[sinsin07]

Of course, Microsoft's gross margin is 80%, while the iPhone's was around 40%, but hey, who cares about profitability?

Irrelevant as to why the Forbes link was posted.

[mikeo007]

Nope, not even close. IBM wasn't even in the top three in 1993 and 1994. Its PC business flagged badly with the launch of the PS/2 and MCA and never recovered.

That's one reason why they started the PowerPC alliance with Apple -- they were being driven out of the PC business.

Here's my proof, where's yours champ?
Chronology of Apple Computer Personal Computers (1993)
http://pctimeline.info/apple/appl1994.htm

[Wiki Cydia]

iStuff are mediocre products but they were the fashion statement of their day. In fashion one day you're up and the next day you're nobody. For Apple, it's the next day.

Had they not just reported an all-time high in iOS devices sold, this might actually make sense. Remember Apple isn't being penalized because their business shrank, but rather because it didn't grow as fast year over year as in previous years.

[world traveler and former ceo]

its the window RIM had been waiting for .. to launch a killler smartphone when the competition is at its weakest point...

[randall2580]

I think RIM are lucky as they have a lot of pent up demand that will be there from the start and continue a bit over time as folks come off of contracts. Of course what they need are new subs as well, and I expect they will have a good number in the first 2 quarters, the analysts (yes I know that's a bad work here) seem to feel it's the back end 2 quarters when we will learn if the new OS has legs, that makes sense to me.

[xandermac]

Oh no! It's the end for Appl.... Oh, wait, another record quarter. Nevermind, carry on.

[JeepBB]

People are bored with Apple.

The 47.8 million people who bought an iPhone last quarter probably wouldn't agree.

[RubberChicken76]

Of course, Microsoft's gross margin is 80%, while the iPhone's was around 40%, but hey, who cares about profitability?

Different business model. A company who's business is primarily hardware based (no matter how premium) is never, ever going to get the same margins as one who's primary business is selling software on a license basis. It's a lot more expensive to build an iPhone than it is to print out an Office or Windows license certificate.

[buwee]

But the 47.8 million people that bought are isheep and I WAS one of them LOL

[THBW]

As a observer on the smartphone market, to me, delaying to the January 30th is a very bad decision. As a shareholder, I don't really like the decision to delay the launch if possible. But given their software prowess I think they had tried their best.

Mobile World congress will be on the beginning of Feb and all the spotlight will be on the new 4.7" and 5" 1080P Superphone, featuring the new generation Tegra4 and Snapdragon 800 SOC. All the trendy technology websites will compare the Z10 to the top end phones, which will include the Galaxy S4, HTC M7 etc and leave wanting more from RIMM. Z10 in its Snapdragon S4 form is even slower than the proclaimed outdated iPhone 5 and will be even more outdated compare to the upcoming superphones. I can foretell from my magic ball, in one month, people on this site will start to proclaim that hardware, screen resolution, SOC spec, benchmark and etc don't matter and peak on BB10 is the be-all-end-all feature that one will ever need in a smartphone.

I understand your point but I think the smart phone market has matured to a degree where hardware specs are generally unimportant. As pointed out numerous times, Apple's hardware specs have been consistently underwhelming yet they sell because of their OS and ecosystem. In contrast, Samsung has pushed the hardware specs and this has worked well for them but at decidedly lower margins. Whatever floats your boat.

As much as I hate to say this, Apple's approach is the way to go. Samsung can't compensate forever, from a hardware perspective, for the numerous inefficiencies embedded in Android software. With overall margins going down and the increasing demand for "value phones", a well designed OS is need so that one can get more from poorer hardware. BB10 is designed with this context and it was the right move.

[RubberChicken76]

Stock market was pretty brutal on them today. Down 12%, which - given Apple's ride over the last few years, mean a drop of $63.51/share. Wow!

Still boggles my mind how investors react.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...ks/272506/#bio

[FSeverino]

Stock market was pretty brutal on them today. Down 12%, which - given Apple's ride over the last few years, mean a drop of $63.51/share. Wow!

Still boggles my mind how investors react.

Dear Apple, Welcome To Microsoft's Agonizing World (AAPL, MSFT) - SFGate

That is a crazy drop. If RIMM went UP that much tomorrow a lot of people would be filthy rich lol.

[howarmat]

RIMM has gone up that much 2x this year already

[cjcampbell]

Where RIM keeps upping their 52 week high, Apple is ever so close to marking a new 52 week low. Crazy.

[Jean-luc_Picard]

Personally, I hope that Apple ends up in RIM's current situation: stock has plummeted and so they put all of the effort they can into making a revolutionary new OS and (hopefully) succeed. That way there's a great new product and a lot of great new concepts for competitors to "borrow". Every tech company should try it once in a while, it would really benefit the end user.

[ccbs]

I understand your point but I think the smart phone market has matured to a degree where hardware specs are generally unimportant. As pointed out numerous times, Apple's hardware specs have been consistently underwhelming yet they sell because of their OS and ecosystem. In contrast, Samsung has pushed the hardware specs and this has worked well for them but at decidedly lower margins. Whatever floats your boat.

As much as I hate to say this, Apple's approach is the way to go. Samsung can't compensate forever, from a hardware perspective, for the numerous inefficiencies embedded in Android software. With overall margins going down and the increasing demand for "value phones", a well designed OS is need so that one can get more from poorer hardware. BB10 is designed with this context and it was the right move.

