If you missed it, over the weekend we ran my look at Hewlett-Packard’s massive job cuts over the past decade: 75,505.
I have a few other stray thoughts that didn’t make it into the main story. And a few questions I want to follow up on in the coming weeks.
First, the stray thoughts.
Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates
A few months back, I noticed a bunch of folks tweeting about the 1999 made-for-TV-movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley.” I remember hearing about the movie just as I was moving to Silicon Valley that year, but never got around to watching it. I had heard mixed things about the movie, and its accuracy, but the tweets seemed pretty positive, so I decided to rent it and see for myself.
It exceeded my tremendously low expectations. Though as far as factual accuracy, it’s hard to say where truth ends and creative license takes over. The movie hits some of the high points of the emerging battle between Microsoft and Apple as told through the stories of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. And narrated by their wingmen: Steve Wozniak and Steve Ballmer.
There’s an amusing scene, about 20 minutes in when Wozniak and Jobs walk out of the famed Homebrew Club in 1976, having triumphantly demonstrated a version of their personal computer:
Jobs: “IBM is going to be loading in their pants!”
Wozniak: “Steve, I don’t think IBM even knows who we are.”
Jobs: “That’s okay. Because they’re the enemy.”
And later, in a conversation with John Sculley:
Sculley: ”Steve, I’m worried. About what’s happening. All the “them versus us” stuff. Macintosh versus Apple II.”
Jobs: “You don’t understand, John. People need a cause.”
Creative license aside, back in the late 1970s, and the early 1980s, Jobs had enormous power and the ability to impose his will. If you wanted to play with Apple, you did things Jobs’ way. And he wasn’t afraid to define his enemies and go after them (IBM, Microsoft). That is, until he was ousted in 1985 and Apple began its long, slow decline. And even after Jobs’ return in 1996, Apple was just happy to still be around, even striking a deal with Microsoft to invest to keep it going.
Apple’s clout has grown steadily over the past decade, thanks to the success of the iPod and the iPhone. With the iPad announcement a week behind us, it seems the the gadget itself may turn out to be less interesting than some of the things it tells us about the state of Steve Jobs and Apple. With the iPad, it appears that Jobs is confident that he’s once again in a position to dictate terms and define the opposition in a way he hasn’t been able to since the early days depicted in Pirates of Silicon Valley.
You could feel this renewed swagger when Apple announced it recent earnings. Jobs said in a press release:
“If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company,” Jobs said. “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”
That was a not-so-subtle reminder of Apple’s financial strength. Consider that Apple has closed the gap in terms of market capitalization with Microsoft. This is from Silicon Valley Insider last November:
“In May 2000, Apple’s market capitalization was $17 billion. Today it’s $182 billion. Meanwhile, Microsoft was around $356 billion in May 2000. Today it’s around $261 billion.”
By the way, Google’s market cap is $171.73 billion as of mid-day Wednesday.
Since the release of the iPad and iTunes, Apple has had the music industry under its thumb. And with the iPhone, Apple was able to change the balance of power between device makers and phone companies. But with the iPad, let’s look at the new ways Jobs is flexing those growing muscles:
Last fall, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) approved changes to the way many high-tech companies will recognize revenue. We saw the first of what will be many earnings reports affected by this when Apple reported on Monday results of its fiscal first-quarter earnings.
Other companies likely to be affected include such heavy weights as Cisco Systems and Tivo.
Often such changes take months for companies to adopt. And in this case, companies have until 2011 to adopt them. But this one is different because it will give companies a significant bump in short-term revenue. So many are racing ahead. As such, investors need to watch carefully to see if a company adopted the new standard, and if they reconciled old numbers to take the new standard into account.
On Monday, Apple disclosed the accounting change up front for this year, and also adopted it retrospectively for the past two years and reconciled past earnings in an amended annual filing. Companies are not required to do adopt it for past years. So good for Apple. Many companies may only make the change going forward, making comparisons harder.
This change is not trivial. To see the impact on revenue, look at the revised numbers from years past. The change bumped revenue for Q1 2009 (last year) from $10.2 billion (0ld) to $11.9 billion (new). As far as I can tell, the company didn’t disclose what the current quarter revenue would have been under the old standard.
Still, that didn’t stop the company, in a press release, from crowing about the big numbers:
“If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”
That’s true. But under the old standard, Apple’s annualized revenue wouldn’t be quite as high. It would probably be four or five billion less, though still over $50 billion.
