Liberty

I'm now in 7 public businesses, with my top 2 representing over 60% of my portfolio.

BB not doing too well in this consumer survey: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/07/ios-android-catching-buyers-eyes-while-blackberry-suffers.ars

FTP down a fair bit over the past couple days. Might be one of the last entry points this low before Thurso goes online this fall and/or before a new acquisition is announced (we should soon learn if FTP is the one that bought the LSQ mill)..

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201107181157dowjonesdjonline000171&title=president-obama-meets-with-more-than-a-dozen-business-leaders

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ebix-announces-addition-of-certain-large-distributors-and-insurance-companies-to-ebixexchange-2011-07-18?reflink=MW_news_stmp

For members of the VIC, here's a recent writeup about GOOG: http://www.valueinvestorsclub.com/value2/Idea/ViewIdea/51451

You seem to be misunderstanding what it means. In technology, an 'ecosystem' is just a bunch of stuff and people (hardware, software, developers) who work together based on a set of shared standards. There's the Windows ecosystem, the Linux ecosystem, the IOs ecosystem, etc. The word doesn't imply that there's just one or that it never changes, just that if you decide to make software or hardware for Windows, you'll probably have a bigger ecosystem to plug into (and to get support from) than if you decide to write software for Amiga OS.

"Ecosystem" is a term often used by programmers. It's jargon that has specific meaning in that technical context. I can understand how someone not used to that sphere could find it weird.

I didn't say that Apple is "perilously close to failure". I just think it's harder to look ahead because they have more eggs in the same basket. This can magnify successes, but also failures. I agree most of this, except that I think Android's fragmentation is manageable (more than the PC market was) because phones are more monolithic devices and the phonemakers have more control over what they include and what they can QT against (while PCs can be customized and modified a lot more). I also think that GOOG and its partners have shown that they take this seriously and have taken steps in the right direction. But I do think on top of this that microsoft hasn't done a very good job at quality assurance for a very long time. This often happens with (near) monopolies (Bell Canada had particularly bad service when they were a monopoly, etc). I mean, Windows ME? Vista? When it comes to consumer products, this is important. It shouldn't be your only reason for investing or not, but if you think that, for example, Chrysler being uncool doesn't impact their market opportunities, and that their being uncool isn't a proxy for many of their perceived mistakes, then you can misunderstand why certain companies succeed better than others. What I called "cool" you can call "brand equity" or whatever. Buffett understands that this makes a difference in Coke vs RC Cola and Gillette vs no name or whatever. It's a false choice. You can do both fundamental analysis and more qualitative analysis. Both approach complement each other, IMHO.

I don't agree with everything here, but worth adding to the pile: http://blogs.forbes.com/ericjackson/2011/07/15/research-in-motions-leading-and-lagging-indicators/

RIM has some lock in in the enterprise market, but a lot less than, say, MSFT. Phones are still mostly used for calls and emails. It's a lot easier to add some security features to iPhone and Android than it is to add the whole software ecosystem to RIM. To say that things are moving fast in the smartphone world and 'who knows what will happen in 4 years' is only partly correct, because the smartphone category was mostly a greenfield opportunity. RIM claimed lots of ground at first thanks to a first-mover advantage, but now their model isn't as effective anymore and iPhone and Android are gobbling up so much of the fast growing market that they'll be very hard to displace (especially Android, since at any time if one of the phonemakers makes a crappy product, a number of others can be making desirable ones, while if Apple stumbles, they only have one phone). To think that security is paramount for business is only partly true, IMO. If it was the case, they wouldn't have used the uber-insecure MSFT windows for the past decade. What's cool and desirable also matters to businesses, because they're made up of individuals who have influence over these kinds of decisions. Windows was never uncool in the enterprise because there was a big lock-in, there wasn't an obvious alternative/way out, and that's what people used at home anyways.. But RIM doesn't have that kind of lock in, people see the alternatives all around, and when people buy a phone for themselves, it's mostly Android and iPhone. Nobody wants to carry two phones.. I wouldn't be surprised if over time RIM lost the enterprise partly because of that. When I see someone pull out a Blackberry, I think: "Oh, he got it from work, or if not, he's not very savvy and still thinks BBs are the phone to get" while if I see an iPhone or Android I think "That's nice, I wish I could justify buying one of those...". I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking like that.

