michael parekh on IT

ON A BOTTOM IN BANKS?

2008-07-20T11:34:08-04:00

FEAR AND GREED

Barron's continues to make contrary calls on it's cover this weekend, following last Saturday's cover story suggesting a bottom in Housing market woes. This Saturday's cover focuses on the Banks, with a story titled: "What to Bank On". Here's an excerpt:

"AFTER A RECORD-SETTING RALLY LAST Wednesday, the brutal selloff in financial stocks -- the worst for any major industry group since the technology bubble burst in 2000 -- could be over.

Many financial companies face additional loan losses and credit-related write-downs in the coming quarters, particularly if the economy stays weak into 2009. Yet a slew of earnings reports last week from marquee banks like Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase suggests that most financial companies have sufficient earning power to offset a rising tide of bad loans and should be able to absorb further write-downs without having to seek significant amounts of additional capital.

Financial stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500 index are down 29% this year and off 43% in the past 12 months, even after a record-setting 13% gain Wednesday and a 6% rise Thursday. The group was up slightly Friday. Financials are the worst-performing group this year in the S&P, which is off 14%. And they've risen just 10% since the most recent bull market began in October 2002, against a 62% advance by the index. Financials are down to 14% of the S&P 500 from a high of 23% in late 2006 as more than $1 trillion of market value has vaporized, in part because of huge declines in such former mega-stocks as Citigroup (ticker: C) and American International Group (AIG).

U.S. financial stocks beckon because nearly every major company now trades for under 10 times projected 2009 profits. Though there is considerable uncertainty about '09 profits, considering the tough economic outlook, what is comforting is that many financials combine low forward P/Es with and low ratios of price-to-book value, derived by subtracting liabilities from assets and dividing by the company's outstanding shares. It historically has proven profitable to snap up major financials around book value because purchasers effectively are getting the ongoing businesses for nothing."

It's always tough to make a bullish case on anything in the throes of a raging bear market. Fear gets overdone just as fiercely as greed does, especially where markets are concerned. The Barron's article, regardless of one's view on this issue on going forward, is a solid, college try.

ON THE BLACKBERRY/iPHONE BATTLE

2008-07-18T12:40:00-04:00

TRENCH WARFARE

Maybe it's the fickle gadget junkie in me, or maybe it's just me being jaded about my 3G iPhone after my problems with it the last few days. But when I saw this picture of the coming new Blackberry Bold from RIMM in "bedside mode", my gadget gaze has now shifted to getting one on first opportunity (not that I haven't been focused on the upcoming Blackberry models).

The picture is part of a post on Blackberry's recent annual shareholders meeting, by Jim Courtney of Skype Journal. This application, though simple, is as cool as anything I've seen on the new iPhone.

Here's another tidbit from that post that I found interesting, especially for those with extensive music collections in iTunes:

"Blackberry's new Media Sync creates a direct connection between your iTunes music collection and the Blackberry. (and will also be made available to all Blackberry devices with a media card - Pearl, Curve, 88xx - through both a firmware and desktop software upgrade)."

For a long time now, I've carried both a Blackberry and an iPhone, with the former being my primary business phone and email device, and the latter being my primary web browsing and media device.

Being a primary device, I find that I still use my Blackberry more than the iPhone to take pictures, given that it has a better camera with flash, something even the new 3G iPhone still lacks. But I have NO music on my Blackberry, something I turn to the iPhone for on a long flight.

There are many users like me, who compartmentalize their professional and personal lives in a similar fashion, and use separate devices for each life. Or as Jim Courtney puts it in starker terms:

"The iPhone is left with two markets: younger generation consumers who want an expensive toy and Mac aficionados who can use the iPhone as an extension of their Mac experience."

Both RIMM and Apple have long-realized this and are increasingly beefing up their products and services, so that RIMM has more media, personal fun oriented features, and Apple has more business and professionally oriented features like "push" wireless syncing.

But it looks like for the next 12 to 18 months anyway, it's going to be a bit of a stalemate. And both sides will have interesting enough features to keep their core users hooked on their upcoming offerings. But neither will just yet have enough to make broad and deep inroads into the other camp's core functionality.

In the meantime, many of us gadget geeks will have to continue to carry around both devices.

ON SOFTWARE BUGS AND THE 3G iPHONE

2008-07-17T17:45:32-04:00

BUMPY ROAD

(Updated below)

All things are not rosy with my new 3G iPhone, as I've expressed in some posts on Twitter already. Having eagerly anticipated the App Store now available with the iPhone 2.0 software on new and existing iPhones and iTouch iPods, I'd downloaded and installed over 60 third-paid and free applications (aka Apps), onto the new device in the last week (image source).

And I've paid a price in device instability ever since. My brand new 3G iPhone has crashed and hung up on the boot screen, about five times now. Each time it happened while I was playing or trying to wirelessly update an application installed on the device.

Each time, after turning off the device and turning it on, I faced the famous shiny Apple screen, with no further response from the device. I even took it in to the Genius Bar at the Apple store on the first crash, and they couldn't revive the device other than a full reset.

