Android is in its death throes! Well, this may be overstating a bit, but I do believe that the smartphone OS landscape will be very different in 4 years - and that Android OS, by Google (GOOG), will be the loser. Here I discuss how Androids vast reservoir of apps acts to counteract this trend.

My basic thesis is that Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry's (BBRY) BB10 will take massive market share from Android. See Part 1 for my rationale, and particularly part 3 - The Numbers where I speculate as to how these systems will perform. I also hold the position that they will take little share from Apple's (AAPL) iOS (the iPhone and iPad operating system).

The question remains, will these two late-entries to the market have a chance for survival? Aside from deep pockets, both MSFT and BB need to convince users that

Apple (AAPL) announced that it has increased its share repurchase authorization to $60 billion from the $10 billion level announced last year. The buyback is to take place between now and the end of 2015. The question for the investor is "What does this mean for me?"

Apple shares have seen a serious reaction since last September, when shares peaked just over $700. Recently Apple has closed at just under $400. The last two earnings reports have been disappointing as a combination of slower rate of growth and a serious falling margin level have combined to give it its first year-over-year EPS decline in over 10 years.

(click to enlarge)

All this and other factors have created a state of uncertainty that has driven investors away from the stock, and forced prices down, even as the overall market has improved significantly. Whether Apple's decision to raise the buyback

Soluto's PC Purchasing Guide for Small Businesses has just been released and the surprising result - culled from hard data from 150,000 PCs: the best Windows PC is the MacBook Pro 13 by Apple (AAPL). Yes, that is correct, the best PC on which to run Microsoft (MSFT) Windows, is made by arch rival Apple.

In the study, the MBP 13 received a score of 1.05 besting Acer's Aspire E1-571 at 1.12, and Dell (DELL) XPS 13 at 1.28. Apple's MBP 15" Retina model came in #6 with a score of 2.51, while #10 was the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon with a score of 3.2. In all, they evaluated 47 currently available models.

Macs run Windows?

I think that most people know by now that Macs have the capability of running the Windows operating system. There are emulator programs such as VMWare (VMW) Fusion and Parallels Desktop that allow

Apple (AAPL) has long been criticized by some for having a restrictive "Walled Garden" approach in its app store. Android, which is produced and controlled by Google (GOOG), on the other hand was regarded as "Free and Open" with no restrictions on the apps available. When Amazon (AMZN) created the Android-based Kindle Fire series of tablets, it mimicked Apple and restricted apps to those purchased trough its own app store. Google continued to have an open policy in its Google Play marketplace.

This, however, appears to have changed. An article in Tech Crunch reports that Google has removed over 60,000 apps from Google Play in an effort to "cut spam." They write:

Google has stepped up its efforts to remove spammy or otherwise non-compliant applications from its mobile application marketplace, Google Play, in recent weeks. App deletions hit a record high in February, with 60,000 apps removed during

Is Google (GOOG) "nefarious?" Microsoft (MSFT) says that it is, and has a new video on the topic. It all stems from a Feb. 13 blog post by Australian developer Dan Nolan, who was shocked when he received personal information about anyone who bought his app. He writes:

Let me make this crystal clear, every App purchase you make on Google Play gives the developer your name, suburb and email address with no indication that this information is actually being transferred.

That is to say, every time you purchase an app from the Google Play market, your name, neighborhood and email address are sent to developer of that app. This is irrespective of who that developer may be. Therefore, if Mr. X is a cybercriminal, then all he has to do is come up with some cute app and put it in the Google Play market and he will

Android is in its death throes! Well, this may be overstating a bit, but I do believe that the Smartphone OS landscape will be very different in 4 years -- and that Android OS, by Google (GOOG), will be the loser. My basic thesis is that Windows Phone 8 (WP8) from Microsoft (MSFT) and BlackBerry 10 (BBRY) will take massive market share from Android, and Apple's (AAPL) iOS will maintain or slightly gain market share. (See Part 1 and Part 2 for the basic rationale, and Part 3 for my market share predictions up to 2016.)

In this part, I address the recent introduction of Samsung's (SSNLF.PK) Galaxy S4 phone, and what this means for my hypothesis.

The recently announced GS4 is set to go on sale by AT&T (T) for preorders on April 16, at a price of $249 with a 2-year contract.

Smartphones last year

BlackBerry, formerly Research in Motion (RIMM) has a tough task ahead: to have its new BlackBerry 10 OS gain traction in the market place. The big question is: Does it even have a chance?

The entire future of the company depends to a large extent on this. The phones announced Wednesday will be running against Apple's (AAPL) iconic iPhone, Samsung's (SSNLF.PK) hot Galaxy S series, a whole slew of other phones running Google's (GOOG) Android operating system, not to mention new entries running Microsoft's (MSFT) new Windows Phone 8, such as the recent hit Lumia 920 by Nokia (NOK).

