Why Is Eric Schmidt Stepping Down at Google?
by ilene - January 22nd, 2011 5:07 pm
By Ken Auletta, The New Yorker
Was Eric Schmidt pushed or did he jump? Both. According to close advisors, the Google C.E.O. was upset a year ago when co-founder Larry Page sided with his founding partner, Sergey Brin, to withdraw censored searches from China. Schmidt did not hide his belief that Google should stay in the world’s largest consumer marketplace. It was an indication of the nature of the relationship Schmidt had with the founders that he—as Brian Cashman of the Yankees did this week—acknowledged that the decision was made above his head. He often joked that he provided “adult supervision,” and was never shy about interrupting the founders at meetings to crystallize a point. In the eleven interviews I conducted with him for my book on Google, he freely told anecdotes about the founders, sometimes making gentle fun of them, never seeming to look over his shoulder. Yet he always made clear that they were “geniuses” and he, in effect, was their manager. After a bumpy first couple of years after he joined Google as C.E.O. in 2001, they had developed a remarkable relationship. But also a weird one. How many successful organizations have a troika making decisions? Schmidt, according to associates, lost some energy and focus after losing the China decision. At the same time, Google was becoming defensive. All of their social-network efforts had faltered. Facebook had replaced them as the hot tech company, the place vital engineers wanted to work. Complaints about Google bureaucracy intensified. Governments around the world were lobbing grenades at Google over privacy, copyright, and size issues. The “don’t be evil” brand was getting tarnished, and the founders were restive. Schmidt started to think of departing. Nudged by a board-member friend and an outside advisor that he had to re-energize himself, he decided after Labor Day that he could reboot.
Continue here: News Desk: Why Is Eric Schmidt Stepping Down at Google? : The New Yorker.
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DiggGoldman’s $430 Target, Screaming Buy On Apple At Its All Time High Is In Direct Contravention To Reggie Middleton’s Logic – Who’s Right? Well, Who Has Been More Right In The Past?
by ilene - December 14th, 2010 1:14 pm
Courtesy of Reggie Middleton, posted at Zero Hedge and originally posted at Reggie’s BoomBustBlog
Goldman has recently issued a strong buy recommendation on Apple, offering a $430 price target. I have been on record many times stating that Apples will be facing the toughest competition of its existence since Microsoft nearly put them out of business. This, of course, appears to be in direct contravention to the Goldman Sachs call which just happened to come out the day Apple hits its all time high. Being that Apple has more than its fair share of fans who ignore common sense, this is enough to set the stock on fire. The question still remains though, “Is Goldman right?” Goldman very well could be right, but not for the reasons most retail investors believe. Despite overwhelming evidence plus plain old history to the contrary, many investors and mainstream media outlets still take the sell side of Wall Street at their word. Sell side analysts are marketing arms for the brokerage sales force, the investment banking sales force and the traders who move inventory in and out of their respective banks. What they are not are wealth and strategy advisers for retail and institutional investors. Their historical performance clearly illustrates this, thus their is not need to take this entrepreneurial investor and blogger’s word for it. Well, for those of you who either don’t know of me or don’t know of Goldman, here’s a quick recap of Reggie Middleton vs. Goldman Sachs:
Who was more accurate concerning Google? Google’s 3rd Quarter Operating Results: The Foregone Conclusion That Was Amazingly Unanticipated by the Street!!! Monday, November 8th, 2010
Who was more accurate concerning Lehman Brothers, the Ivy league, ivory tower boys doing God’s work or that blogger with the smart ass mouth from Brooklyn?
Please click the graph to enlarge to print quality size.
As a matter of fact, who was more accurate during the ENTIRE Asset Securitization and Credit Crisis of the last three years? We believe Reggie Middleton and his team at the BoomBust bests ALL of Wall Street’s sell side research:…
Meet Quadroid
by ilene - November 18th, 2010 2:48 pm
Meet Quadroid
Courtesy of Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker
Just as the Microsoft Windows/Intel Pentium combo (Wintel) came to rule the PC business, smartphones are starting to standardize around their own Big Two. According to a recent study, that standard is the new Qualcomm chip/ Google Android operating system one-two punch. The cool kids are calling it Quadroid.