I second Peter on his "ecosystems" comment. Smartphones are getting to be less about hardware than about software and brand. Consumers want to associate with a "cool" brand (it's like buying a car - many people think their choice reflects their personality, it's a way to signal status), and they want to be part of the best ecosystem (familiar UI, lots of Apps, fastest rate of innovation, access to music, movies, etc). The soft network effect provides a moat (not super deep and wide, but better than nothing).. Why are they less about hardware? Because they'll soon all have high rez screen, GPSes, nice cameras, multi-touch, decent amounts of storage, etc. Once you have all that, what matters is the software ecosystem as well as what I would call the 'social' ecosystem (branding is part of that -- if you see your friends and people on the train with iPhones or Android phones and get familiar with those UI metaphors, you'll be more tempted to get a phone like that). IMHO, winners are Apple and Android, everybody else lagging significantly behind.

If you are really curious about Google's back story, I recommend the books about it, but if you just want a quick overview, this Bloomberg short documentary provides the 101: http://www.bloomberg.com/video/66114966/ Bonus: Larry Page's commencement speech at U of Michigan: Larry Page's stake in GOOG now worth over 16 billion: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-15/google-ceo-page-adds-about-1-9-billion-in-personal-wealth-after-earnings.html

There's a market for both. I'm the exact opposite; I find Office painful to use, bloated, expensive, etc, while Google Docs just does what I need and all my stuff is available from any computer or device instantly, easy to share and collaborate with others, etc. I always have a browser open, so I can access any document in about a second, which is better than launching a new software app that probably takes half a gig of RAM just to write a letter.. From a business perspective, one thing to consider is that almost all Google Docs users will be former MS Office customers, while most Office 365 customers will be former MS Office customers. Office software is quite mature, and I have little doubt that in a few years Google Apps will be where MS is now when it comes to functionality, while MS stuff will still pretty much be where it is now because new features for Office stuff are few and far in between. I've explained in another thread what I think about the disappearance of the lock in features that created such a network effect for MS.. Anyway, it'll be interesting to watch this develop.

Why the sad face? Did you short it? I bought GOOG 3 weeks ago. Up 24% since then. That's too short a time period for me to pat myself on the back and have an opinion either way on the correctness of my analysis, but I'm happy with Mr. Market;s mood right now and glad I didn't dither for a few days more...

Press release: http://www.ebix.com/pressrelease_text.aspx?artid=203

It's probably because I've listened to 30+ hours of his conference call recordings, but I can read Robin's facebook entries in his voice in my head. That's a strange feeling. In the middle of last night he posted: (and btw, to the EBIX skeptics, I am NOT submitting the above as evidence that Robin is honest. I'm very aware that a sociopath could have posted the same thing, so spare me the snark please)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-15/corporate-america-to-miss-munger-as-mencken-commentary-by-alice-schroeder.html

Looks like MSFT is working on its own social thingy,and they accidentally published part of it to the web (for real, check out: http://www.socl.com/ ). http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/14/microsoft-social-project-tulalip/ We'll see if anything ever comes out of it or if it's another Microsoft Research thing that never ships.

This is great news. Fairfax needs to keep going into sectors of the economy where they have an edge and can identify inefficient prices. India seems like such a place.

Small launch, but it will plug into social and could make google news more sticky and valuable than it already is: http://www.google.com/support/News/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1237021

Larry Page just said that over 10 million people are on G+, and they've had more than 1 billion items shared in a single day. Android now at 550k activations a day. 135 million Android devices in the wild, up from 100 million 3 months ago. Chrome at 160 million users. Last year it was 80 million. 3 billion video views per day on youtube. Live streaming of royal wedding was 100 million views. Great potential for video ads, which are higher CPM.

Q2: http://investor.google.com/earnings/2011/Q2_google_earnings.html up 12.29% after hours right now..

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/markel-announces-transaction-with-partnermd-125519693.html

Wouldn't it be machiavellian if the end game of the big player(s) shorting EBIX was actually to be long on the stock? First you destroy share price and make some money on the way down by shorting it, then when it's really low, you load up and stop the shorting tricks and ride it back up. No evidence that this is what it is, but that would be a doable - if improbable - evil plan, I think... Edit: Some stuff about put contracts (I'm a noob with options though, so I'm not sure what it all means exactly): http://www.benzinga.com/options/11/07/1763026/options-brief-ebix http://www.theoptionsinsider.com/unusualactivity/?id=7379