Once the BlackBerrry series was the cutting edge of new smartphones (what we would call today feature phones), RIMM lost big when they completely failed to realize the import of the introduction of the iPhone. They then introduced the Storm and PlayBook both of which were major failures

Apple (AAPL) is facing its most challenging quarter in years in terms of expectations.

Philip Elmer-Dewitt of Fortune notes that mainstream analysts have revenue/EPS estimates ranging from $51.7B/$11.53 to $59.6B/$15.50. Independent analysts take that up to a high of $62.8B for revenue and EPS estimate of $16.85 (cutting the outlier which is another dollar higher yet).

In an post elsewhere back on Dec. 3, I laid a plan of what I thought were reasonable expectation. The Christmas data is in, and it appears sales were somewhat restrained (partly due to the "fiscal cliff" uncertainty), so I would like to temper my outlook a bit.

First a look at historic sales trends for what I call the iDevices as presented in this chart.

(click to enlarge)

• [chart by author]

Some people argue that Apple now faces steeper competition from a growing number of system than it did in its

Android is in its death throes.

Well, this may be overstating a bit, but I do believe that the Smartphone OS landscape will be very different in 4 years, and that Android OS, by Google (GOOG), will be the loser. My basic thesis is that Windows Phone 8 (WP8) from Microsoft (MSFT) and BlackBerry 10 from Research in Motion (RIMM) will take massive market share from Android. (See Part 1 and Part 2 for the basic rationale, and Part 3 for my market share predictions up to 2016.)

In this part, I will note an interesting point from a recent ChangeWave Research report.

I. Windows Phone 8 - Doing Well

On January 15, ChangeWave released a report on the "Mobile Wars." One data set they collected was the satisfaction rating of the respondents with their current smartphones. They report on this by the smartphone operating system.

Apple (AAPL) had a good day yesterday. The question is: Will it last?

In September Apple reached an all time high of about $705 and immediately turned tail to enter its deepest retractions since the 2008 recession. Recently the question was whether it would break below $500 or not, and on Jan. 15 it did just that, opening lower, and closing at $485.92, its lowest level since last March.

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Yesterday

Yesterday (16 Jan, 2013) saw a strong reversal as Apple shares surged $20 or 4.15% to retake $506.

The Fly on the Wall reported yesterday:

Apple breaks out, heads for bear gap, levels to watch

Shares are breaking out above resistance, now testing near Monday's high at $507.50. Next resistance above that level would be the top of the bearish gap, the low of last Friday, at $519.02. Support is at $502.68.

So is this the

To GOOG or not to GOOG. That is the question!

That Google (GOOG) is king of the search engines is nothing new. That it is a darling of Wall Street is no news.

Nor is it unknown that over the year there have been issues with privacy. The questions for the prudent investor are:

1. What are these issues?
2. Might they have any impact on future earnings?

In this series I will go over each of Google's major privacy issues that have come up, and present the case of a new search engine that promises complete privacy. The working outline for the series can be found on my instablog post. This will be updated with links to the articles as they are posted.

First, let's take a look at the company.

• Its name has become a verb:

verb (used with object)

2. (often lowercase) to search the Internet for information

Android is in its death throes! Well, this may be overstating a bit, but I do believe that the Smartphone OS landscape will be very different in four years - and that Android OS, by Google (GOOG), will be the loser. My basic thesis is that Windows Phone 8 (WP8) from Microsoft (MSFT) and BlackBerry 10 from Research In Motion (RIMM) will take massive market share from Android (see Part 1 and Part 2 for the basic rationale).

Today, Nokia (NOK) preannounced figures for Q4 2012.

I. Nokia Is Dead!

In Part 3: The Numbers, I provided a list of market share distributions up to 2016.

While many readers agreed with me to one degree or another, and others were diehard Windows fans, there were some who predicted doom for WP8 in general, or even Nokia specifically.

Marcap wrote:

Android will never lose any market share

Android is in its death throes! Well, this may be overstating a bit, but I do believe that the Smartphone OS landscape will be very different in 4 years - and that Android OS, by Google (GOOG), will be the loser. My basic thesis is that Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry 10 will take massive market share from Android (In Part 1: Why? for rationale -- see links below).

In It is viewable in chart form here, I gave my view of how the distribution of market share would change by the year 2016. Several people thought that four major players was not realistic. Here I address that issue.

I. The Issue

In Part 3 of this series, I presented what I think is a reasonable view of how market share might be distributed through 2016. To my mind, too many analysts and pundits look only at the past

Android is in its death throes! Well, this may be overstating a bit, but I do believe that the smartphone OS landscape will be very different in 4 years - and that Android OS, by Google (GOOG), will be the loser.

My basic thesis is that Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry 10 will take massive market share from Android (see part 1 for rationale). The question remains, will these two late-entries to the market have a chance for survival? If they do, will they have the appeal to pose a serious challenge to the existing market leaders?

