Apple and Nike – joined at the bluetooth Shoe. Oakley and Sandisk lose again. UPDATE – Dell with a bad, bad idea.

Here is Apple’s spin . I have no feel other than it is always good for Apple to partner and entrench.

Oakley so missed the boat here. Oakley, a brand which I love, is run by a man who shits on his shareholder’s. As I have said before in this blog, he needs to be private. The stores should have been a homerun. Instead, they are a deathtrap as Gateway’s were to Gateway. Hiding great products behind locked glass in a dark store is just plain stupid. Fred Wilson talked about how NOT to be abundant in this post . Jim Jannard (Oakley’s leader) is showing how not to sell and make his products abundant based on the layout in Oakley stores. What a shame.

Oakley has great products and on that alone – should overcome and maybe thrive in the fashion/electronics brave new world. I have Oakley bluetooth and Oakley MP3 glasses. They are fantaspectacular (in honor of Don King – can’t find the word in Wikipedia). The stores are the opposite – they are awfulorrible (Don King – no Wikipedia).

How about Oakley’s genius idea to sell their glasses at Cingular stores. I don’t think that can ever be forgiven. The complete annals of distribution stupidity for Oakley.

Sandisk has resorted to the shame and mockery angle to attract iPod users . Shame on them. They don’t get it either. iPod is not unhip in the eyes of their owners. I am wayyyyy hip dude. I will leave final opinion on Sandisk’s strategy up to Chartreuse as this site’s marketing mind , unless he disagrees with me of course.

So, Apple seems to making smart alliances and their competitor’s make silly one’s. UPDATE – add Dell to the bad idea list for competing with Apple . UPDATE 2 – I just barfed when I read the concept in full.

Let’s review – Fashion AND Technology with great distribution win this race. Apple is slamming it’s competition hard on all three fronts.