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css1971

css1971
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  • Nokia Rings In The Holiday Season With Strong Lumia Demand [View article]
    There are no ecosystems, no matter what Elop & Microsoft think. Mobile phone consumers jump ship to the latest/hottest phone when their contracts expire, and the 920 is both. With Android's use of a java virtual machine for it's apps it's easy to run them on alternative platforms.meaning any platform which ports Dalvik instantly has access to all the apps available for Android.
    Nov 25 08:58 AM | 6 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Nokia: What Does The Future Hold? [View article]
    The 920 is at numbers 1, 2, 9 & 10 in the AT&T charts on Amazon. Considering AT&T have the exclusive on it for the moment that means it's beating the best of the rest.

    As a shareholder I consider it my duty to bring you this link to some phone porn to bring you up to date with what's going on.

    http://bit.ly/TZvuVD
    Nov 19 08:12 AM | 6 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Bill Gross' (likely accurate) description of the fiscal cliff and its resolution in 140 characters or less: "Deeper than advertised. It's a Grand Canyon. Washington will defer entitlement cuts and raise revenues only marginally." [View news story]
    Wow.

    This is so not a one dimensional left-right politics type thing. This is a "The End of the United States of America as you recognise it" type thing.
    Nov 11 01:00 PM | 6 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Though analysts have come to its defense this morning, Apple (AAPL -1.9%) can't catch a break - shares now trade at 8.2x FY13E EPS (exc. cash). The decline comes as signs emerge Apple is taking new steps to vertically integrate: Digitimes reports Apple is now directly placing orders with material suppliers, who traditionally interact with manufacturers, and Horace Dediu theorizes Apple may have invested ~$2B in Sharp's display production. He also notes Apple's off-balance-sheet manufacturing/component purchase commitments have risen to $21.1B[View news story]
    You don't understand. The market is forward looking it has already priced in the iPhone 5 and is looking beyond. It doesn't like what it sees.
    Nov 8 03:15 PM | 6 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Nokia (NOK) doesn't pass up the chance to gloat over the harsh response (I, II) to Apple's (AAPL) iOS 6 Maps app. "Unlike our competitors ... we completely own, build and distribute mapping content, platform and apps," the company proclaims. A Google Maps (GOOG) exec also takes aim at Apple, declaring "it takes a long time and effort to figure out how to do this right." BI notes Google has 1,100 full-time employees and 6K contractors working on Maps. (Nokia Maps deals: I, II[View news story]
    If you take a look at Citylens. Look how far back they purchased Navteq (2007) in order to make Citylens. They "get" how important mapping is on a phone. It's going to become a *transparent* part of all Nokia mobile devices; a phone is a computer you carry with you, it needs to know what is round about you to be useful.

    Look at a comparison of map services:
    http://bit.ly/Sc5UGu

    Mobile mapping is Google[1] + Nokia, both have spent billions and have thousands of people working on it. *Everyone* else is an also ran, they have billions and years to spend on it if they want to catch up. It's really weird how people don't understand this.

    Good though I got them at less than the valuation of Navteq alone, they're only marginally above that now.

    [1] And this is a *big* problem for Samsung.
    Sep 22 01:37 PM | 6 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Nokia's Prospects Even More Luminous After iPhone 5 Launch [View article]
    Ass,

    The windows phone 7.5 user interface (never mind 8) is better than the Apple user interface. It's easier to use and lets you do the things you want to do most often, most easily. iOS is old, dated technology, the UI hasn't really improved in the 5 iPhone releases since 2007. It really shows that Apple have a small R&D organisation but then that's how you make 50% margin.

    Try it. It's better. Much better.

    Ecosystems... Windows 8 developers are going to be building WP8 apps. Direct integration between the phone and enterprise systems. Almost as easy as hitting the build button. This has nothing directly to do with Nokia of course.
    Sep 15 02:51 PM | 6 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Mercedes Ben [View article]
    If Ben knows exactly what he's doing... Why would he ever have needed more that *1* quantitative easing programme?

    With QE2, he admitted he really doesn't know what's going on because the economy wasn't responding as expected, and with QE3, he just hit the Big Red PANIC! Button.
    Sep 14 11:01 AM | 6 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Be It Resolved: The Days of $500k Economists Are Over [View article]
    "Almost no academic economists [ed., Roubini and a few others aside] predicted the world-wide downturn."


