albeit a small one. It is clear that VCs are funding a lot of copycat companies that probably will never be really successful. That being said, the notion that this will be anything like to dot.com bubble is nonsense. Then there was a lot of money chasing companies that had no revenue and no sustainable business model. Internet advertising was a novelty and the watchword was eyeballs regardless of revenue. Now people care about eyeballs only insomuch as they generate actual revenue through a solid advertising based business model (thanks to Google). Therefore, the ad dollars will not dry up, and most of the companies started will survive. Also, the valuations, while too high, are not insane like before. MySpace, for example, is worth far more now than at purchase; Google's IPO price was one of the bargains of the century, etc., which is unlike the crash and burn experienced shortly after most IPOs in the last cycle. But certainly there will be a winnowing out, as there should be.
Both this comment and Linspireman miss the point, Apple is not angling to be a dominant factor in the desktop race. That war is over and Microsoft won. Apple is trying to be a computer electronics company, and to get to the TV. The Mac mini is a nascent set-top-box and most of Apple's future products are aimed at entertainment, not computing. Yes, they still build equipment for the creative professional, such as the G5 and Xserve, since that keeps them in the production game. But Jobs recognizes that the future is in the entertainment cabinet, not the office. That is why the focus on HD, the sexy products, the rise of the iPod and other iPoddish devices. Apple is changing the playing field, to a field it can win on, not reliving the past.
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albeit a small one. It is clear that VCs are funding a lot of copycat companies that probably will never be really successful. That being said, the notion that this will be anything like to dot.com bubble is nonsense. Then there was a lot of money chasing companies that had no revenue and no sustainable business model. Internet advertising was a novelty and the watchword was eyeballs regardless of revenue. Now people care about eyeballs only insomuch as they generate actual revenue through a solid advertising based business model (thanks to Google). Therefore, the ad dollars will not dry up, and most of the companies started will survive. Also, the valuations, while too high, are not insane like before. MySpace, for example, is worth far more now than at purchase; Google's IPO price was one of the bargains of the century, etc., which is unlike the crash and burn experienced shortly after most IPOs in the last cycle. But certainly there will be a winnowing out, as there should be.
Both this comment and Linspireman miss the point, Apple is not angling to be a dominant factor in the desktop race. That war is over and Microsoft won. Apple is trying to be a computer electronics company, and to get to the TV. The Mac mini is a nascent set-top-box and most of Apple's future products are aimed at entertainment, not computing. Yes, they still build equipment for the creative professional, such as the G5 and Xserve, since that keeps them in the production game. But Jobs recognizes that the future is in the entertainment cabinet, not the office. That is why the focus on HD, the sexy products, the rise of the iPod and other iPoddish devices. Apple is changing the playing field, to a field it can win on, not reliving the past.