You're sadly mistaken. I don't get what is underwhelming on the iPhone. If you look at SOC spec, Apple is almost always at the top when their phone comes up. They adsorb the extra cost in silicon to make sure they have close to best in CPU and the best GPU performance in the market. iPhone is currently faster/on par with any phone in the market in term of both CPU and GPU performance. If you think hardware spec as screen size, then Apple is definitely not competitive. In RIMM case, Z10 is not competitive even compared to the current crop of phones, let alone any coming one. iPhone is 20% faster in CPU and at least 2~3 times GPU power. The upcoming Snapdragon 800 will be at least twice as powerful compared to the Snapdragon S4 in CPU and 4 times the GPU. In terms of superphone, Z10 is outdated before its release. Of course, if RIMM is intended to compete on the mid-end market, then Z10 will fit right in. But to be competitive in the top end of the phone market, they are not enough. It is almost a deja vu of the familiar scene where 9900 is compared to the Galaxy S2 at the time.

[bambinoitaliano]

Seriously, RIM just need to focus on BB10 and beyond regardless of what happen to Apple. Apple can file chapter 11 tomorrow for all I care. As long as RIM produce a great device and let chips falls where they may.

[brmiller1976]

Had they not just reported an all-time high in iOS devices sold, this might actually make sense. Remember Apple isn't being penalized because their business shrank, but rather because it didn't grow as fast year over year as in previous years.

Note the spin in talking about "iOS devices" rather than iPhones and iPads. This is convenient spin, no different than Microsoft claiming that Windows is "the #2 mobile platform" by adding up sales of Windows netbooks, laptops, notebooks, phones and PDAs and reporting them as "Windows portable devices."

iPads did okay, iPhone underperformed, and Macintosh is a dying platform.

The quarterly results announced the last two months show just how out-of-touch the pro-Apple technorati are. RIM was supposed to go out of business in 2012, but posted strong quarter after strong quarter, even with old BB7 devices. Windows 8 was supposedly being "killed" by Apple and users were "switching to Macs in droves," but for this past quarter, Windows sales were up 24% while Mac sales collapsed by 21%. And so on.

The reality is massively divergent from the spin.

[cjcampbell]

Had they not just reported an all-time high in iOS devices sold, this might actually make sense. Remember Apple isn't being penalized because their business shrank, but rather because it didn't grow as fast year over year as in previous years.

Although they did record sales, their profit margins shrank, and their EPS was down yoy for the first time in years. That is part of why it dropped.

[TheScionicMan]

Seriously, RIM just need to focus on BB10 and beyond regardless of what happen to Apple. Apple can file chapter 11 tomorrow for all I care. As long as RIM produce a great device and let chips falls where they may.

No, they can't. Just like RIM, there's no bankruptcy protection available when you HAVE NO DEBT.

[Andrew4life]

Had they not just reported an all-time high in iOS devices sold, this might actually make sense. Remember Apple isn't being penalized because their business shrank, but rather because it didn't grow as fast year over year as in previous years.

Yup, Apple isn't necessarily going downhill. It's just not sustaining it's near exponential stock price increase.

Here's a graph to put things into perspective.
(Note: I don't know very much about stocks or financial analyses, but I can draw lines and look at trends)
The white line is the first trending up movement back in the iPod days, the blue one is the iPhone days, and the purple one is of the last year or so.
You can see the price increase is pretty much exponential, but in reality nothing can really grow exponentially. At some point, it's going to stop growing and plateau, or ultimately decline.
So we've kind of hit the ceiling and it's decreasing. Investors are realizing that their projections are wrong and hence the drop in price. I'm no expert, but if growth were to continue, it kind of looks like the stock has dropped to be more in line between the blue and the white trendline. Perhaps there is more room for it to drop?

[TomJasper]

For somebody who does not chart you sure hit the numbers right,lol.
In other words don't be surprised if apple sinks to $300 in 2013.

Hence 10 days back.
http://forums.crackberry.com/blackbe...r-here-762303/

Yup, Apple isn't necessarily going downhill. It's just not sustaining it's near exponential stock price increase.

Here's a graph to put things into perspective.
(Note: I don't know very much about stocks or financial analyses, but I can draw lines and look at trends)
The white line is the first trending up movement back in the iPod days, the blue one is the iPhone days, and the purple one is of the last year or so.
You can see the price increase is pretty much exponential, but in reality nothing can really grow exponentially. At some point, it's going to stop growing and plateau, or ultimately decline.
So we've kind of hit the ceiling and it's decreasing. Investors are realizing that their projections are wrong and hence the drop in price. I'm no expert, but if growth were to continue, it kind of looks like the stock has dropped to be more in line between the blue and the white trendline. Perhaps there is more room for it to drop?

[TomJasper]

Bungaboy, gotta love all those apple shareholders who bought into RIM today, a huge shift under way, re-arranging the deck chairs. So in reality the idle chatter of a few disgruntled iOS fans does not translate into putt'in money on the table for the winner Blackberry 10, the vocal backlash is to be expected by some that find change hard. No biggie, they will come around in time, and yes thank.

[john_v]

Actually the real reason Apple's stock is taking a beating is because RIM is paying people to post in these forums and say bad things about Apple.

Hey it was a valid excuse a few months ago

[Jake Storm]

Actually the real reason Apple's stock is taking a beating is because RIM is paying people to post in these forums and say bad things about Apple.

Hey it was a valid excuse a few months ago

No that was a valid excuse when iPhans were trolling the BlackBerry forums. It would also be an excuse if iMore was flooded with negative posts.
It's expected that posters on a BlackBerry fan site might say bad things about other platforms. Why is that so hard for people to understand?