambling to increase the capacity of their OLED factories. There are also competitive ramifications from this decision that is bound to rattle competitors.
Dallas is hot right now – really hot – as in daily temperatures in the mid-90s. This is a shocking change from the cooling New England Fall now engulfing our home base. But it’s about to get even hotter as the nation’s custom integration community comes together for its annual pilgrimage, the pilgrimage known as Expo.
Apple, Inc. held their regularly scheduled September event today to announce new products – this time to introduce: a minor new Watch update, a more significant new bigger iPad they call the iPad Pro, a new Apple TV with a revamped user interface, and finally the new interim smartphone update – the iPhone 6s & 6s Plus. Using lots of exciting & cool music, dramatic video segments, and massive colorful images on a huge screen – presenters worked hard to milk applause from the Apple friendly crowd. But for us, most of these “innovations” were “meh” – more evolutionary than revolutionary.
Apple, Inc. released the financial results of their fiscal third quarter Tuesday and by most measures, it was good news. Revenues hit $49.6 billion with net profits coming in at a robust $10.7 billion. These results were well over the $37.4 billion and $7.7 billion respectively booked in the same quarter last year. Unit sales of iPhones grew a remarkable 35%, with iPhone revenues increasing 59% to a new quarterly record; sales in China more than doubled; service revenues hit a new record; and cash reserves are at an astounding $203 billion.
How did Wall Street react to all of this “good” news? The stock tanked. At one point Apple’s market value collapsed $60 billion as the stock dropped 7% in just a matter of minutes after the announcement. Yesterday, the stock closed down 5.2%.
In a sign of continuing struggles in the TV business, reports out of Japan indicate that LCD panel prices continue to decline. So far in 2015, the average price of LCD panels have dropped 10%…and show no sign of slowing down.
It is not unusual for a hot new product to launch with huge demand, only to see unit sales taper down to more sustainable levels after the initial launch demand is fulfilled. Surely, Apple, Inc. was expecting just this type of behavior after the launch of their long-awaited Apple Watch wearable. However, new data from Slice Intelligence shows that sales of the Apple Watch have plummeted by 90% – an amount well beyond Apple’s typical experience.
Just days after Apple, Inc. announced its plans to attempt to reassert its leading role in the music distribution and streaming businesses, we learn from the New York Times that two powerful state attorneys general in New York and Connecticut have launched an investigation into Apple’s music licensing practices. The purpose of the investigation is to determine if Apple has broken any antitrust laws in cutting deals that allegedly restrict music industry providers from offering their content on a free basis with other services.
As many regular readers know, Strata-gee has been closely following the litigation between Monster, LLC and Beats Electronics, LLC. Although the matter is really just getting started, it appears to be getting really ugly, really quickly. Now we have learned that Apple, Inc. has taken several actions that, according to Monster CEO Noel Lee (who is known as the Head Monster), are pure retaliation over this lawsuit – even though Monster did not sue Apple.
We first told you about Monster, LLC and CEO “Head Monster” Noel Lee filing a lawsuit against Beats, LLC alleging fraudulent practices back in January, in a post that was titled in part “Risky Business.” Perhaps now Monster is getting a taste of the riskiness of taking matters to court as they have lost their first battle, on the first issue – where the case would be heard.
Savant, a leading home control & automation company, announced today that it is making an app available for the Apple smart watch – called, logically enough, the Savant App on Apple Watch. Since Savant is one of the only home automation companies to base their control systems on the Apple operating system, it only makes sense that they would be one of the first in the tech business to offer an Apple Watch app.
