Those Berenstain Bears!

Folks I've mentioned the Berenstain Bears and their imploding tree house here numerous times, so when Toni Sacconaghi blustered about missing iPhones and iPod sales recently I didn't even bother to mention it.

Yes, the chump analyst spoke out of turn.

Stay the course investors. Great things to come.

So last week I called Apple

and offered to send TC to the Goldman Sachs Tech Symposium. Joanie, in Investor Relations said, "It's ok, we've got him. He can hit. He can pitch. He can make a triple play." Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be Tim Cook. And oh yes, he hit it out of the park.

Papparazi Task Force

Thanks to all the Minnesota Oscar winners. I can move around town in relative obscurity for a couple weeks.

Hey, how about them Coens were trying to low key it? They'll be hiding behind Diablo as they trot through the airport (after all, the shine is off the Craig Memorial Men's Bathroom Stall). Heck, them Coens are pretty smart. They bought into Viv's set up to get Diablo Cody into a Wilma Flintstone dress. Ex-strippers from Minneapolis in bad fashion will trump. Folks are already starting a pool to guess the location of the other tattoos. You bet, the local Pap will be swilling her faster than frat boys on a keg.

Hang in there Apple investors.

Apple announced a new product recently, and it's selling, and not cannibalizing other product sales --- Good, right?

Wrong. The media types *cue Jaws music here* have to "angle" it, and what better way than by comparing the new product's sales to another existing blockbuster seller?
The result is here.

Katie buried the Munster money quote at the bottom of the article: "[For these] reason[s] resellers indicate that sales of the MacBook Air have been additive to their overall Mac sales in the quarter," Munster advised clients. "The MacBook Air addresses the need for mobility unlike any other Mac, and as such we believe it is not cannibalizing sales of other Mac laptops."

Better headline: Apple Taps New Mobility Market with MacBook Air.

Motorola Dead, Nokia in Denial

and strangled chokes are emanating from the Blackberry company (RIMM):

"Clear! Clear!"

Research might be in motion, but disaster recovery needs to check into rehab.

New Charity Buyout Candidate: Sony

See here. The author wonders out loud why Apple doesn't just buy Sony.

You betcha -- Apple is dying to buy Sony to get their hands on that advanced joystick technology. Does the writer work for Microsoft? Because buying Sony would be the fastest way to dilute Apple's focus and slow the innovation machine. Apple management isn't a bunch of whiplash sadists foaming at the mouth to experience the pain of Sony's culture. Yah, Mr. Pesek, you got that one right.

Recently Rumored Apple Buyouts

Takeover Target	Less Obvious Reasons to Buy (Compliments of Team Munster Research)
Yahoo!	Just to piss off Microsoft
Palm	1. Newton Nostagia Move 2. Ensure the historical preservation of gray-on-green screens
Disney	1. Burning desire to build "his and her" Minnie and Mickey Macs 2. To piss off Time Warner/AOL
Nintendo	1. Convert old joystick technology to multi-touch 2. To piss off Microsoft
TiVO	1. Rhymes with early prototype codename for Apple TV, which was "STEVO" 2.To piss off Comcast
Napster	1. To hold customers hostage for monthly rental payments 2. After all, loan sharking is illegal
Motorola cell phone biz	1. College marketing interns wanted to work on selling ROKR ("we can sell it, we know we can!")
Universal Music	1. iTunes has already captured all earthbound music 2. To piss off RIAA
Sun	1. Revenge against IBM for the G4 processor 2. To put it out of its misery.
Adobe	1. To kill Flash 2.To piss off Microsoft
Sprint/Nextel	1. Idea from the young engineers at Apple -- they missed Walkie Talkies the first time around
Google	1.Why buy Yahoo when you can get the Alpha dog? 2.To piss off Microsoft

Droids are Lost in Space

As I've previously mentioned and re-mentioned, the Google Android smart phone software development effort is a teen skateboard-park project.

Latest news is the deadline for the Developer's Challenge (aka "Developer's Nightmare") has been delayed due to significant updates to the SDK (System Developer's Kit).

Anyway, if you didn't know this was going south the day they announced the whole thing, it was crystal clear when they implemented an "Issue Tracker" system. This is never a good sign, because these systems don't get installed until there are about 150 "issues" piled up in the queue. Trust me on this. I've been there.

And Viv -- God Bless her because she's always right about these things -- said "Gene, anything with "roid" in the name is gonna be a pain in the butt. Guaranteed."

You betcha, she called it right (again).

A New Vista!

It's called Yahoo!, and Microsoft hopes it will be delivering Net-based applications to a machine (which will likely be running Mac OSX or Linux) near you.

They paid $44 billion for this latest shot in the dark.