My normal morning ritual is listed below. Until I wrote it down, it wasn’t obvious how Google-centric it is. Take a look:

  1. Go to the Google diary to see what’s on for today (appointments, meetings, etc.)
  2. Examine Google News and iGoogle (where I have further news alerts)
  3. Go to Digg and Techmeme to see if anything is bubbling
  4. Check the regular email and gmail to see what came in over night
  5. Check the Google alerts in the email

To this, I can now add: Write blog.

I read the news today, oh boy..

  1. Microsoft: Following a run of bad or threatening news - loss of the EU antitrust suit, calls from the EU to unbundle Windows (ouch!), IBM and Google backing Open Office, Open Office sales taking off at Wal-Mart, etc. - Microsoft suddenly got some good news this morning, courtesy of Bungie Studios who build games exclusively for the Microsoft XBox. The new version of Halo (imaginatively named Halo 3) game has become a hit-before-you-can-buy-it, on account of rave reviews. Microsoft shares actually rose 3% on the news, prior to the release of the game.
  2. Apple: Apple shares also rose (3.5% to be precise), after a Citigroup analyst suggested that Apple was likely to beat current quarter Mac sales estimates. Piper Jaffray upgraded its Apple estimate last week for the same reason and, quite a while ago, reports were suggesting that the growth in Apple’s US PC market share in this quarter was likely to be dramatic. Meanwhile the US press continues to marvel at Apple’s successful iPhone launch.
  3. Nintendo: Many newspaper articles now suggest that the iPhone is the most successful product launch in history, but I’m not convinced. It was a truly successful launch no mistake, but even so, Apple was forced to cut the US price before the holiday season, when Steve Jobs introduced the new range of iPods. If it was such a successful launch then surely demand would not have dipped so quickly. By comparison, Nintendo is still unable to meet demand for its Wii 9 months after launch (it still sells at a $100 premium on eBay) and Nintendo says that it won’t be able to do so until March of next year. Of course you can argue that a “successful product launches” is measured by the volume of unjustified hype - in which case Apple wins hands down.

More tomorrow…

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