Hate To Say I Told You So...

The Power of Brand

Apple proved again this morning that they have one of the best brands in the world. Yes, I know that smartphones are becoming commoditized. But so are cigarettes. Yet people pay a premium for Marlboro.  Brand does matter. And in the case of smart phones (and tablets), it goes beyond the brand as people have comfort in the Apple Eco-system, so there is first mover advantage as well.

Could anything be clearer than these points when reading press releases from AAPL and MSFT today?

• First Weekend iPhone Sales Top Nine Million, Sets New Record. 
• Microsoft unveils Surface 2, Surface Pro 2 and new accessories. 

With the Surface 2, MSFT is offering MSFT office, 200 gb of free skydrive and free skype calling internationally to landlines.   We will see what we will see, but I am guessing that MSFT will have trouble denting the ipad lead even giving away stuff that arguably has a retail value of over $300.  And to add an exclamation point, I am thinking about a new tablet and even with the Add ons, I am not tempted by the Surface. I really like the ipad experience and the way my Apple TV and iPhone all work together and frankly do not mind paying a little bit extra to know everything will work smoothly together.  Apparently I am not the only person in that camp, nine million iPhones in a weekend!  Is it fair? Probably not. If the Surface had come out concurrent with the Ipad, I might have not gotten into the Apple system. Perhaps the Surface is great. But once you start smoking Marlboros, or drinking Coca-Colas, it is difficult to switch.

And the Coup De Grace, I came home this evening to my 13 year old daughter with her iPhone saying, "dad, I love the new iTunes radio!".  Shall we start the death march for Pandora?

Back to the Well

I have been disappointed three or four times with Fidelity on IPOs. I am going to try again this week with MONT. We will see if my whining l week helped at all.  This is actually a semi conductor company a lot loike RDA.   I will let you know later in the week how it works out.  My expectations are low.

Solid Day

For a bit of a downdraft day in the markets, my portfolios actually held up quite well.  I was actually up overall, clearly the AAPL bump helped a lot.