Apple announced its quarterly earnings this week and, while the company reported record earnings — AGAIN — its outlook for next quarter is the most conservative in years.
The takeaway is that the company is in fine shape but faces some real challenges. Some, like unfavorable currency exchange rates, are nothing it can do anything about. Others like declining iPad sales and slowing iPhone sales growth either need to be addressed or Apple needs to figure out where its next growth with come from, something it’s surely already doing.
So, after that staid and sensible analysis, who’s ready for the dumbest framing of Apple’s results ever?!
“Apple vs. Microsoft: Here’s who won.” (Tip o’ the antlers to @JonyIveParody.)
The Macalope feels dumber having just read that headline.
Apparently, after 30 plus years of competition, after this battle having been declared “won” repeatedly, it’s now “won” for sure and, uh, yeah, it just happens to be after Apple announced a rougher forecast than usual so Apple loses, The End.
Well, that’s… awfully convenient for Microsoft. Oh, well!
Apple is bigger than Microsoft. It’s more valuable, has more financial firepower and has also been growing faster. But Microsoft’s stock is blowing away Apple’s – because for investors – last year is ancient history. It’s the future that matters.
And it’s not like investors ever made any mistakes before based on the advice of slack-jawed analysts who barely understand how cupcakes work, right? A subprimesayswhat?
Shares of Microsoft are up 26.5% over the past twelve months – which not only beats the 5.4% decline by the Standard & Poor’s 500 during that time but makes Apple’s 18.4% decline look even more glaringly bad.
Uh, yeah, that’s also because Microsoft spent 15 years scratching itself and playing Halo and has only really finally gotten off the couch and cleaned out the garage in the last 12 months. It still hasn’t cleaned out the attic.
This is more of Krantz’s patented Microsoft boosterism which he probably shouldn’t have bothered to patent because nobody really wants to duplicate it.
Now. Remember the headline? And all the rest of the article? Well, funny thing happened on the way to the conclusion…
Technology moves fast. Just one quarter isn’t long enough to judge a winner.
Oh, for… YOU JUST DID EXACTLY THAT.
But the comparisons are telling.
Matt, you’ve got a clump of your own cake on your… from when you shoved your face into it and ate… no. No, to the left. Over…
Forget it. Just… forget it.