That involves taking the device back to the factory installed settings, wiping out all the customized settings and newly installed applications. A full restore takes about two hours, even though all the applications and iTunes content are stored locally on my iMac. It's just a slow, slow process.

Well, I've had to go through five of these now, and have just finished and customizing the iPhone with all my favorite settings, bookmarks, mail accounts, and applications for the sixth time. And I'm planning to be much more careful in how I use the third party Apps, and how I go about updating them wirelessly (NOT).

Now, this post is not to complain about Apple, the new iPhone or the App Store. It's just to highlight one user's experience with brand new, version 1.0 software, whether it's on a device or in the cloud.

MacWorld makes this point particularly well in a recent article:

"With the release of the updated iPhone software, Apple flung open the doors of its new App Store. On its first day, the App store was populated with more than 500 programs, and that number is growing rapidly.

Think about that: 500 programs, all of them at version 1.0. On a device that had never before supported software written outside of Apple. It’s exciting, seeing the birth of a brand new software ecosystem. But it’s also scary. If people were worried about the first-generation iPhone hardware and software (many vowed they wouldn’t buy an iPhone until the second version arrived, for fear of buying a buggy 1.0 product), how should they feel about more than 500 programs on a brand-new platform, all at version 1.0?"

They go on to make the broader point of how the unique circumstances around the 3G iPhone introduction complicated the normal quality-testing process for third-party App developers:

"Unfortunately, there was no way for iPhone programmers to beta-test their products before the App Store launched. The software used to create iPhone programs was a secret. And only a select group of programmers were able to run their programs on real hardware, rather than in a Mac-based simulator. Developers in countries without iPhones could only test their programs on the iPod touch.

Even worse, Apple’s cloak of secrecy around the iPhone software programming tools prevented programmers from sharing tricks they had picked up during their work. The programming community, especially on the Mac, is remarkably collegial—programmers post blog entries detailing things they’ve learned all the time, and the quality of all the programs in the Mac ecosystem benefit as a result. Without blogging and Google searches, the only way iPhone programmers could share what they’d learned was through the old, inefficient medium of one-on-one conversations."

So, the reality is that early buyers of Apps on the Apple store on the new iPhone 2.0 software, are in for some continued instability. It doesn't mean we have to like it, but at least we may be prepared to grin and bear it...for now. It's Apple after all.

Update: After experiencing a 7th crash and hang yesterday, I decided to do a full restore of the iPhone WITH all the Applications, but WITHOUT turning on syncing with MobileMe, the upgraded version of Apple's old .Mac (aka dotMac) service. I especially didn't turn on the wireless, over-the-air "push" upgrading of my contacts, calendar, and email data via MobileMe, to see if this would stop the crashes.

It's been 12 hours since that restore, and so far so good. The iPhone seems fairly stable, and am able to run any of the 65 or so Apps without any problems. I still haven't tried to wirelessly update any of the Apps. For now, will hold off any wireless data syncing and/or updates. At least until the next firmware release from Apple.

ON THE NEW BLACKBERRY LINE-UP

2008-07-16T10:15:52-04:00

WHAT'S NEXT?

Now that many of us gadget junkies have gotten our 3G iPhone fix, the next big wait is for the two major releases from RIMM, the makers of Blackberries.

First up is the Blackberry Bold (one with the keyboard on the left, due out on U.S. carriers like AT&T) and the Blackberry Thunder (full touch screen a la iPhone, expected only on Verizon initially).

Gadget site BoyGenius has been on a tear of late on both these phones, with a full hands-on review of the Bold just a couple of days ago, and they seem to have the scoop on when these two Blackberries might be expected:

"We’ve been told that the Bold might have been pushed back yet again. What’s the whispered launch month now? September for a lot of carriers. That’s not to say it couldn’t launch sooner on a couple carriers, but that’s what we were told.
It looks like there are still some problems with the radio code that have to do with network roaming, searching, etc...
Now, what about the BlackBerry Thunder?...Here are the most confirmed Thunder dates: a huge marketing push in the U.S. starting in September, and device release in mid-October on Verizon. We said November because we were betting on a couple week delay which, knowing RIM, certainly wouldn’t be out of the question."

Of course, no word yet on the "Pearl" version of the Bold, which would be a slimmer profile with the much smaller keyboard. And the "Javelin" Blackberry, which would be the "Curve" version of the Bold, isn't expected until 2009 as Engadget reported last month. Later this year could also see the release of the "Kickstart" Blackberry, which is expected to be a clamshell version of the Pearl version of the Bold. Confused? Don't be...it's just a lot of Blackberries.

In any case, we're talking about waiting until Fall at the earliest for our new Blackberry fix.

ON SOME COOL, LESSER KNOWN iPHONE APPS

2008-07-15T08:18:00-04:00

NEEDLES IN HAYSTACKS

Well, I've had a couple of days now to play with the new iPhone 3G and the flood of third-party applications now available for it in the Apple App Store, both free and for a fee.

