THE APPLE INVESTOR: The iPad Will Dominate Tablet Market Share For Next Four Years (AAPL)

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AAPL Sliding In Weak Tech Tape 

The NASDAQ has eased off of its gains in early trading, but the broader market has built on its opening bounce. Shares of AAPL are off nearly 1% as the stock continues to slide into next week's earnings report. Upcoming catalysts for the stock include results of its second fiscal quarter on Wednesday, April 20 at 5:00 p.m ET; any update regarding Steve Jobs' healthy return; the WWDC starting June 6; monthly NPD data to gauge Mac / iPod businesses; iPad 2 sales updates;  iPhone sales updates, the push in China, as well as the launch of the iPhone 5 (whenever that may be); new revenue streams such as video, books / publishing and social (Ping); moving iTunes into the cloud; and the continued evolution and adoption of Apple TV. Shares of Apple trade at 13x Enterprise Value / Trailing Twelve Months Free Cash Flow (incl. long-term marketable securities).

The iPad Will Dominate Through 2015 Says Gartner (Bloomberg)
The iPad will continue to dominate the market for tablet computers, controlling more than three-fifths of the market next year, according to technology research firm Gartner. Apple’s iOS platform, which powers its iPhone and iPad devices, will account for 69% of the market this year and 64% in 2012. Apple’s share will decline to 47% in 2015, according to the report today.

Tablets (Meaning The iPad) Are Stealing People Away From Other Devices (CNet)
Tablets may be starting to steal people away from their laptops, desktops, and even televisions, according to a survey of ~1,400 respondents released this week by Google's AdMob. The survey breaks down how people are using their tablets, which in most cases so far, means the iPad. Shopping online occupied the lowest percentage among specifically polled options, with only 42% of respondents confirming they used their tablets to buy from the internet.

Is Apple Spending Enough On Research And Development? (Seeking Alpha)
The company may become “the next Polaroid,” the camera/film company that lost its way as quick film processing and digital technology emerged to replace instant film. Apple’s research and development budget is a comparatively low percentage of revenues at 3%. Most tech houses, like Intel, Intel forever spend over 10% on R&D. With $60 billion in liquidity, the company could easily crank up research and development. What it's already spent has seemed to work out quite well so far.

Analyst Says Petabyte Buy Dovetails With Cloud-Based iTunes (Barron's)
Barclays Capital's Ben Reitzes commented on Apple's purchase of 12 petabytes worth of storage equipment from Isilon Systems (EMC). It prompted speculation regarding expected cloud-based services.  Reitzes says that such huge amounts of data "dovetail nicely" with a Cloud Tunes an online version of Apple's popular iTunes.

The iPhone 5 May Well Be On Track For A Summer Release (AppleInsider)
The iPhone 5 might not be delayed at all. The newest version of iPhone may well be on track for a June-July release, according to Analyst Brian White with Ticonderoga Securities. As rumors of a later-than-usual iPhone launch for 2011 persist, a new report reveals that the notoriously secretive Apple is being even more careful than usual when dealing with overseas suppliers. Read more at Business Insider.

Hiring Spree: Apple Hires Top Execs For Gaming Platform (AppleInsider)
Apple just poached two top industry PR execs to help further push iOS as a major gaming platform. Nick Grange, who departs his role at Activision as the studio's European PR director, will be focused on iPad hardware and former Nintendo UK head of communications Robert Saunders will leave his position at the end of April for a "newly created role at Apple". Apple's strategy appears to be paying off; smartphone gaming has risen to 44% of the mobile gaming market, while the number of games played on the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP has fallen by 13%.

Woz Said He Would Consider Coming Back To Apple If Asked (VentureBeat)
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said that he would consider returning to an active role at the company he helped start if asked. However that statement, which came out during an interview, comes with some strings attached, specifically about the openness of the company's products. It seems unlikely, since Apple could have asked him back a long time ago.

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See Also:

• THE APPLE INVESTOR: Survival Of The Fittest – Apple Buying Up Component Supplies Ahead Of Competition
• Apple Working On E-Ink/Touchscreen Hybrid For iPads And iPhones
• Apple Is Being Even More Secretive Than Usual When It Comes To iPhone 5

THE APPLE INVESTOR: The iPad Will Dominate Tablet Market Share For Next Four Years (AAPL)

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Four Lessons From Facebook That Will Make You Rich

Say what you will about Facebook and about how it’s a place for MySpace refugees, but Mark Zuckerberg is a billionaire. He didn’t get there because he wanted to get successful and then sell out. This social media maven got to where he’s at right now because of four distinct things: long-term thinking, risky behavior, tough skin, and adaptability.  And you can too.

Lesson One: Long-Term Thinking

Focusing on the tasks of the day is an important goal, to be sure.  But losing sight of the bigger picture of your company can lead to trouble.  From the beginning of your business, you need to focus on what you want to do five or ten years down the road. The decisions you make today will affect that future, but keeping your eyes only on the pile of work before you is not necessary going to help you with a long-term plan.

To adjust your thinking, you will want to create a mission statement or a description of what you want your business to look like in a decade.  With each decision you make or action you take during the day, ask yourself whether it is helping to support that long-term goal.  If not, it’s time to reassess what you’re doing and what you should be doing instead to support your future.

