Tuesday, May 1, 2012

The Death Of The Deadbeat Carriers, Part 2 - Apple Avoideth, Google Destroyeth


Yesterday I claimed US Cellular Carriers Are At Risk Of Being Marginalized Into Nothingness Unless They Learn To Think Outside The Box... Yesterday. There are some who allege that the US cellular carrier industry is a government protected triopoly, hence they have no true incentive to innovate. I cry bullshit! The faster, more innovative companies such as Apple are scheming on marginalizing the carriers to the utility status they are role playing as. The self-proclaimed shepherds of global data, Google, are looking to eliminate the need for carriers... Period!
I look at these things from a very analytical, very strategic, and longer term perspective than sell side analysts and many investors. See Analyzing Apple's Q2 Earnings for a recent and fresh look at Apple that you won't see anywhere else, and Cloudy Days Ahead For Google for the same on Google. When others may have rose colored glasses on, I took the lenses out of my glasses out of paranioa for fear of the glass denying my raw access to the visual data:-)

Apple Avoideth

One should be expecting soft sim iPhone coming out in iteration 5 or 6. Why? Because the carriers exercise too much control over Apple's distribution system. Yes, Apple has succeeded in virtually benidng AT&T (among other select carriers) over and sodomizing them for what amounts to the right to sell aan expense sinkhole with the hope of stuffing overpriced data plans down said hole after it was dug, but as the competition heats up with Android carriers are actually starting to push back a little. Gone are the days where Apple can get AT&T to overpay for iPhones then take the risk of reselling them, all the while sharing the data/voice revenue. Now, carriers are actually reading the contracts before signing them. Next thing you know a calculator, then spreadsheet may come into play. uh Oh!!! When carrier start to excersise their muscle as the gatekeepers of the average consumer's limited attention span and easily swayed marketing awareness, they can exert undo control over hardware vendors. Apple is a hardware vendor. So, Apple is apparently actively developing and testing soft SIMs (ex. SIMs that are based in the firmware of the phone versus burned into a physical chip).
What does this mean? It means that you can OTA update your iPhone with a new carriers identifying info on the fly. Layman's terms: You buy your iPhone unlocked from Apple and you can swittch between carriers at  whim. This carrier has a cheaper rate or roaming, simply click icon for carrier A. The same goes next month for carrier B, C or D. No more contracts! No more termination fees! And most importantly, at least to Apple, no more carrier ass kissing and lock in! Search the web for yourself...
  1. Apple: Smaller iPhone, Soft SIM Coming, Says Bloomberg - Tech ...

    Feb 10, 2011 – Apple: Smaller iPhone, Soft SIM Coming, Says Bloomberg ... the iPhone 4 — that may help stem the advances of Google's (GOOG) Android, ...
  2. Buying your Soft-Sim mobile. Who's taking control? Who should get ...

    Sep 14, 2011 – This post talks Sim-free or soft-SIM solutions and implications. At one time it ... When will we tire of Apple or Google being our gatekeepers?
  3. Soft and hard SIMs

    Dec 13, 2010 – So the Apple UICC containing soft SIMs and an SE may not be such a bad ... the NFC interfaces that will be built in by GoogleApple and RIM.
  4. Is Apple About to Cut Out the Carriers? — Tech News and Analysis

    Oct 27, 2010 – It's rumored that Apple and Gemalto have created a SIM card, which is ...by putting its own SIM inside the iPhone, it could do what Google with its ..... IC radio chips and radio software stacks – in *addition* to the SIM card.
  5. Apple And The 'Soft Sim': Not On The iPhone, But Maybe On the ...

     Nov 22, 2010 – ... reportedly up in arms over Apple's plans to integrate a "soft Sim" into it… ... Hey, Google, you took advantage of that whole Android/iOS war ...
  6. Light Reading Mobile - Jonestown - Apple's 'Soft-SIM': Not Too ...

    Oct 28, 2010 – Apple's 'Soft-SIM': Not Too Useful in US ... definitely save money over time by paying more upfront for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus from Google...

TECHSEMIGURU: Apple: Smaller iPhone, Soft SIM Coming, Says ...

Feb 10, 2011 – Apple: Smaller iPhone, Soft SIM Coming, Says Bloomberg ... th

Google Destroyeth

I have alledged that Google is MASSIVELY undervalued and grossly misunderstood. This is actually a very good thing for Google, for management has demonstrated that they are in this for the long term and the less resistance they get to their Borg-like initiatives, the better. This is probably a good thing for investors as well, for it the market corrects (as it damn well should) astute financial types can pick up massive parts of the future of computing and data at very, very low prices. All it would take is time and realization of reality to accrue significant value appreciation. Many know of Google's Android, Google's search and ad networks, Google's YouTube and TV initatives and Google's cloud offerings, but most are not aware of Google Fiber! The following is taken directly (with my annotations) from Google's Asheville blog:
“Google fiber” is shorthand for the “Google Fiber for Communities” project.
The goal of the project is... 
... to build a fiber optic network – your connection to the Internet, more or less – right to your door.  This network would be different than what you have now in that it would be a lot better and more stable.  It would be, for example, 100x faster than the maximum speeds you have now and it would be open source (think the opposite of a toll road).  It would also be capable of carrying enough stuff so that TV, phone, web would all fit in one connection.  And it would all be very fast. Google has stated that they are willing to spend up to 500 million dollars (probably split among a few spots) and then charge for Internet access at a “competitive rate.”
Like you, I thought Google was a search company. Why do they want to build an experimental network and sell me broadband services?[tweetmeme source="googleavl" only_single=false]
That's right! Google is looking to directly commoditize the broadband carriers, just as they did the news organizations, the online ad agencies, currently doing the smart phone industry... No, Google is not a search engine company, as I have said so often in the The mobile computing wars series. Google is a data company, and as such, anything that has to do with the movement, storage, organization, manipulation, control and intelligence of said data, Google either has their hand prints on it or are reaching for it. May the ignorant, and the slower moving competiion, beware!!! Again, excerpted directly from the Google AVL blog, which is the blog that is detailing Google's buildout of the high speed fiber network to the doorstep in the city of Asheville as well as Kansas City, both of whom competed against many other cities for this privilege. That's right! This is not a pie in the sky initiative, this is something that is being built right now by a company that is not know for taking its time... I  stronly suggest interested parties visit this site after persuing my thoughts on Google, in order to get a clearer view of the BIG PICTURE...

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