The Point

Andreas Scherer on Business and Science

Apple’s Q2 Results

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Most companies would be delighted to present results similar to those of Apple. The company announced a $10.33B profit which turns out to be the 23rd highest quarterly profit posted by any company. But then there are three major issues with the Q2 results that we should not take lightly. First, the company “only” sold 51.19 million iPhones during the quarter compared to 61.17 million in the same quarter one year ago. Second, for the first time in 13 years Apple is not able grow its top-line. So, revenues are down. The company reported $50.6 billion in Q2 which is less then the $58 billion reported in the same period last year. Third, profits are down year over year as well. 

So, the question arises, is Apple still a growth story? Was this just a blip or is this a beginning of a new trend? A maturing iPhone market, increased competition in the PC market, questions about its ability to further penetrate the Chinese market and general concerns about the macro-economic climate are surfacing. In addition, there is this perception of Tim Cook being a masterful operator but not that visionary product whiz like Steve Jobs. The recently increased focus on paying out dividends and increasing the stock by back program don’t help. These are typically moves by maturing companies to prep up the stock.

In the end, these are no real problems for Apple. The next quarter can answer most of these questions, if Apple is able to get the iPhone sales numbers back on track. 

Please find my quote in Ecommerce Times here.

Google Launches New Incubator

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Google solved two major issues by setting up an in-house incubator. First, the company is full of high potentials with bright ideas. Over the years Google employees have left the company to start successful businesses on their own.  They are part of a network called Xooglers (short for ex-Googlers). Some have even started their own venture fund like Aydin Senkun who runs the angel fund Felicis Ventures. The incubator gives Google employees an opportunity to work on their ideas and build a business without leaving the Google ecosystem. So, this investment vehicle can be viewed as the ultimate retention tool. Second, the whole idea of Alphabet was to run all businesses that are not core to Google’s mission as separate entities under an umbrella company. This step was designed to increase visibility of all the various business activities such as X, Google Capital, Google ventures.  Following the thought process behind the formation of Alphabet, the incubator gives Google the opportunity to build a structured process around the creative energy within its organization. So, instead of implicitly funding ideas by tolerating employee driven side projects, there is a clear vetting process overseen by investment professionals. 

Here is the link to the E-Commerce Times article.

Teaching Bioinformatics Concepts & Practical Skills

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New breakthroughs are being made every day in genomics. It’s a dynamic and fascinating industry, and with exceptional growth forecasted in the DNA sequencing market, a new generation of people are entering the field: future researchers, clinicians, counselors and doctors. This new generation will need to learn not only the science, but also understand how to process the massive amounts of data generated with DNA sequencing (and genomics in general).

Managing large volumes of data is already a mission critical topic in bioinformatics, where many core facilities are overworked. They do their best to keep up with the demand, but going forward there will be more data, more projects and more people to support. How will bioinformatics keep up?

Now, as universities are putting educational programs together to prepare the next generation of scientists and clinicians to understand the ins and outs of DNA analytics, they are running into obstacles. Bright kids who are fascinated by the science (human, animal, plant) are not necessarily computer programmers nor do they want to be. Yet, many of the tools used to teach basic analytic skills in genomics programs are public domain/open source programs that require enormous amounts of computer science knowledge to navigate.

Read the full story on Our 2 SNPs… here.