Can Apple alone rightly and broadly sells and markets this new device if it's really what the rumors say it is?
I'm really not sure. The failure of the Newton and Pippin, which are similar in many ways, might be enough to cast industry-wide FUD on the AMP. Certainly having Sony in on the deal would be great for Apple, if only because it would make an ally out of one of their most dangerous likely competitors.
I appreciate your "if it's really what the rumors say it is." It's pretty clear that someone is going to come out with a handheld DVD player. But there's no hard evidence that that someone will be Apple, or that an Apple DVD player would be first, best, successful, etc.
I'm not sure why Disney has come up in these discussions. It seems like the Disney connection came up by accident when someone sent a letter around saying that Disney buying Apple would be a good fit, and people have run with that. See Macintouch's:
macintouch.com
The article in the middle by Larry Reich claims responsibility for starting the rumors. The thing that doesn't make sense to me is when people say that Disney will support AMP by producing DVDs for it. Disney, along with every other movie maker, will produce DVDs of their movies, sooner or later, regardless.
Actually, the hype surrounding the AMP worries me more than anything else right now. The last thing AAPL needs is to gain on hype and fall on news (or lack of it), just when the stock was starting to show strength based on fundamentals.
rhet0ric |
