Steve Jobs quits as CEO

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/08/24/steve-jobs-resigns-as-apple-ceo/

Whoa.... Steve quits as CEO (everyone who follows Apple would have seen this coming a year ago), the share price tumbles 5%+, and all of Apple's competitors whoop for delight... ;-)

Seriously though, looking at Apple today, it will definitely survive Steve Jobs in the near to mid term, simply because they have such a huge advantage in certain markets - digital music, iPhone, iPad, consumer PCs, and more importantly, the highest profit margins in each of those markets.

What would be interesting would be to see if Apple innovation and creativity will continue, say in 5-7 years' time,  when everything you see today has become obsolete. Will the people Steve has trained for the last decade or so be able to foresee tech trends the way Steve has done so brilliantly?

Side note - AAPL share price now very attractive... hmm...

/ac

Signs there's still hope for this World yet, Part 1

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/police-japanese-returned-78-million-missing-cash-quake-174212622.html

The Japanese continue to amaze me all the time. They suffer with grace and dignity and endless patience.

Contrast this with the recent riots and looting in the UK.

HP kills webOS devices

HP just announced that they are killing the TouchPad / Pre line of webOS devices. The exact wording is "discontinue operations for webOS devices".

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/hp-punts-on-webos-discontinues-touchpad-cuts-outlook/55386

What this means is, I think, HP couldn't sell enough TouchPads, just like Palm found out a couple of years ago that they couldn't sell enough Pre smartphones, and now decided to cut their losses.

I'm quite surprised by the timing of all this. Just one month ago, Jon Rubinstein was being quoted, more or less, as saying HP has a whole host of webOS products coming out -

http://thisismynext.com/2011/07/14/dewitt-rubinstein-interview-exclusive/

Then they announce the TouchPad 4G, and the Pre3 just went on sale a couple of days ago in Europe.

Now, they cancel everything? WTH?

The sad thing about all this is, webOS now looks like it's gonna die, unless HTC or Samsung decide to license it from HP, which seems unlikely, given they are all-in on Android right now (although that could change, given what Google did about a week back).

I was soooo looking forward to the Pre3 and the next-gen TouchPad, particularly for webOS, but now, another potential gem could just be lost to tech history. Damn.

/ac

Google acquires Motorola

Amazing news. US$12.5 billion (!)

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/supercharging-android-google-to-acquire.html

Choice quote from Larry Page -

This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences.

We recently explained how companies including Microsoft and Apple are banding together in anti-competitive patent attacks on Android. The U.S. Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to “protect competition and innovation in the open source software community” and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction. Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.

The combination of Google and Motorola will not only supercharge Android, but will also enhance competition and offer consumers accelerating innovation, greater choice, and wonderful user experiences.

The crucial parts above indicate that the purchase is more about Motorola's patents rather than Google being interested in manufacturing handsets.

The ongoing litigation between the big boys, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Samsung etc, also shows how desperate these companies are to establish a space for themselves in the new mobile world. Which also tells us all how immature the mobile space is currently, and how confident all these companies are that there is huge growth potential in the mobile space. Recall the same thing happened with MS and Apple back in the early days when Windows was trying to establish itself with Win 3.0 before becoming dominant with Win 3.1 and Win 95.

:)ac

BWF World Championships 2011 - Singaporean stuns Taufik Hidayat

See this link - it's a French based website

http://www.badzine.net/news/worlds-2011-day-3-%E2%80%93-pi%E2%80%99s-back-spanish-speakers-shine-again/15830/

Also this one - this is an Indian newspaper

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/more-sports/badminton/Hidayat-bounced-out-on-his-birthday/articleshow/9559900.cms

Both articles reported on the stunning news that Derek Wong, a 22 year old Singaporean, had stunned Taufik Hidayat, the Indonesian legend in straight sets. Both sites also got quotes from Derek, and he seemed delighted with the result, which puts him in the last 16 of the World Championships.

As at 11:30am this morning, I have checked and re-checked the local news websites, Straits Times and Today Online, and neither of the websites carried any news on this wonderful win for Singapore badminton. Channelnewsasia only had an article which was taken from AFP, and which is titled "Hidayat suffers birthday blues at world championships."

Come on, surely the local sports journos would have caught wind of this, and at least tried to call up Derek to get a quote??

/ac