So what’s going on? For the details, read on. Read the rest of this entry »
iPhone
With Apple expected to unveil its tablet computer next Wednesday, my Tech Files column on Monday will be about some of the features I hope the tablet will include.
But I’ve also been thinking a lot about something else that Apple might announce at its special event: iPhone 4.0, the latest version of the operating system that underlies its iPhone and iPod touch gadgets. Apple announced the last two major updates to the iPhone OS at March events, but recent rumors suggest that this update will be unveiled two months early.
The last two updates included significant new features for the iPhone. iPhone 2.0 opened the device to native third-party applications and paved the way for the company’s trend-setting and uber-successful App Store. iPhone 3.0 added long-awaited features, such as copy and paste, multi-media messaging and stereo Bluetooth. I’m hopeful that iPhone 4.0 will be just as significant a release.
Here are some of the things I’d like to see in it: Read the rest of this entry »
And lo, the mighty gods of Apple came down from their Cuptertion Mountain on Monday with invitations for members of the press to attend an event Jan. 27 in San Francisco. Though no details were revealed, the invitation contained the tantalizing phrase: “come see our latest creation.”
Of course, if that new creation is not the long-rumored, much-hyped tablet/slate thingy, there will likely be riots on the Streets of San Francisco next week.
The Apple event is scheduled for 10 a.m. PT in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco. No word on whether there will be a livestream from the event for the many, many others out there who are eager to get a glimpse of this mythical gadget.
According to The Wall Street Journal, sources have told them that the device would be a 10- or 11-inch touch-screen tablet offering wireless access and sporting a price tag of $1,000.
I have a hard time betting against Apple. But what I’m waiting to see, and probably can’t really know until we have all the details, is this:
What problem will this solve for me?
Back on June 20, 1999, a made-for-TV movie called “Pirates of Silicon Valley” first aired. The movie chronicled the rivalry between Apple’s Steve Jobs and Microsoft’s Bill Gates.
This happened exactly one month before I moved to Silicon Valley from North Carolina. As I recall, the movie got lukewarm reviews, and I never saw it. Or even really thought about it, for that matter.
But recently, it’s popped up on my radar in rather random fashion. One of the keywords I track on Twitter is “silicon valley.” And at least a couple times each day, someone makes a reference to the movie:
Palm Pixi
After covering Apple’s music event this morning, I met with Palm and got a hands-on look at the company’s new Pixi smartphone, which Palm announced early today
I was a bit underwhelmed by the actual phone, which will be the second to run Palm’s WebOS software. But the Pixi, which Palm plans to launch before the holidays, will have at least one new features that will be very cool.
I found a lot to like about Palm’s Pre, the Pixi’s WebOS predecessor. One of the features that I liked most was something Palm calls Synergy. The feature collects and combines address book information from a variety of sources and displays them all together.
(updated below)
VentureBeat’s Paul Boutin reports today on a new smartphone sales report, but methinks he missed the real news.
The new data comes from IDC. Boutin makes much of the fact that according to IDC’s report — at least as quoted by him; I’ve only seen the press release, not the full report — the BlackBerry Curve was the top-selling smartphone in the United States last quarter, outselling the iPhone 3G S.
“Despite all the buzz, attention and money thrown at iPhones and anything to do with iPhones, the new iPhone 3G S came in second,” Boutin writes.
Apple is on track to deliver its long-rumored iTablet before the holidays, according the Financial Times.
At the same time, the Cupertino is working with major record labels to counter the digital trend of acquiring music by individual songs, not the more profitable albums as people did during the era of CDs and records, the paper reports. The plan, code-named “Cocktail,” is to include rich interactive booklets and other features with albums.
“It’s about recreating the heyday of the album when you would sit around with your friends looking at the artwork while you listened to the music,” the paper quoted an unidentified executive. The companies are looking for a September launch, according to the FT.
Meanwhile, Apple is hoping to release a new device that will also trigger interest anew in albums. The touch-screen tablet PC will have as much as a 10-inch screen, the paper reports.
Apple today announced an upgrade to its professional video software Final Cut Studio with 100 new features.
The updated suite of editing software includes new versions of Final Cut Pro, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, Color and Compressor.
Final Cut Pro 7 supports virtually any workflow and includes Easy Export for one step output to a variety of formats and iChat® Theater support for real-time collaboration. Motion 4 includes enhanced tools, including 3D shadows, reflections and depth of field for motion graphics and visual effects. Soundtrack Pro 3 features new multitrack audio tools to streamline audio post production.
The new program sells for $999, $300 less than the previous release. It also sells as an upgrade for $299.
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