Same product, different prices

While finishing a load of laundry this morning, I had the TV on and up popped an ad for this amazing new product that can bond anything. I mean, ANYTHING. They're examples and demonstrations were impressive and it this miracle bonding product was cheap - two sticks for just $19.95. No, make that four sticks for $19.95 - they doubled the order. Sweet! But wait! Why double when you can triple! Yes, that's SIX sticks for just $19.95 (plus $8.95 shipping/handling).

Impressive!

Of course, the product is nothing new. Plumbers and handy men know the epoxy sticks well. Its cheap, easy to store and super easy to use. Bonds under water, has amazing strength when cured and can be easily sanded for a nice finish. You can find 4OZ sticks of this product at any hardware store, and find it online anywhere from $5.25 to $7 per stick.

If you happen to surf or windsurf, then you know this product by a different name. DingStick. I've holed boards sailing, came in, fixed the damage and was back out on the water in under 10 minutes. Great stuff. Of course, I just buy mine from a hardware store since I don't care to pay double for something just because its got a different name.

Marketing is an amazing trade. Taking the common and repackaging it into something "different" and being able to get a better price and margin for the exact name product(s).

We used to joke than when we'd go to a Gartner event, we raise our prices so that the enterprise IT guys would take us seriously. After all, how could an anti-spam system be effective that only cost $1999?? Strange but true - enterprise IT guys think that expensive means better. Then again, they get their power and control is based on the size of their budget and products like MailFoundry don't exactly burn through budget with our low cost.

Does your company have a product or service that has more value to a different market? Are you selling the same product to all markets when you could be selling custom products to multiple markets and garner better margins on some? Should we offer a "high end" version of MailFoundry to accelerate marketplace adoption in the Gartner space?

My next Mac?

Take a MacBook, add a touch screen, GPS and modify the chasis to a tablet form and poof! You have the ModBook. Pretty decent configurations, though pricey. But for what you end up with, its an intriguing product for sure.

These were the hit of the MacWorld Expo last time around, and now they're claiming a ship date that's actually in a real-soon-now timeframe.

I think Axiotron screwed up. They're building the machine lots of folks want to have, but Apple's going to do it better. They had a window of opportunity since the announcement (which was the same day as the iPhone announcement) and now Apple is headed right in their direction for handheld OSX machine(s).

Which would you rather have, a third party mod, or a product direct from Cupertino?

UPDATE - someone else is having fun playing "what if" with the UMPC idea.

It always comes down to revenue

In an earlier post about Facebook's valuation, I commented that unless they could monetize their user base, they were living in a bubble.

Fred was interviewed by BusinessWeek and was asked point blank what he thought Facebook was worth if he had to buy it today. The answer was $5B to $7B, roughly 1/3 the price Microsoft the others paid for the stock earlier this year.

While I think Fred's being pretty realistic, I think his number is high. He does nail it when defending his price that they need recurring, sustainable and growing revenues.

Sandbagging

9 to 5 mac is claiming that at the upcoming MacWorld Expo, Apple will announce that iPhone sales have hit 5 million units.

Nice!

I thought Steve might be sandbagging when he predicted that they'd sell 1 million this year, and 10 million iPhones next year.

So, if they've already sold 5 million, how many will they sell in 2008? 30 million?

Darwin foiled!

Last night while I was driving home, I could see the local rescue helo, Eagle III running a search pattern near the house over the bay. As a suspected, a few ice fishermen were out and a section of ice they were on broke free and they floated away. Luckily for them, their plight was seen by a resident on our road and 911 was called into action.

Every winter, before the water on the bay is fully frozen in thick ice, some idiots either go out fishing on the ice or go out on their snowmobiles. These two were lucky, even though they didn't even have a cell phone between them, they were pulled from their little ice island after about 2 hours by a rescue hovercraft.

Its sorry to think that soon they'll be pulling bodies from the water, and in the spring, this will all repeat again as the ice melts. Then there's a second wave of spring rescues as people venture out onto the bay in their canoes and kayaks when the air temps are in the 70's, but the water temps are still around 40.

I'm always amazed at when we pull some lucky soul from the water and he/she has absolutely NO idea as to the real danger their lives were in.

Sometimes Darwin wins, sometimes we foil him. I hate it when there's a missing body somewhere in the bay near the house. I always think I'm gonna be the one that finds it. (!)

The platform breakout of 2008

2008 is going to be a huge year for the iPhone (and iPod Touch). The news, development and sales growth/market adoption is going to literally explode in Q1 of 2008 and crank all year long. We're going to see massive pains for other handset phone and handheld computer makers as with the official release of the SDK, the iPhone/iPod Touch platform will run away from the status quo.

I'm not even going to speculate as to what sorts of apps we'll be seeing - but this isn't going to be restricted just to software. We're going to see new, innovative hardware as well.

This is going to have a large effect on overall Mac sales as well and when you look at Apple's growing marketshare, with people buying OSX machines, what does it matter if they bought a MacBook or an iPhone? They're BOTH OSX machines and the lines between devices start to blur as Apple defines a new set of rules in the "computer" game.

Last year Apple dropped "Computer" from their corporate name, and while 2007 laid the groundwork, 2008 is when the rubber really starts to meet the road.

Love the computers, hate the company

Today we have news that the Apple leak website, ThinkSecret.com has been effectively shut down by Apple.

For those of you who don't know, ThinkSecret has been amazingly successful in leaking/exposing Apple product info over the years. While Apple has served them both take down and cease and desist notices over the years, the most recent lawsuit has resulted in a settlement that not only got the website owner off the hook, but he also had to terminate operations on the website.

Back in the 80's, we Apple hackers used to say of Apple, "Love the computers, hate the company." I have to admit I don't remember where this came from, but lately with all the goings on with the iPhone development and these sort of things, this old adage keeps popping back into my mind.

Am I down on Apple? Nope. Because Steve was right, I'd rather be a pirate than join the Navy. ;-)