And the good news is that there are some pretty cool applications, especially games that take advantage of the iPhone various features and sensors. Look no further than the leading paid application that shows up at the top of the App Store list, Monkey Ball from Sega, as a good example. Apps like Monkey Ball have been long anticipated by users, given the opportunity they had to show-case themselves at Steve Jobs' 3G iPhone Keynote a while ago. There are already good reviews of some of the best applications by folks like Walt Mossberg, David Pogue and others.

Having downloaded over 60 free and paid applications and them for a bit, I thought I'd highlight five, lesser heralded applications that merit a closer look, at least from my point of view. In no particular order, let me start with:

1. vSnax Videos by Rhythm NewMedia, is a free App that offers bite-sized aggregation of entertainment videos. Although videos have long been available on the iPhone and iTouch through the YouTube application bundled by Apple on the home screen, vSnax's approach is more proactive in that it serves up a series of short videos in various categories that a mainstream consumer may find of interest. It's an approach I think most purveyors of videos on the web will adopt over time, given that consumers are already close to a point of being overwhelmed by the choice of stuff to watch, and the effort required to find the good stuff.

2."The Battle for Waterloo" by Touchtomes is a fascinating little game for $3.99, especially for those geeks who have fond memories of the classic text-based early computer games of Zork fame by Infocom, over two decades ago. We've made some progress from text here, where the story and game play are advanced by beautiful illustrations of that famous battle. Here's a flavor of the game from Touchtomes:

"“Battle of Waterloo”
It is 1815; Napoleon has escaped captivity, become Emperor of France, and has raised an enormous army of 125,000 men. With it, he plans to conquer all of Europe.

You are the youngest officer in the British Army, serving under the Duke of Wellington. You have just returned from a dangerous scouting mission near the French and Belgian border. “Sir,” you inform Wellington, “Yesterday I saw French troops invading!”

Pretty cool stuff, that sometimes reminds you that you don't need the latest tech features to provide a cool gaming experience.

3. OneTap Movies by Avantar is another application, available for $1.99, that's a good example of a new class of services that make it easier to quickly get lots of information on a subject, widely available on the web, in a convenient and graphically pleasing manner. In this case, the App does the following:

"OneTap Movies recognizes where you are and displays the nearest movie theaters, along with the movies that are being played, as well as the showtimes, critic ratings, basic info, posters, etc. All with a single tap of your finger. You can also watch the trailers or simply enjoy your time searching for details of any movie with a link to the International Movie Data Base (IMDB)."

Again, nothing one can't do with the excellent 3G browsing already possible on the new iPhone, but very convenient to get it all with "one tap" as it were.

4. Trism by Demiforce is a cool $4.99 App for those who already love classic games like Tetris and Bejeweled.

Trism stands for triangular prisms, which you move around and match by color to progress in the game. The game has a lot of polish and is fun to play using the iPhone touch interface.

There are various types of challenges available, so the game doesn't get old too fast. The developers have managed to cram in a good tutorial which is so far unusual for a lot of iPhone applications.

5. OmniFocus for iPhone is by the Omni Group, a developer well known for a number of great productivity applications on Apple's Mac platform. With a price point of $19.99, this is not an inexpensive iPhone App, but does provide pretty useful on-the-go productivity enhancing features. Here's how their site describes the application:

"OmniFocus for the iPhone brings task management to your fingertips. Keep track of actions by project, place, person, or date. Bring up a shopping list, agenda items to discuss at work, tasks for home, and any other lists you need.

Using your location, OmniFocus can create a custom list of actions to complete nearby. Buying groceries? OmniFocus can show you the closest grocery store and create an instant shopping list.

Capture tasks anywhere, anytime with OmniFocus: you can enter text, take a picture, or even make a quick voice recording."

There's a fair bit of power under the hood, especially if used with a beta version OmniFocus for the Mac, a separately sold desktop application, which will soon officially support the iPhone version of the App.

This list of five cool, lesser-known Apps is by no means comprehensive, and the above is but a tiny sampling of the good stuff that's available in rapidly growing piles of haystacks. To be continued.

ON IMPROVING THE Wii

2008-07-14T18:11:21-04:00

SHARPENED SENSES

OK, so now that the iPhone 3G debut Tsunami has passed, what can we geeks look forward to next? Well, the gaming industry confab E3 is at hand, and there should be a spate of fun product announcements this week. An example would this cool item from Engadget on Nintendo's plan to sharpen the motion sensitivity of it's world-beating Wii platform controllers:

"While we saw it hinted at in patents, Nintendo is springing quite the doozy on us at E3 in the form of its new Wii MotionPlus add-on. Perhaps in a preemptive strike against supposed Wiimote competition from the likes of Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo is beefing up its motion support with this add-on, which is supposed to proved "an unmatched level of precision and immersion," with sensors to supplement the accelerometer and sensor bar to provide 1:1 motion -- as in, I move my arm this much, my character moves his arm that much. So far that's all we know about the unit, Nintendo will be detailing more at its E3 media briefing tomorrow."

Kind of like Wii remote 3G, only without the 2-year service contract with AT&T.