Readers Brew New Starbucks Angle

On Friday, The Business Press Maven, a prognosticator, could not come up with a valid theory about where StarbucksSBUX was headed. So I turned to you. And you turned me right.

Here's how it started.

I began Friday by pointing out that the business media had, in reporting Starbucks' disappointing earnings late last week, essentially neglected to set them beside the comparative strength of two other coffee company earnings: Peet's Coffee and TeaPEET and Green Mountain Coffee RoastersGMCR, who both reported late last week too. (Caribou CoffeeCBOU reports after the close this Wednesday so stay tuned.)

Drawing immediate comparisons between coffee purveyors, however imperfect, could work toward solving a central mystery. Has Howard Schultz, Starbucks' returning CEO, been telling the truth all these months when he tells anyone who will listen that Starbucks can return to form by getting back to basics? On the one level, the fact that other coffee companies showed relative strength supported this claim. Toward this end, if Starbucks tweaked this or that, they could in effect catch up with the better performing competition.

They Still Don't Get Starbucks!

Looking at it a different way, though, you could say that though Starbucks long operated without competition, it is becoming clear that others are taking business from them and a return to basics holds no salvation because others are already there, beating them, as appeared possible, on the basics.

The business media probably took a pass on making an immediate comparison -- and The Business Press Maven did no better -- because it is not an easy question to answer.