Lesson Two: Risky Behavior

Facebook started out as a way to connect college students, not as necessarily a way to create a billion dollar social network. And yet, that’s exactly what it did.  By taking a risk and fulfilling a seen need, Facebook could have been just another Internet tool that didn’t quite make it in the sea of so many other great ideas. 

Instead, Facebook’s founders took a risk and they continue to take risks with advertising, games, profile changes, privacy setting changes, and more.  Facebook is a growing and breathing website.  It’s not static and it responds to the long-term goals and visions of the users and the developers.  Taking these risks pays off in the long run, even if you don’t get the best feedback at first….

Lesson Three: Tough Skin

And that’s why another less of Facebook is to have tough skin.  The truth is that there will always be someone out there that doesn’t agree with what you do.  They will bash you on the message boards and they will tell everyone they know that you are doing something that’s absolutely crazy or stupid, or both.  While you might think you need to change things back to the way they were before the criticism, stop before you do something like that. 

When you’re getting attention for your company, any sort of attention, it means that people are looking at you and what you do.  Though criticism might be something to consider when you are thinking of changes, you can’t listen to everyone and change whenever someone whines.  What you can do is consider what you hear and then decide whether YOU agree with it.  If not, move on.  The haters will too.

Lesson Four: Adaptability

Finally, and this should come as no surprise, there are some things you need to do with your business in order to stay caught up with the times and with your users.  Being able to adapt to the needs of your audience is paramount to long-term success.  Notice that people use a certain feature?  Make it better.  Notice that people never use something else?  Get rid of it.  This, of course, doesn’t mean that you should change everything when people change their minds, but you should adjust to the needs of the majority of your customers. That will get you noticed as a company that listens.

The lessons of Facebook continue on as the website begins to move into a new era where businesses use the site as a marketing tool.  Times are changing, and so can you when it comes to how you manage your business.

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Four Lessons From Facebook That Will Make You Rich

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It’s On: It’s Four Loko Time

Here it comes! The Swill-Drinking Event of the Season! I will drink, over the course of an hour not one but two Four Lokos. You can watch me here or pop over to the main page to chat. I'll also show off the Galaxy Tab and the NookColor while I do it, but those are ancillary to our goals. Why am I doing this? Partially because it's funny and partially to express outrage at the potential FDA ban as well as outrage at Four Loko for releasing this junk into the wild. But then again, who am I to judge? I used to drink far worse in my college days and I worry that my aged carapace will shutter and fall in onto my emaciated, jerky-tough body like the Skeksis in Dark Crystal.

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Sony's PlayStation Phone Would Have Been Cool Four Years Ago (SNE, AAPL, GOOG)

The Sony PlayStation phone is finally, actually a reality, judging by photos leaked to Engadget. Could you wake us up when it matters?

The truth is that the PlayStation phone is so past its due date that no one is going to care besides a small population of PlayStation Portable addicts. The mobile gaming industry has picked up and moved on, and now Apple's iOS and even Google's Android operating system are all most casual gamers need to play games on-the-go.

Even Facebook's secret phone sounds like a more exciting mobile gaming platform than some PlayStation phone.

Sometime in 2006, when I was a cub reporter at Forbes.com, I attended a media breakfast roundtable at Sony's NYC building with Sony executives. It was a semi-regular event, and I was the youngest person there, so it was pretty fun.

I asked the execs: Since Sony has all these amazing assets -- PlayStation gaming, sexy Vaio computers, neat digital cameras, the Walkman legacy, the huge music and content business, and the Sony Ericsson mobile partnership, when is Sony going to line everything up and make the best gaming/multimedia/Internet/smartphone in the world?

I don't remember the exact answer, but I think it was something along the lines of: We know we have all these businesses, they should probably work together more, but we're really excited about what Sony Ericsson is working on. Or something predictable like that.

The point is, the folks weren't jumping out of their seats at the idea that Sony's PlayStation -- arguably its most successful brand since the Walkman -- should be stamped on a phone. And now you see why: Because it takes half a decade to get anything done at Sony.

Meanwhile, Apple announced the iPhone several months later in January 2007, and totally revolutionized the industry. Everything that Sony and Sony Ericsson and every other mobile-phone player thought they knew about phone software and hardware was suddenly wrong.

Since then, Apple has forged ahead in mobile gaming, getting studios like Electronic Arts and Take-Two to make games for the iPhone that look better than most anything you'd need to play on a PlayStation Portable. Now Apple is getting into social gaming. And, as you've seen, it has taken the industry many years -- some companies, like Sony, longer than others -- to figure things out.

Sony is basically at square one right now, and most people just won't care. A PlayStation phone may have been cool four or five years ago, before anyone had ever heard of an iPhone, App Store, or Android -- back when Nokia was messing around with the N-Gage. But now it just shows how slow and hamstrung that Sony is.

Unless there's something we don't know about -- an amazing feature, or an amazing price, or something else -- it's hard to imagine that this phone is going to be a hit.

Read: 10 Apple TV Apps We Can't Wait To Use

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See Also:

• Here's The Guy Running Facebook's Secret Phone Project In A Secret Building
• 10 Apple TV Apps We Can't Wait To Use
• 10 Ways People Are Using The iPad To Create Content, Not Just Consume It

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