Appletell

The Superior Court of California in Santa Clara is summoning your favorite CEO, Steve Jobs, as well as other Apple officials back to court for a new lawsuit from the Boston Retirement Board.  This group is claiming over $105 million was lost on backdated stock options granted to Mr. Jobs.  Technically speaking, backdating is legal, but can harm other shareholders involved with the company.  Also, it must be declared Securities and Exchange Commission beforehand, which is the part these officials are accused of disregarding.

The BRB also claims that is has specifics to back up the charges, but they have not released the details yet because the court has yet to figure out how to handle the confidential information.  These types of cases have been coming to various Apple officials for about two years now, but have been stalled or dismissed due to a lack of evidence and rulings that the backdating did not clearly affect Apple’s stock price.  What are all your thoughts on this?

No company is perfect, Apple included.  Every company has some problems and things that need to be worried about.  Apple has been growing quite a lot recently and this growth will hopefully not slow down soon.  It is great to see them gaining popularity in the tech industry.  That said, here are five things that I think Apple needs to be concerned about if it wants to continue to grow so well.

MORE »

Computers.  Displays.  Cell phones.  Music players.  Online music.  Storage.  Networking.  Apple is already in a ton of markets, many of which, unfortunately, are tightly tied together.  However, Apple is still a relatively young company and can branch out so much more.  The questions is, if at all, where?  Will they enter the digital camera market?  The gaming market?  The GPS and auto market?  Or maybe even video cameras?  It could be any of the above, especially given the fact that Apple has applied for so many patents lately.  It will be interesting to find out, but heres my thoughts:

MORE »

Market research firm Gartner released a report Wednesday showing that Apple’s market share for personal computers in the US is now 6.6%, a nice step up from the 5.2% they were at.  Shipping over 1.01 million machines, Apple is now the fourth under Dell, HP, and Acer respectively in the US market.  Unfortunately, Apple has not yet made the top 5 list when it comes to computer producers worldwide.  That list contained HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo, and Toshiba respectively.  However, Apple has still made some very steady growth this quarter which is one thing they can be proud of.

One strong point in sales for all the companies was mobile platforms, or laptops.  This is no surprise as laptops are becoming very powerful and people are becoming more mobile.  “Despite declining consumer confidence, U.S. consumers did not put off mobile PC purchases as evidenced by solid mobile growth,” Mika Kitagawa, principal analyst for Gartner said. “This growth was stimulated in part by aggressive price cuts.” Keep up the good work Apple, I would love see you on that worldwide list next quarter!

Via [AppleInsider]

After a few recent surveys, one thing is for sure.  Apple’s place in the music history books are set in stone.  An iPodNN report brought a recent Ipsos survey to light that showed that when it comes to music downloading, iTunes is preferred by half of the market, giving it a commanding lead over the second place Napster, which has a relatively meager 10% share.  iTunes also showed a huge jump in overall use.  Although almost all large downloading services have increased in name recognition and use, iTunes is the only one that jumps out as a huge increase. 

And to just pour salt in the competition’s wounds, Apple also has the mp3 player market wrapped up.  As shown in a Electronista report, iPods are used by most teenagers, and iTunes likewise.  Of the teens surveyed, 87% said that they owned an mp3 player of any sort, and a staggering 86% percent reported that mp3 player to be an iPod of some sort.

In comparison to the closest competition, the Microsoft Zune, in second place to the iPod, has an all but generous share of 3% among the teen community, and the second place music store comes in as Real Networks’ Rhapsody, with a 2% share among teens.  With the iPod and iTunes’ seemingly unstoppable attack on the music industry, is there any way to go other then up?  Only time will truly tell.