    WTF?


    "The wavelike movement affecting the economic system, the recurrence of periods of boom which are followed by periods of depression, is the unavoidable outcome of the attempts, repeated again and again, to lower the gross market rate of interest by means of credit expansion. There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."

    Ludwig von Mises. (Human action. p. 572 mises.org/resources/32...)

    First published in 1949.
    Feb 17 03:27 PM | 6 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Davos '09 and the Failure of Leadership [View article]
    Why would anyone trust a banking system built on a pyramid scheme? Or the politicians who are throwing trillions of citizens money at the people behind the scheme, begging for more?

    Jan 28 02:47 PM | 6 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • The EU is preparing to take the apparent non-template that is the Cyprus bailout and incorporate some elements of it into a new law that would force haircuts on large deposits in banks that fail, economic affairs chief Olli Rehn has said. Bundesbank Jens Weidmann says that the Cyprus crisis shows that banks can be wound up. Along with Rehn's comments, it also shows that depositors' money is no longer safe in Europe. [View news story]
    Nothing has changed.

    This is not new.
    This has been the case for over 200 years. (Carr vs Carr 1811)
    This is also the case in America as well as the UK and Europe.

    The money you have in a bank account is *not your money*, it is the bank's money, you have invested in the bank and like any investment you can lose all or part of it. You are simply a creditor.
    Apr 7 06:14 AM | 5 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Gold Takes Out Major Support: Next Stop $1,350 [View article]
    GBP (my native currency)
    EUR
    JPY (Korean Won will follow the Yen down)

    Which pretty much describes the USD index. Gold's been relatively stable vs those; marginally down or actually up. Which is about what you'd hope to see from a currency.

    For gold, the last year has been about US dollar strength, not particularly about gold weakness and that relative strength comes from a recessionary Euro Zone, inflation targeting in Japan and vast debts in the UK.

    HTH.
    Apr 4 06:24 AM | 5 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Smartphone Wars: Why Nokia Has Been Left Behind [View article]
    The author totally missed out the sex factor, which is probably the single most important factor when comparing phones.

    Lumias are sexy looking phones which are driving contemporary design. iPhones and Samsungs (and all their clones) look like 1990s warmups.
    Apr 2 11:17 AM | 5 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Samsung Copies Nokia's Winning Strategy [View article]
    I do believe we're seeing the Samsung top. They're not only copying others designs, they are copying others business strategies and even more importantly, their mistakes.

    If you count the number of handsets Samsung has on sale today. Each device requires R&D, design, QA, testing, production lines, parts, marketing. Each additional device reduces margin and ultimately leaves customers wondering which device they should buy. It's how Nokia screwed up originally and why Apple have fabulous margins relative to all their competition.

    From their US web site: "See all Featured (145)". I imagine that includes multiple carrier specific models. From their UK web site: "47 Matching Products" for dumb phones and "35 Matching Products" on 3 platforms; Android, Windows and Bada. Now add Rex. The point being they have high double digit devices and are close to having triple digits of models on increasing numbers of platforms.

    The economic landscape has also changed. We're hitting a bumpy patch. Japan is crucifying the JPY in order to take back business from South Korea. If the Won doesn't follow the Yen down Samsung have a real problem. Not tomorrow mind you, but in a year it'll start becoming evident.
    Feb 26 02:19 PM | 5 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Nokia's Earning May Finally Go Up Thanks To These New Gadgets [View article]
    He doesn't really believe it any more & is just going through the motions.
    Feb 6 05:00 PM | 5 Likes Like |Link to Comment
  • Nokia (NOK -1.7%) is getting on board the 3D printing bandwagon: the company is releasing a development kit (Nokia calls it a 3DK) that allows users to create custom shells for the Lumia 820. One could see the concept eventually extended to a variety of other hardware accessories. [View news story]
    I was just thinking about how much Nokia rocks as an engine for innovation in the mobile space.

    With Nokia you get:
    NFC,
    Wireless charging,
    Pureview in both it's forms,
    Augmented reality,
    and now 3D printing support.

    with Apple you get...

    an extra row of icons.
    Jan 18 05:27 PM | 5 Likes Like |Link to Comment
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