Daily Dose of Pras

Best Buy essentially sells 3 things: hardware, media, and expertise

The first business is hardware: selling LCD TVs, Blu-Ray Players, Laptops, and cellphones
In the hardware business, there’s the Cost of buying the hardware from manufacturers and the operational costs of distributing that hardware across stores, and then the cost of operating the stores including the overhead, the people, and then of course the costs of managing a customer support center and finance / HR / marketing.

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For the suburban cowboy, his car is his trusty steed, and getting a car in Plano, TX was a right of passage. Almost a year ago, after a decade of faithful service, my trusty stead, a ‘98 BMW Z3 named Lola, breathed her final breath and died on the 101 just north of Whipple Road.

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Unlike Google, whose mission statement was “don’t be evil,” Apple has never had many qualms about acting like a dick. Don’t get me wrong: I think Apple’s (And Steve Jobs’) marketing and brand-positioning is genius. Microsoft, on the other hand, desperately wants to be everything to everyone, and, as a result, continues to build lowest-common-denominator-products and create lowest-common-denominator-marketing campaigns. Microsoft, for example, has to continue to support the 10-year-old Windows XP operating system to keep existing customers happy. Apple’s “take-it-or-leave-it” prickishness is brilliant - they’re attitude is essentially “if you have a problem with it, just leave.”

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