Linked List: April 24, 2008

Thursday, 24 April 2008

Why Market Share and Revenue Are Bullshit ★

Motorola’s quarterly results: 27.4 million phones sold and $7.45 billion in revenue. But the bottom line? A $194 million loss.

What matters is profit; market share and revenue only matter insofar as they lead to making money. Motorola sold 16 times more phones than Apple for at least 8 times more revenue — but is there a person on the planet who would trade Apple’s phone business for Motorola’s?

Video: James Cramer on Apple ★

He’s bullish on Apple because they’re completely dominating the mindshare of teenagers and young adults. I think he’s right — both that this is a tremendous strength for Apple, and that it’s being overlooked by many analysts.

Is Mike Arrington a Dick? ★

Be sure to check back again tomorrow.

Noted for Future Gloating ★

Douglas A. McIntyre, in an oddly typo-ridden piece regarding Apple’s quarterly results:

Most analysts thought that the good news out of Apple was that Mac sales were up 51% to 2,289,000. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is very difficult to suss any sense out of his argument, but it seems to be that 51 percent year-over-year growth in Mac unit sales (and 54 percent revenue growth) is bad news because they can’t grow any more because corporations still aren’t buying them in bulk.

The Mac has hit its glass ceiling. Apple investors may be hoping that the machine can make it out of the consumer market to keep the rapid growth going, but that is not in the cards.

Noted.

James Randi on Clarke, Kubrick, and Jobs ★

Sure-fire DF material: James Randi talks about his friend Arthur C. Clarke, including an aside comparing Stanley Kubrick to Steve Jobs. (Thanks to Andy Herbert.)