In this part I will discuss the new Windows Phone 8 system (WP8) by Microsoft (MSFT), and how it has been received in the marketplace. I noted in Part 1 that any new entry into the smartphone field is going to need staying power, also known as deep pockets.

I recently wrote a post in which I proposed the theory that shares of Apple (AAPL) will see a very strong rebound in the new year.

In this post I will present some options scenarios gathered from the readers, along with one of my own, on how to play the expected rise.

Recap

Currently, Apple is down about 28% from its September intraday high of $705. There have been many reasons suggested for the swoon, and I covered these in the previous post.

In Part 2 I proposed that.

1. Stock would continue to flirt with $500 until the end of the year.
2. It will run to the $680-$720 range by Jan 18 (pre earnings release)
3. It will then react to the earnings - (I expect a large positive).

[P.S. - I recently came across an excellent corroborating post by SA commentator Tradevestor.]

Counter possibilities

I presented some

I recently wrote a post "Apple The Fire Sale Ends Dec. 31?" in which I proposed the theory that shares of Apple (AAPL) will see a very strong rebound in the new year.

The post was so popular that I thought I would expand on it.

• Here I present an expanded view of what I believe is a very plausible scenario. [Please note emphasis on plausible.]
• In a third part, I will present some options scenarios gathered from the readers, along with one of my own.

The current situation

Currently, Apple is down about 28% from its September intraday high of $705. There have been many reasons suggested for the swoon, and I covered these in the previous post.

Also in the previous post, I proposed that this is a trend that may very well end abruptly on December 31, and that it provides a truly

Apple (AAPL) has not been doing well lately. As most of you well know, it has dropped over 25% since its September high of $705.

I propose that this is a trend that may very well end abruptly on December 31, and that it provides a truly unique opportunity to capitalize on a specific, singular, historical situation.

(click to enlarge)

Chart: Yahoo Finance

First, a quick background.

Apple has a history of reaching new heights, only to drop back and retrench for a while. This, however, is the deepest retraction since recovering from the 2007-8 recession. What are the reasons here?

A litany of reasons have been proposed for the swoon:

1. Increased competition
2. Lowering margins
3. Lowering growth prospects
4. Fund rebalancing
5. The Capital Gains "Cliff"

Items #1 and #2 above are related, since it is in due to the growing competition that margins are compressed. The competition additionally takes market

Android is in its death throes! Well, this may be overstating a bit, but I do believe that the Smartphone OS landscape will be very different in 4 years - and that Android will be the loser.

In part 1 I laid out my basic argument in two major points against Android:

1. Security issues
2. Upcoming competition

In part 2 I noted corroborating analysis from a Goldman Sachs report titled Clash of the Titans, in which they foresee Android steadily losing market share.

The crux of their argument is that the Android tablet entries have failed to gain traction in the enterprise, and that

…we think the tablet will move into more of an anchor position, and will have increasing levels of influence on future smartphone purchases.

For this reason they say (p 7) that Google (GOOG), i.e. Android:

…runs the risk of platform defection resulting in a

Android is in its death throes! Well, this may be overstating just a bit, but in a detailed, 79 page report titled Clash of the Titans, authors Heather Bellini and Bill Shope of Goldman Sachs (GS) lay out a scenario in which they foresee Android steadily losing market share.

They remark (p 7) that Google's (GOOG), Android OS:

…runs the risk of platform defection resulting in a steady decline of Android smartphone share (estimated to be 55% in 2012) starting in CY13. While we are modeling 48% smartphone share for the Android in 2016, we note this number could prove optimistic…

In my previous post I argued for an even steeper decline, although for other reasons. Let's look closely at the Clash of Titans report. (The report is available to GS clients only.)

The report focuses directly on mobile device adoption and projected market share, and thereby

Intel (INTC) received three buy ratings recently. The research firms are:

1. Jefferson Research
2. Ford Equity Research
3. evaDimensions

The super chip maker continues to rate highly among analysts mostly due to low valuation.

Jefferson Research

The highly respected firm noted:

INTEL CORP is showing strong Earnings Quality and Cash Flow Quality, and Valuation suggests a lower amount of price risk, but Operating Efficiency and Balance Sheet Quality are both weak. When combined, INTC deserves a BUY rating.

They divide their analysis into five areas:

1. Earnings Quality
2. Cash Flow Quality
3. Operating Efficiency
4. Balance Sheet
5. Valuation

Q1 of this year showed all in the strongest category, except for #3 which was strong. (Valuation was labeled "Lowest Risk"). In Q2 2012 Operating Efficiency moved to "Weak" and in Q3 #4 joined in.

Still, the firm found that overall state of the stock rated a buy, citing:

The Balance Sheet rating declined due to weakening