.jpg "Bulgarian academic slams Apple's business model -")
A Sofia University lecturer and the CEO of a Bulgarian software outfit has issued a stinging attack on the business model of the fruity cargo-cult Apple.
Speaking to TechEye, Steve Keil said that it made absolutely no sense that Apple's brand was worth more than half its market cap.
He said that it was idiotic and analysts and investors are crazy to allow the idea that Apple's brand is worth $154 billion to become common currency.
However Keil, who is seen as an IT business guru in Bulgaria has strong views about the state of Apple's business model which he describes as "out of date".
He said that Apple was trying to impose artificial scarcity on the "relatively boundless ecosystem of digital distribution" through its 30 percent cut of all subscription revenue.
"Leave alone their outdated model of "planned obsolescence,regardless of their size, profiteering, or giving a shit what Wall Street wants, Apple is illustrating a lack of understanding for long-term growth," Keil said.
It was more important for a firm to be worried about value creation and actual impact on people's lives. Apple was all about t-shirts, fancy painted factory floors and white plastic.
Sooner or later people are going to realise that giving Apple 30 percent just to re-distribute content that is already in a digital format is a poor business choice.
Keil said that Apple's entire history has not been without value. In the beginning it did do some good things.
"Lately all they've really done is convince a bunch of people that Apple itself is cool, and that if you identify with the Brand of Apple, you can be cool too," he said.
He said that what Apple has done is further disconnect people from society. The 30 per cent cut makes it much difficult for artists, writers, and producers of content to be marginalised for the profits of Jobs' Mob.
Keil said that Apple was thinking short-term, by sucking out all the profit for the people who actually create value.
"What they are really doing is providing incentives to stop creating the very content Apple is trying to profit from in the first place," he said.
Long-term, this will reduce the amount of content worth paying for, and thus the need for a stupid iPad v8.
He said that Apple is illustrating a lack of understanding, about the communities that create value, its own employees and the company's long-term sustainability.
Keil said that Jobs was ignoring one of the great gurus of the Free Market, Adam Smith who, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, pointed out that people are not merely selfish utility maximisers, but must act according to conscience.
Bulgaria is a small country where people know each other.
Everyone is free to be an idiot if he likes it but pls dont call every idiot "Sofia University lecturer and CEO of a Bulgarian software outfit".
I myself dont like Apple as well, but this is not the way to express it.
Let's do it; I challenge you to a debate on their long-term, sustainable business practices, right here, right now, on this forum. Let's hear something from you. You could even start with the predictable: you can open up with the ever-easy "oh, but their EBIT for 2010 is 18 Billion, they *must* be amazing contributors to humanity!" argument.
Go. Let's hear how genius your capitalist arguments are, Rich, and how Stanley, why don't you try actually contributing something positive rather than being a negativity troll?
The MO of Humanity is about turning everything into a religion, to dabbling into the religiosity because the truth/essence-of-the-knowledge is unattainable/unrealisable. Truth, like all principles, has 5 dimensions when expressed through humanity, namely subjectivity/the-conditional, objectivity/the-material, projectivity/the-intellect, spirituality/the-transcendent and finally real humanity. If true, in order to be a full/fuller human, we must realise our spiritual dimension, most being partial human oka partial animal. Beyond Humanity, lies Divinity.
The main difference between a human and an animal is the ability to think and not so much the genetic content/makeup/grossness. When a non-thinker tries to think, he will only realise shades of light and darkness/non-light. The fuller human does not think but realises - the secret which has eluded most throughout human history. When a self-realised human is thoughtless but is also fully aware, oka in-meditation, he, like the non-thinker, has “surrendered” to ”Nature” his insanity, being then mostly sane. Reality is not about effort but about being - To Be or Not To Be - regardless of academics, theologians and the rest of the insane lumping together in their effort of divining the truth through their imaginations, oka viewpoints.
The beginning of The Ending has started some decades ago, perhaps lasting for several generations and that begining for all is one’s Final Judgement - to judge oneself and not others. Do not try to judge “Apple” for when you lack the means to value yourself, you will have little means of valuing others, especially when most are partially blind-cum-blinded. When a puppet questions his puppeteer, all he gets is more string pulling like those jumping to attention when some national “Anthem” is being played. As such, the first duty of the insane is to at least realise their state of insanity and similarly, the first duty of every true human is to become one. Without being spiritual, that is an impossibility but then what is Spirituality? Spirituality is not about “ghosts”, faith, belief systems, and that biggy, religion, the religion of the left-sided being of worship and the religion of the right-sided being of saviourship. The Hallelujahs vs The Scientificos.
Regardless of whether those steering Destruction know/realise their complicity or not, they have become - “To Be” - the duty of every principle, be it real or conceptual, being to replicate itself. All the likes of “Apple” are trying to do is make others greed-cum-fearful, polarities being the different faces of the same coin, Greed being Fear expressed and Fear being Greed suppressed, Greed-Fear being “placed” lower than Anger-Guilt within the Scale of Destruction. Once we are able to judge/value our self, we will then be able to see through the machination and posturing/MO of others and when thus empowered, we are then that little bit more immune to the insanities once mesmerising us, Immunity being of the 5 dimensions as all principle have. Why would anyone argue with a chimp on the validity of arithmetic? Because they have yet to realised that the chimp is a chimp. The joke then is that once we have realised that we are talking to a wall, why continue on with the conversation? Because it looked so nice and sweet … and stoopid or could it be because of the desire to own, reality being the purity within one’s desire and falsehood being the desire for purity, to own being having been already owned or else there would have been the ownership issues.
Not everyone is going to “Make the Grade”. In fact, most are not going to, “Make It To Shore”, so to speak. When the day arrives and we see loved ones and friends perishing “Just like that”, who will be the lunatic-cum-idiotic complaining about “Rights” and who will be the idiotic-cum-lunatic still trying to sell “Insurance Policies”? Be surprise because right up until the very last moment, there will jokers trying their best to play out their ownership games if only because their existence through lifetimes has been about, ”I am”, and, “You are”, the former within Humanity being right-sided/egotistical with its latter being left-sided/conditional whereas within Divinity, the former is The Left/Love/Pure-Desire and the latter, The Right/Creativity/Creation. Humanity being always topsy-turvy, when we activate, we become egotistical and when we deactivate, we become conditional/emotional whereas when The Divine becomes egotitical, He [truly] Creates and when He is conditional, He Destroys. Before the latter happens, however, having already created and thereafter enacted Evolution, Truth is His Ego and Love is His SuperEgo/Emotional, He being He-She, differentiated but still the same because Truth is always “packaged” with Love whereas for us, Knowledge/The-Potential seldom comes bundled with Power/The-Kinetic. Witness therefore, all the religions we humans practice and calling them achievement and reality. Division being the goal, religious wars are then the empowerments. Just like the “Apple Wars”, the “Google Wars” or the ”Democratic/Lybian War”. Humans are stupid when we are blind and we become dumb when we are blinded. Afterall, put yourself in God’s shoes, what would you do when the child is constantly setting fire to the house, leaving it in flames most of the time. Build another house or allowing the child to open his eyes one very last time. Both because the former will be the result of the latter.