Amit Chokshi

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  • Two Compelling 'Cash Hoard' Stocks
    Why do you feel PLAY is worth $24 per share when they don't have the Apple business anymore? When it was providing the SOC chips to AAPL it could barely support itself stock wise and picking up incremental business from SanDisk and Creative Technologies won't do much to make up for that loss.

    They also rely on just one type of SoC platform that's really targeted towards PMPs. They are going into the cell phone business and there are rumors about Zune picking them up since PLAY's SoC will be in SideShow but the impact of all this is extremely difficulty to quantify. I'm not sure I believe Vista is going to spawn some notebook computer explosion where laptops equipped with sideshow devices will be flying off the shelf. I don't see a lot of differentiation between what SideShow devices can do relative to the next-gen handhelds which can synch to your computer as it is. PLAY's SoC costs more and is a higher end product which is fine but I think as PLAY goes downstream into other devices they'll run up against guys like SGTL and Action Semi that can price them out.

    Nonetheless, the cash balance should give you some safety but tech cos can be notorious from going through cash flow to cash burn. Also, the forward estimates are not that attractive, PLAY is really selling for at least 30x next year's EPS.
    Oct 10 12:01 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Microsoft's iPod Killer Emerges -- Should Apple be Scared? You Bet! (AAPL, MSFT)
    Lotus and Wordperfect, let's not forget Foxpro either, those could all be destroyed because the parent programmers were migrating from DOS to Windows and MSFT had the "environment"... that everyone was migrating too and between their bargaining power and muscle, they could force out Lotus and other competing products.

    When it comes to the mainstream consumer, however, and the current tech cycle, why hasn't MSFT's crappy money program done anything against Intuit's Quicken? And why wouldn't Adobe sue MSFT for that, in the tech world lawsuits are a dime a dozen, looking at ADBE's 5 or 2 year or 1 year chart doesn't really show any pressure due to their lawsuit with MSFT. If it was as material a concern as you point out, there'd be more focus on it by investors and ADBE management in their calls.

    And then you say "Microsoft will lose money on the hardware in order to ensure the platform supremacy of it’s products. Apple can’t do this because they have no widely accepted platform outside of iTunes. " What do you mean by platform supremacy? Where's the economic gain here, you said they are giving away the content, so that's free, plus they don't own the content anyway so would just skim off the media companies that do own it.

    First of all, MSFT can't force people to take their clumsy late to market PMP that comes out. So to incent people to try them, they'll likely be priced aggressively and lose significant money on that product. Ok fine, as you say they'll lose $ on the hardware to ensure "platform supremacy" which I guess is their iTunes competitor. Ok, so how the hell are they going to attract media companies to give them the rights to sell songs and get a piece of the action? If Warner Music wants consumers to have their songs, they'll go to Apple and deal with the $1/song because at least people buy it and there are enough iPods out there so there's a real market. You think WM is going to be happy that MSFT gives them more of a cut and allows flex pricing per song if only 3 million people own MSFT's device? Not all companies believe in loss leaders.

    Don't underestimate iTunes, if the iPod wasn't such a strong device, the media companies could have easily disintermediated iTunes by offering their songs directly on their websites.
    Jul 10 14:50 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Microsoft's iPod Killer Emerges -- Should Apple be Scared? You Bet! (AAPL, MSFT)
    The negativity is more of a result of the quality of your article. If you're looking for bashing and pumping based on how much people "like" a stock, company, or its products go to Yahoo's boards but there's generally less blind loyalty to companies mentioned in this site.

    MSFT's been in talks to develop an iPod "killers" for years, now they finally got around to where they might release one, big deal. AAPL owns the space as it is, unit sales have generally moderated at this point. MSFT is going to be competing for the same shelf space that Rio and SDSK and CREAF all do.

    And I think many people have all heard about the "threats" the various internet music stores from YHOO, AMZN, and even WMT were going to pose to AAPL. WMT was going to undercut AAPL and it was going to be over for them. MSFT is going to bumble into the MP3 market the same way they've done the console market, spend a lot of shareholder money and become an unprofitable second place market leader. The PS franchise counts for close to what, 40%, of SNE's operating profits, MSFT can't turn a profit on the 360. So some of the statements you make, about MSFT like "Microsoft has a pattern of entering a business and sucking the profit opportunity out of it by incorporating it as part of its platform. Why should entertainment infrastructure be any different?" is based on one example which is Internet Explorer. MSFT hasn't displaced Adobe or Intuit or other software vendors that MSFT would love to get its hands around. And have they done anything with the gaming console area? 17% of the market isn't bad but Nintendo actually makes money off their systems and the Wii reviews suggest the 360 could face competition from Nintendo (which doesn't do so bad at about 14% market share).
    Jul 10 13:14 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article

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