SlashGear for iPad and iPhone
RSS Feed

‘Avi Greengart’ Stories

Analyzing E3 2012

, Jun 9th 2012 Discuss [13]

E3 is an interesting event – it’s a cross between CES and Comicon. Technically, it is an “industry” event not open to the public, but apparently if you work at a Gamestop you qualify as “industry.” Were people dressed up in costume? Yep. Were there scantily clad booth babes? Lots. One company just outside the convention center had women in bikinis posing for photos as a tie-in with their… no, it was entirely gratuitous. Did people stand in line for hours to get cheap SWAG? Absolutely. In fact, the lines were far longer to get free Oswald Rabbit ear hats in the Disney booth than to play games on the Wii U in Nintendo’s booth. That sort of blew my mind: you get the chance to go hands on with unreleased hardware and software and instead you wait for a silly hat? And yet E3 is not a gaming festival – there was plenty of actual news at the show.

Read The Full Story

Conversations with a Finnish Journalist

, May 15th 2012 Discuss [18]

With Nokia’s Lumia 900 launch well underway, I have gotten a lot of questions from the press about Nokia, Microsoft, Nokia’s marketing strategy, Microsoft’s marketing strategy, and its chances of success. The most interesting was a conversation I had with a Finnish journalist. Nokia is extremely important to Finns, accounting for a measurable chunk of the entire country’s GDP, and the perception of Nokia in Finland differs significantly from the rest of the world. I found myself discussing some basic issues about the company and the market that tech journalists from the US and UK just don’t ask. The following is an edited version of our conversation.

Read The Full Story

Do You Trust RIM?

, May 13th 2012 Discuss [24]

RIM is in a heap of trouble, but you wouldn’t know it from the attendance at BlackBerry World in Orlando earlier this month, where literally thousands of people packed a giant conference room to hear CEO Thorsten Heins’ keynote address, meet with RIM account teams, and attend developer events. These weren’t just holdouts from RIM’s government or enterprise base, either; RIM allowed BlackBerry World alumnae to skip some lines, and the “SpeedPass” lines were 20x shorter than the regular ones. RIM has been growing rapidly some global markets, and many of the attendees appeared to hail from these locales, where the BlackBerry brand – and BBM in particular – are hallmarks of upwardly mobile youth.

Read The Full Story

It’s a “Beats” World, We Just Listen To It

, Apr 1st 2012 Discuss [14]

Did you see this product announced, back on March 5? I didn’t think so, but if you’ve been watching American Idol, you should have seen ads for Beat’s audio “Beatbox portable,” which is, “an AT&T exclusive.” I have been trying to wrap my head around the idea that a wireless carrier would want to procure exclusive distribution for a portable speaker, and then spend millions of dollars advertising it (a 30 second spot on American Idol costs approximately $500,000). Oh, and the price of the speaker itself? $399.

Read The Full Story

Avi Greengart’s Toy Fair 2012

, Feb 19th 2012 Discuss [8]

I have attended and spoken at a lot of trade shows over the years – consumer electronics, telephony, computing, broadcasting, database programming, home theater, whatever SXSW is – but I have always wanted to go to Toy Fair. Even the name of it sounds like fun – who doesn’t like toys? This year I finally found an excuse to go, and it wasn’t to see Star Wars toys. (Well, at least it wasn’t the only reason.) At CES this year, there were tons of connected toys – board games that interact with an iPad, children’s educational tablets, and lots of flying things with iPhone controllers. I covered a few of these in my holiday gift guide, but thought that it would be worth attending Toy Fair 2012 and seeing how deeply connectivity really went in the toy industry. What new gadgets would I find? Are vendors embedding 3G and 4G radios into toys, or just WiFi? Toy Fair agreed, and gave me a press pass.

Read The Full Story

The Future of Retail: Apple’s Grand Central Station Store

, Dec 23rd 2011 Discuss [9]

Earlier this month, Apple opened a new store inside New York City’s Grand Central Station. This is not Apple’s only store in Manhattan and does not make a dramatic architectural statement like its Cube on Fifth Avenue. Much of its retail model has been seen before in other Apple stores. Yet when I visited it just before it opened it felt radically different than any other retail environment – even different from other Apple stores – and serves as an object lesson for how to sell and support digital products at retail in an increasingly online world. Even if you dislike Apple’s products (or just some of its more enthusiastic fans), if you’re in Manhattan, Apple’s store is worth a visit. Apple claims that it sells more per square foot than any other major retailer in the world, and while some of that is due to products that sell well on their own, Apple’s retail store processes, compensation structure, and architecture all play roles worth investigating.

Read The Full Story

Avi Greengart’s Last Minute Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide 2011

, Dec 17th 2011 Discuss [3]

Every year SlashGear puts together a gift guide that covers all the usual big ticket gadgets that people want for the holidays. It’s a great guide. However, what if you you’re looking for something a bit different or trying to find something for someone a bit harder to shop for? That’s what this guide is for.

Read The Full Story

Apple Fall 2011: Worst Case Scenario (for Apple’s Competitors)

, Sep 21st 2011 Discuss [37]

In my last column, I discussed what I consider a fairly plausible, if unsurprising, set of expectations for Apple this fall. I called it a Best Case Scenario (for Apple’s Competitors). Click through to read it, or if you need the Cliff’s Notes version, that would be:

1. The existing iPhone 4 remains on the market or is replaced with an 8 GB version.
2. Apple introduces the iPhone 5 with a larger display, dual core processor, and camera spec bump. And it’s thinner.
3. Apple updates the iPod line with new colors, tweaked designs, and a smaller nano that is designed to work well as a watch.

Read The Full Story

Apple Fall 2011: Best Case Scenario

, Sep 18th 2011 Discuss [9]

In my recent report on Steve Jobs’ resignation, I noted that many pundits seem to think that without Steve at the helm, Apple will lose some of its competitive edge. While anything can happen in the long run, in the short term this is dangerously stupid thinking. Let’s recap:

Steve did not invent Apple products alone. Nearly his entire executive staff — including everyone involved in iOS product design, development, and manufacturing — is still at Apple, and it’s not like they will suddenly forgot the lessons learned from working with Steve over the past decade (the man makes a strong impression).

Read The Full Story

The Smartphone 70%

, Aug 3rd 2011 Discuss [8]

It’s quarterly earnings season, and while I don’t care much about differences in valuation multiples or whether a company beat EPS consensus by two cents a share – I’m a market analyst, not a financial analyst – quarterly earnings are a great place to find data indicating how the market is changing. Sometimes the best information is buried in the balance sheet and requires a bit of detective work and familiarity with how the company accounts for its products, divisions, tax strategy, and currency fluctuations. And sometimes you get lucky and the press release is all you need.

Read The Full Story

Good Companies, Bad Products, Part II

, Jun 19th 2011 Discuss [16]

In my last column, I talked about some of the reasons good companies make bad products – and how sometimes, the products are fine, we’re just biased. Or that the product was made by engineers for engineers. Or that the CEO personally pushed for it and no one was willing to contradict him.

Sadly, there are several other reasons why good companies make bad products.

Read The Full Story

Why Do Good Companies Make Bad Products?

, May 18th 2011 Discuss [18]

When I first started as an analyst, my cousin asked me a fairly basic question: “isn’t all your analysis positive? Why would a company deliberately ship a bad product?” I was reminded of this question as I worked my way through several products over the past few weeks that definitely are not getting positive reviews.

Read The Full Story
Pages: 1 2 3 Next