My latest on the Beast, regarding the rumors about Google and everyone else wanting to buy Yahoo. Money quote: Yahoo has turned into the Paris Hilton of tech companies—a ditzy, dopey outfit that remains enormously popular even though nobody, including Yahoo itself, seems to know exactly what Yahoo does for a living. And like the heiress, for reasons that most sane people can’t understand Yahoo continues to attract a string of potential suitors and to find itself the subject of constant rumors even though it long ago ceased to be...
Learn MoreThat’s the title of my piece that just went up on Daily Beast, and it’s what I kept thinking as I pored through the Isaacson biography, which landed on my iPad last night. Much of the stuff in the book is not new, but much of the stuff that is new is kind of disappointing to people who want to view Steve Jobs as a kind of messiah figure. The stuff with Lisa, the complaints from Jony Ive about Steve taking credit for things and being hurtful to people, the stuff about Steve never seeing his kids, his obsession with Android, the unkind comments about so many people around him, the crazy attempts to cure his cancer with carrot juice and acupuncture, the demand that Obama call him personally to request a meeting, the strange Montgomery Burns suggestions to Obama about deregulating businesses so they could be more like China and about making kids go to school 11 months out of the year and stay in session until 6 p.m. — these things do not add up to a flattering portrait and and they stand in stark contrast to the hagiography we’ve seen in the 19 days since Jobs died. Maybe this is a good thing. I’ve always felt...
Learn MoreA town in Mississippi figured out a strategy. If you’re in Cupertino, you have two hours to swing into...
Learn More“New York Stankees.” Heh. Dear Lord, please make this TV...
Learn MoreThat’s the headline on the article I posted on the Daily Beast last night after Apple reported its earnings. Gist is: Everybody take a deep breath. Apple turned in amazing numbers. The forecast for holiday quarter was strong. The stock hasn’t bounced back yet, but it will. Also keep in mind that Apple didn’t miss; Wall Street did. Apple forecast $25 billion in revenues, and beat that by quite a bit. The number that Apple “missed” was the Wall Street consensus. To be sure, in past quarters Apple has always underestimated its numbers, so you can’t blame Wall Street for starting to expect more than what Apple tells them to expect. Fingers crossed on the holiday quarter, but I’d bet it will be a...
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