General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Apple Announcing Plans For $100 Billion Cash Surplus Monday Morning

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 08:55 PM PDT

Stock

We know Apple news isn't the most popular thing in the world around here, but when a tech company claims it will be announcing its plans for their $100 billion war chest in a conference call on Monday morning, we can't help but be somewhat interested.

The heads up on the surprise conference call came late Sunday, and will address the mounting pressure on CEO Tim Cook to spend the $97.6 billion sitting in Apple coffers. With no debt and market supremacy in mobile, it will be interesting to see if they plan to start paying hefty dividends to investors, or if they will snap up a few vulnerable competitors.

Heck with that much money they could bail out the government, buy themselves a national wireless carrier, or even pay factory workers in China a decent wage. We'll know one way or the other soon enough, but one thing is for sure, it will have a huge impact on the financial markets tomorrow.

Rumor: Asus Built Google Nexus Tablet Coming Soon – Under $200

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 08:21 PM PDT

Asus TabletWe've been hearing reports of a Google Nexus Tablet for months now, however the reports are suggesting it may be coming sooner, rather than later. Android and Me claims to have solid sources within Asus that report a $149 quad-core Nexus tablet is a "done deal", however The Verge is suggesting it might be closer to $199. Either way this is a great price for a 7-inch pure Google tablet, and will be an important step if they are going to protect the Google marketplace from the Amazon onslaught.

That is of course, assuming the rumors are true.

You could make the argument a Nexus tablet's primary competitor is the iPad, but lets face it, that war is over for now. The battle in the short term will be fought for second place, and right now Amazon's highly customized version of Android complete with a replacement content ecosystem is running away with the show. Google's Android chief Andy Rubin claimed 2012 would be the year they doubled down on consumer tablets, and the Nexus tablet may be the first serious competitor for the Kindle Fire.

Reports are suggesting that Asus will be the OEM manufacturer for the first wave of Nexus tablets, and that NVidia's Tegra 3 got the boot in favor of Qualcomm in order to keep costs as low as possible. Samsung may be the current king of the hill when it comes to Android tablets, however it's still a pretty small market that is aimed at the high end. If Google puts its marketing muscle behind a less expensive tablet it could help drive prices down, regardless of Asus's commercial success with this first attempt.  An advantage Android needs now, more than ever.

Microsoft Security Essentials Usage Rising Steadily

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 07:09 PM PDT

MSEMicrosoft Security Essentials has never been the absolute best anti-virus solution out there, but its pretty darn good. It catches the vast majority of the security threats in the wild today, is absolutely free, and is supported by the guys who make the operating system itself so performance is always top notch. Common sense would suggest these guys would be running away with the market share, and in-fact that's exactly what's happening. A software development and service company by the name of OPSWAT published a report this week based on the findings of their AppRemoval tool, and it shows Microsoft gaining ground at a rapid pace.

Avast continues control the largest share of the global market, however Microsoft is dominating in North America with 14.58 percent of Windows users, and 9.96 percent globally. Security Essentials users are primary still on Windows XP, however Windows 7 customers aren't far behind. Windows Vista represents less than 5 percent of the Security Essentials user base, but that could also be because nobody is still using Windows Vista.

The pay anti-virus market is something nobody is going to miss, and each new and improved version of Microsoft Security Essentials brings us one step closer to a future where it simply won't be necessary.For the time being you are still better off with the latest version of Norton if you tend to visit some of the seedier corners of the net, but hopefully that won't always be the case.

OPSWAT

Apple Continues to Make a Huge Margin on the New iPad

Posted: 18 Mar 2012 06:17 PM PDT

Cash

The new iPad can't play Crysis, its also practically useless for productivity tasks, but ohhh did we mention it's really shinny? Regardless of what you think of the iPad, or tablets in general, there is no denying Apple is doing a great job of exploiting the trend. Annual refreshes have added more horsepower and features while holding the line on price, but are the same margin's possible with a display that rivals most 24-inch desktop panels?

In short no, but they are still making a killing. Hit the jump for all the gory details. 

The bill of material estimates from IHS iSuppli peg the build cost of a 16GB Wi-Fi iPad 2 at $245.10, while the new iPad that replaces it tallies up to $316.05. The biggest cost differences is the display which costs about $30 more per device, along with battery that doubled in size adding $9.30 to the build cost. A $316.05 build cost sounds plenty reasonable with a $499 end user price considering iOS development isn't included in the estimate, and at the end of the day a profit must be made, however 64GB iPad's are a totally different story. A 64GB iPad with 4G costs $408.70 to build, and they rake in $829 per device sold.   

The best value for your dollar appears to be the 16GB versions, so if you'd rather put as little as possible into Apple's $100 billion war chest that's the way to go. The chart below gives you a full breakdown. 

iPad BOM
Posted by Shri Krishna

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