CNNMoney’s David Goldman takes us inside the numbers:
But now, for the first time ever in the wireless ecosystem, a standard platform is emerging: At least a dozen handset makers have brought to market more than 90 different smartphones that run Android, and more than three quarters of those handsets have Qualcomm chips embedded in them, according to a new study by consultancy PRTM.
The Qualcomm-Android standard, or "Quadroid" as PRTM calls it, is becoming a parallel to the Windows-Intel, or "Wintel," standard that developed in the 1990s.
Qualcomm held their Analyst Day meeting yesterday and the The Street apparently loved what they heard. Goldman Sachs reiterated their Conviction Buy and raised their target to 58 this morning. Credit Suisse upped their target to 60 and gave it a buy rec as well.
As far as Google, Android is not the engine driving the stock right now but it is obviously of immense importance to the company strategically.
It’s too early to tell if this Qualcomm/Google duopoly is really going to own the space but so far their partnership appears to be the front-runner. If you’re trading technology stocks, wireless plays, chips, operating systems etc, you may want to get up on this story.
Source:
Android and Qualcomm are the New Wintel (CNNMoney)
Qualcomm Upgrades/Downgrades (TheStreet)
BoomBustBlog Research Hits Another One Out the Park! Google up nearly 10% after hours, true blowout earnings unlike JPM
by ilene - October 14th, 2010 6:49 pm
BoomBustBlog Research Hits Another One Out the Park! Google up nearly 10% after hours, true blowout earnings unlike JPM
Courtesy of Reggie Middleton
Bloomberg reports: Google Profit Beats Estimates as Companies Boost Ad Spending; Shares Climb
Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) — Google Inc., owner of the world’s most popular search engine, said third-quarter profit increased as businesses spent more on advertising to attract online consumers. The shares jumped in after-hours trading.
Net income rose 32 percent to $2.17 billion, or $6.72 a share, from $1.64 billion, or $5.13, a year earlier, Google said on its website. Profit excluding some items was $7.64 a share, exceeding the $6.68 average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Google is benefitting from increased spending on search- based ads as it pursues opportunities in mobile communications and display advertising. Online spending is expected to account for 15 percent of total U.S. advertising this year, up from 12 percent in 2008, according to EMarketer Inc. in New York.
“The underlying strength in the core search business basically means advertisers are spending healthily on search,” said Clayton Moran, an analyst at Benchmark Co. in Boca Raton, Florida, who recommends buying the shares. “They beat on the top line and also on the bottom line.”
Google, based in Mountain View, California, climbed as much as 9.6 percent in late trading to $592.82. It closed at $540.93 at 4 p.m. on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have dropped 13 percent this year.
Excluding revenue passed on to partner sites, sales were $5.48 billion, topping analysts’ average estimate of $5.26 billion.
…
Display, Mobile
Google is seeking new revenue streams, including searches on mobile phones. Its Android software has surged in popularity among consumers, overtaking Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry to become the top smartphone operating system in the U.S. in the second quarter, according to research firm Gartner Inc.
Display advertising at Google is growing as its YouTube video-watching service attracts more marketers. The company said in May it had boosted the number of display advertisers 10-fold on YouTube.
“Our newer businesses — particularly display and mobile — continued to show significant momentum,” Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in a…
An iPhone 4 Recall Will Hurt Apple More By Opening Additional Oppurtunity for Android Devices Than Increased Expenses
by ilene - July 13th, 2010 3:26 pm
An iPhone 4 Recall Will Hurt Apple More By Opening Additional Opportunity for Android Devices Than Increased Expenses
Courtesy of Reggie Middleton writing at Zero Hedge
Apple has had a hell of a time with what is arguably its most important product release since the initial iPhone in 2007. The handsets have been plagued with spotty screens, combustible USB ports, signal strength measurement inconsistencies, and the most damaging of the issues – an ill-conceived antenna design that causes attenuation when held from the lower left had corner. Steve Jobs did the Blankfein (Goldman Sachs CEO, stating that the Wall Street bank was doing God’s work) imitation by opening his mouth when he shouldn’t have and said that users were “hold the phone the wrong way”. Not only that, but Consumer Reports just came out with a report stating that they can not recommend the buying of an iPhone until the antenna situation has been rectified, prompting speculation that Apple will be forced to recall millions of phones.
As a matter of fact, the review was rather poignant:
“If you want an iPhone that works well without a masking-tape fix, we continue to recommend an older model, the 3G S.”
