Archive for May, 2009
Friday, May 29th, 2009
A few bad apples…
It amazes me the extent “ambulance chasing” attorneys will go. Personally, I would love to see a defendant use the attorneys own ads in trial somehow… Perhaps the local bar associations should do peer reviews or something to weed out the bad apples.
Yesterday on my way to the Cavs game, I saw a truck that was essentially a big billboard for an attorney advertising just like “Pyle Law”…
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
Consider this… Vista vs Netbooks
Why are Netbooks such a threat to Microsoft? It’s not just the abundance of Linux shipping on them. It’s their profitability flying off the shelves (or via UPS these days…)
- Consider: 1 license for Vista Home Basic $199 at Best Buy
- Consider: 1 Dell Mini 9 Netbook with Vista Home Basic for just $299
- Consider: 1 Dell Mini 9 Netbook with Ubuntu for just $249
So, for $199 you can get a software license for Microsoft. For just $100 more, you can get a working netbook with that software license. Or, for just $50 more, you can get that same Netbook with Linux.
If you had just $300 to spend, who wants to pick the software license?
Now, consider what this is doing to Microsoft’s margins… Your premium pricing power has just been put under pressure – not by Linux, but by the hardware underneath the OS that just dropped from days of $1,000 laptops to $299. Microsoft can’t justify doubling the price of the product just for its software license. And Ubuntu is clearly offering hardware vendors a key counterpoint in their negotiations with Microsoft.
Microsoft is also in a bind as enforcing its premium pricing will either
- invite priracy b/c who can look at the offerings and justify paying that much retail for the OS, and which hurts their margins more (a paying customer is better than a pirating one…)
- 2) alienate a new set of younger, price conscious buyers entering the market (not just in the US, but around the world)
Clearly Microsoft is in need of a strategy refresh – and fast. I see the tide turning where their downstream users and upstream suppliers will create a challenging negotiation. Michael Porter would have fun with this analysis.
And with that… I may just order myself a Netbook soon. They’re almost as cheap as iPods now…
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
Why Circuit City failed; a comparison to B&H
This article over at inc.com nails it. If you’ve ever been to B&H in NYC, it’s perfectly clear.
I don’t buy the argument that the economy caused Circuit City’s failure. Take one look at its competitors, and you know that the market for consumer electronics and computer equipment remains strong, even in this economy. You can walk into any Apple Store and see large crowds of people lining up to buy computers and iPods. But enough has been said about how wonderful Apple is. I want to tell you about another first-class consumer electronics retailer — a much smaller business you probably haven’t been to, unless you live in New York City or are a professional photographer or an avid hobbyist. It’s called B&H.
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