Yagottabe Kidding

4 Mobile Predictions for the New Year

W.r.t Palm getting bought (HA HA HA!) just what price are we talking about here?

$5 billion?

[don't forget the REAL share count that includes the Preferred Shares getting converted - we're talking 200+ million shares and the CURRENT stock price is $12 and the current debt that needs to be paid off is $400 million and one should assume there is SOME sort of premium on top of that]

$300 million like the outrageously expensive purchase of PalmSource and PalmOS?

Just what are we talking here?

Wouldn't Android simply be cheaper all around?

The Unlocked Phone Movement Gets a Big Boost

> There is definitely a price war brewing...

Can companies like Palm handle a price war?

I don't think so.

We're going to see some...er..."consolida...

Does CEO Age Affect Stock Performance?

Now graph college degree and performance. Or location and performance. Or sex and performance. Or...you know... CEO experience and performance.

Oh!

Wait!

That sample population above was hand picked!

Oh good grief.

Nevermind.

Next!

Apple Gaining Ground in Smartphone Race

The survey was NOT of "4255 consumers" but instead "4255 high income high education senior tech-field consumers".

I think that may have import w.r.t. how well this survey is representative of the general phone consumer population.

When Will Nokia Wake Up?

Perhaps Nokia has decided the "smartphone segment" isn't much of a segment relative to their other segments so are participating strictly because they have a need for a presence.

When featurephones have all the capability that smartphones have with, literally, some minor details excluded (in fact, pundits are going through excruciating convolutions to define "featurephone" and "smartphone" now so they don't totally overlap), why produce a smartphone?

How Big Will Android Get?

Good grief - someone actually noticing the ridiculousness of number of significant digits used by some sites!

What!? Did you take a math course or something and actually REMEMBER what it taught?

'Bout time someone did.

Good article.

Android, iPhone Ride Rising Tide

How is "marketshare" computed? Do those who calculate "marketshare" rely on sell-through numbers from the various manufacturers? If not, how else do they get (number of units sold by manyfacturer X)/total units by everyone)?

Now that we know Palm reports "sell-through" numbers that INCLUDE sales by their main (Pre) distributor, Sprint, to retailers (and, quite likely, even sales to distributors - those who sell to retailers )- that is, NOT end-consumers and NOT part of any "marketshare" - how is their marketshare number computed?

Smartphones: Is Image Really Everything?

Engadget refuses to reveal who paid for that "report".

Reading Palm: Pre Sales and the Secondary Offering

Palm at first said (everything paraphrased) "sell-in and sell-through were majorly Pre". When an analyst threw those words back in Palm's face by saying "You said sell-in was majorly Pre and sell-through was majorly Pre" the CFO came back and said "We didn't say that - we said sell-in plus sell-through was majorly Pre" - that's an apples and oranges combo as other posters have pointed out. We EASILY can (correctly) assume sell-in was almost entirely Pre. If Palm sold-through ONLY, say, 200,000 Pres then sell-in and sell-through could be ambiguously quantified as "majorly Pre" even though sell-through would have been majorly NOT Pre.

Sometimes it's what they do NOT say that's important, huh?

Can Motorola Follow the Palm Path?

[This is a clarification post]

When I type "low-end" above I am NOT talking about functionality but instead "place in the lineup". Motorola, if they are indeed pricing the Cliq "free" with contract, is setting a new standard for smartphones that ALL the other manufacturers will have to beat. The Cliq is wonderfully functional and includes Motorola's Motoblur which aparently is a better-implemented act-alike to Palm's Synergy - a REAL slap upside their corporate head.

Can Motorola Follow the Palm Path?

I call it a low-end phone because Motorola called it a low-end phone...and in the same breath mentioned the high-end phone was going to be introduced in a couple/few weeks. And, of course, we have STRONG evidence with that "leaked" T-Mobile web page that low-end pricing is coming for the Cliq.

[could the T-Mobile page have simply been a bogus-pricing placeholder? Of course, but we literally have NO evidence of that. As such, the BEST evidence we have right now is the Cliq is going to be "free' with contract - that's "low-end" (not low-functionality) pricing]

Can Motorola Follow the Palm Path?

T-Mobile "leaked" a web page showing the price for the Cliq was "Free" with contract. The page was pulled fairly quickly. Was that the ACTUAL price? It makes sense to this reader since the Cliq =is= a low-end smartphone ala the Centro (though with contemporary low-end features, not year-old low-end features). I think this business is just now getting interesting. Of course, free smartphones could be game changers entirely, causing low margin pressure on competitors...like Palm and its to-be-released Pixi.

Motorola's Cliq Builds on iPhone Concept

If the price is as that T-Mobile web page (there, then gone!) says - that is, free with contract - then this phone is a tremendous game changer.

The Commoditization of the 'Dellphone'

Commoditization of the cellphone space is exactly what that RBC "analyst" didn't take into account. Lack of profit margins will kill the less-than-nimble. The HTCs and Nokias of the world, able to spew out a dozen phones every couple months, should do okay (but not liking it) but whither the two-phones-a-year companies like Palm? Can they afford perpetual 15% margins?

Exuberant Forecasts for Apple, RIM and Palm - RBC

See this:

seekingalpha.com/artic...

and its comments.