As evidence of the danger of relying on “lifestyle” marketing (see An Introduction to How Apple Apple Will Compete With the Google/Android Onslaught)…
It is very easy to fall out of favor with the trendy crowd. While I doubt very seriously that Apple is in danger of doing this anytime soon, a massive recall will open the door for devices which are technically much more capable, flexible and open than the iPhone, ex. the Android powered HTC and Samsung devices. Basically, the danger to Apple here is not the expense of a recall, but the loss of mindshare and potential widening of the opening for some very capable competition – an opening that did not have to be there!
Don’t believe me, click the link to the consumer reports article and peruse the comment section…
Posted by: John |…
Three minute historic overview of Google: The Most Powerful Company in the World?
by ilene - July 10th, 2010 11:52 am
Courtesy of Reggie Middleton
Here is a quick 3 minute video to put the information that I posted yesterday on Google into perspective. I strongly suggest all take the time to watch it and post comments.
03:15
I will be posting the Apple analysis, or at least portions of it followed by Microsoft. Subscribers should expect a strategic forensic report to makes sense of the investment opportunities shortly thereafter. For those that need to get up to speed:
- “There Is Another Paradigm Shift Coming in Technology and Media: Apple, Microsoft and Google Know its Winner Takes All”
- The Mobile Computing and Content Wars: Part 2, the Google Response to the Paradigm Shift”
Google Swings for the Fences and Tries to Knock Apple, Microsoft, IPhones and Office Apps Out of the Park!!!
by ilene - July 9th, 2010 5:00 pm
Google Swings for the Fences and Tries to Knock Apple, Microsoft, IPhones and Office Apps Out of the Park!!!
Courtesy of Reggie Middleton
This is an excerpt from part two of a multi-part series on the companies vying for dominance during the 3rd major paradigm shift in personal and enterprise technology over the last 30 years. This one will be a biggie (not smalls) and promises to create an investment behemoth out of the winner and relegate the losers to relatively niche markets. This is saying a lot considering the size of the companies participating in the battle for the pole position. I created this series to provide a truly objective, truly informed, and truly analytical (from an empirical perspective) knowledge source on this very important intersection in personal computing and distributed media. This series will end with a full BoomBustBlog style forensic report on the company we feel has the most to gain from these wars from an investor’s perspective.Those who are not familiar with my hard-edged, yet objective analytical work should reference past performance and media appearances for a quick background.
It is imperative that readers first review “There Is Another Paradigm Shift Coming in Technology and Media: Apple, Microsoft and Google Know its Winner Takes All” before moving on so as to get a thorough background as to what is at stake, who the players are, and what mobile technologies are being released into the consumer and enterprise realm. This is a lengthy, meaty, objective and information packed post that was initially intended to go out to subscribers only (click here to subscribe to our research services). I welcome you to compare it to the research you find available from technology, financial and strategic advisory firms, including and particularly Goldman Sachs (click here to see what I mean) and let me know whose analysis is more accurate, in depth and thorough (not to mention less expensive).
Google is Giant, Online Ad Agency Cum Enterprise Software Developer and consumer electronics and media giant! WTF! That’s right…
At the end of 2009, Google earned $22.9 billion or 96.8% of its total revenues through advertising, out of which $15.7 billion was related to its own websites, with the remaining $7.2 billion related to other network websites.
Licensing and other revenues accounted for only 3.2% (or…
TLP: Pay No Attention To That Ginormous Camera On Top Of The Car
by ilene - June 16th, 2010 1:01 pm
TLP: Pay No Attention To That Ginormous Camera On Top Of The Car
Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accountant
It’s the data-sucking gadget inside you have to worry about.
NYT:
Attorneys general from about 30 states are investigating whether Google violated any laws when vehicles used by the company to snap pictures for the Street View service also collected snippets of personal information sent over unsecured wireless networks.
On Thursday, attorneys general from about 30 states participated in a conference call do discuss whether to join forces.
The call was spearheaded by Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s attorney general, who was among the first to open an investigation into the data gathering by Google.
“Violating legitimate expectations of privacy on the part of both homeowners and business people is an extraordinarily serious issue, and we want all the facts as quickly as possible,” Mr. Blumenthal said in an interview by phone.
Mr. Blumenthal said the conference call with his counterparts “was the first step in an effort to cooperate in a possible joint investigation and action. At this point, we are asking questions and frankly some of the answers we received so far have raised additional questions that we have put to the company.”
