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  • Live at the Magic Bag, Ferndale, MI

    • 6 out of 10
    • Supersuckers
    • Man, there's nothing like good, old fashioned, rock and roll... add a bit of industry resentment to that with a double-shot of cynicism, and you get one of the best "new" rock bands going. This album
  • Abnormal Anonymous

    • 8 out of 10
    • Congo Norvell
    • Very few albums manage to capture snapshots of a quality of life in the manner that Congo Norvell's sophomore record, "Abnormals Anonymous," does.

      Comparisons to the Velvet Underground are

  • Is This It

    • 10 out of 10
    • The Strokes
    • The Strokes set the music world on fire with this 2001 album, with headlines declaring that the New York band was here to save Rock and Roll. While the band hasn't made as much of a splash since t

  • Spilt Milk

    • 10 out of 10
    • Jellyfish
    • The second and final album from this power-pop group makes me wish Jellyfish had been able to make just one more record together. The album is best enjoyed as a whole piece, flowing from one track to
  • Hello

    • 8 out of 10
    • Poe
    • Poe rocked my world with "Angry Johnny" (I want to kill you/I want to blow you/Away) and "Trigger Happy Jack" (Trigger Happy Jack/ You're gonna blow/But I'm gonna get off/Before you go), as powe

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Column: Competitors Show No Signs of Duplicating Apple’s iPhone Business Model

A detailed examination of Apple’s iPhone business model for the iPhone shows that Apple has completely understood the economics of the mobile phone industry and exploited them fully. Moreover, Apple’s competitors are showing no signs of either extracting themselves from their plight or producing a phone that can compete with Apple’s, according to Daniel Dilger at Roughly Drafted on Wednesday.

Mr. Dilger outlined the five money making elements that give Apple a competitive advantage over the competition. Those revenues can be used for technology development that the competition just cannot equal.

Those five elements are: 1) Manufacturing profits, 2) Retail profits, 3) Carrier revenue sharing, 4) Accessory sales, and 5) Software and media sales.

Essentially, Apple has created a broad in scope financial engine that generates a considerable cash flow. Most analysts have appreciated this cash flow engine, and investors, seeing that, brought Apple’s stock to the US$200 range in late 2007.

Mr. Dilger’s broader point, however, is that the financial leverage will allow Apple to climb the ranks of cell phone sales and seriously challenge the competition. For those observers who think that competitors will be able to conjure up an iPhone killer, Mr. Dilger suggested that, almost a year after the iPhone introduction, no one has been able to create viable competition not just for the phone itself, but Apple’s revenue model. He pointed to the continuing success of the iPod as an example. Making a small MP3 player is not all there is to this business.

"Of course, over the last decade no hardware maker has been able to offer a popular iPod replacement either, which should cause at least some pundits to rethink their fantasy position on the imminent arrival of a far more complex product to take on the iPhone, and by extension, its sophisticated iPod Touch cousin, both of which make the original, unrivaled iPod look like a rather simple gadget," Mr. Dilger concluded.

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