Dicking around will cost you. If anybody knows how to wipe the cache, dump the cookies and clear the history, you’d think it would be the Google.
BP’s PR Campaign on Google; Obama Threatens to Kick Ass; Spill Takes Toll on Obama; Ideas Pour In
by ilene - June 10th, 2010 2:58 pm
BP’s PR Campaign on Google; Obama Threatens to Kick Ass; Spill Takes Toll on Obama; Ideas Pour In
Courtesy of Mish
The oil spill is now on day 52.
And with each passing day, the estimated size of the oil spill keeps growing, the environmental damages mount, and the frustration intensifies to the point that President Obama has threatened to kick the ass of whoever is responsible.
Here are some recent headlines and oil related news.
Future losses from BP oil spill worry Gulf Coast businesses
The USA Today reports Future losses from BP oil spill worry Gulf Coast businesses
John Tesvich worries that he’ll have to close his Franklin, La., oyster-processing plant by the end of the month, putting his 60 workers on the street. He can’t get enough oysters from the oil-contaminated Gulf of Mexico to keep his plant running.
Fisherman George Barisich of St. Bernard Parish, La., reckons he’s already lost about $80,000 in business because the BP oil spill kept his boats out of the water nearly 40 days. George Pelaez’s Biloxi, Miss., charter boat, Joka’s Wild, is reeling from $112,000 worth of cancellations.
But what really worries shrimpers, oystermen, charter boat captains, hunting guides and oil rig workers across the Gulf Coast isn’t today’s losses, bad as they are; it’s tomorrow’s. They even worry the financial damage to New Orleans and the surrounding area will outdo the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. "The whole economic function of (New Orleans) is totally dependent on that water," says Amy Liu, deputy director of the metropolitan policy program at the Brookings Institution. The city’s economic viability "is being undermined by this oil spill."
"I lost everything I owned in Katrina," says Mike Frenette, a Venice, La., charter boat captain. "But the thing about a hurricane is, 24 hours after it goes through, if you’ve got the guts and the fortitude, you can get nails and start rebuilding. But no one knows the long-term effects of the (oil) contamination. … At first we thought this would be over relatively quickly. As time goes on, we’re getting more realistic. It’s going to take quite some time."
Oil Spill Takes Toll on Obama
A Wall Street Journal poll shows Oil Spill Takes Toll on Obama
The poll, released today, shows that Floridians, by a 51%-42% margin, oppose more offshore oil drilling
…
The Coming Apple iOS – Android Wars
by ilene - June 9th, 2010 6:55 pm
The Coming Apple iOS – Android Wars
Courtesy of Edward Harrison at Credit Writedowns
In my last technology post, I wrote that we are moving to an Internet-centric world where your computing device or operating system are less important because your data will live and breathe in the Internet cloud. Google, in particular, is preparing for this world because it has a dominant role in the Internet through search. But everyone is moving to an Internet-centric service and content delivery strategy.
The telecom providers understand that their networks make them gatekeepers who can extract rents from content providers. Having paid handsomely to build these networks, they are fighting to not become dumb pipes and resisting net neutrality in order to keep that gatekeeper role. This is one reason Google is trying to build its own network and circumvent the telcos. Eventually, I think the land-based telcos will lose and the battle will move to one between mobile operating systems like Apple’s iOS and Android. Although mobile phone operators may still be able to extract rents for a while longer than the fixed-line telcos.
The PC OS landscape
In the past, the operating system has been important in computing because it allowed the same software to be run on different computing devices, permitting users of those devices to transfer data easily as they were using the same software. But, the OS also benefitted as the more installed users one OS had, the more developers created software for the operating system. These network effects made achieving critical mass a defining factor. Going forward, network effects will also be important in monetizing OS-proprietary e-Commerce platforms like iTunes and Google’s new iTunes competitor.
One reason Apple was near bankruptcy before Steve Jobs re-appeared on the scene is because Apple’s Macintosh’s installed base had shrunk. I used a Macintosh from the mid-1980s but was forced to switch to a PC when I bought a laptop in the mid-1990s that I used both at home and for work. As the PC gained sway, millions of users like me were forced to give up the Mac. And, of course, that meant software developers gravitated to the PC platform and the Mac became a niche product.
The Move to the Internet-centric Model
As Internet bandwidth increased, more and more of what had to be done locally or over a local area network on…
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