Hayweed

RIM Set to Storm Smartphone Market

So they toss out the old sure press for true press. How does this affect the development of apps. My guess is storm2 is one more phone in Rimm's growing phone inventory which divides developers and consumers from products based on which handset they get. Meanwhile apple has one form factor for the phone and the touch which results in one development that reaches almost 50 million devices.

RImm needs to get to one or 2 phone forms or the developers will never make anything good apps.

Dell Launching a Smartphone: Bad Idea from the Get-Go?

Staying short Dell as Mikey keeps floundering at the helm.

Four Reasons to Avoid Apple

Interesting but in the phone space wouldn't you be better off shorting Rimm which only does phones and is feeling the heat from Apple, Palm, Nokia and all the other wanna be phone makers putting a keyboard on a phone.

Apple at least has an ecosystem of music players, phones and computers which all work together. What does Rimm and Nokia have - phones?

10 Reasons Not to Buy Apple

When Apple adds a video camera to the iPod Touch this year with a better camera, the iPod Touch will be the hottest mobile gaming, mobile internet device and flip video camera on the market. The poor lemmings on Verizon and Sprint buy iPod touches to use for everything but phone calls. They want apps which they can't get with the crappy phones. Once they get the Touch it is only a matter of time before they get the iPhone and one gadget in the pocket instead of phone, ipod, camera, PSP, etc. all sharing the same pocket.

Will Dell Succeed with New Device? Doubtful

How is a generic box maker going to make an innovative mobile internet device. The answer is poorly or not at all. Since I am short Dell all I can hope for is that they make this attempt or buy Palm. Either way it is a bloodbath for Dell shareholders. Michael Dell could make generic PCs in his dorm room but what else has he done. PC box making is moving to China and Dell has no value add to the consumer. Why buy a dell when you can buy some generic PC like an Acer for cheaper.

Ba-bye Michael Dell

From 1997

When it comes to the state of Apple Computer, everyone has an opinion.
And at the Gartner Symposium and ITxpo97 here today, the CEO of competitor Dell Computer added his voice to the chorus when asked what could be done to fix the Mac maker. His solution was a drastic one.
"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders," Michael Dell said before a crowd of several thousand IT executives.

PS: Hay Mikey, Please give the money you currently have back to the shareholders as soon as possible. Steve Jobs must laugh at Michael Dell's half ass quote every day.

Research in Motion: So Where Are the Cool New Phones?

Rimm is old tech. A pager company evolves into a phone maker whose main function is email. 2 years ago if you wanted email you needed a blackberry. Now tons of phones do email and now the web, which Rimm does not do well. Apple crushes Rimm in use of the internet on devices so Rimm is now behind the curve.

Unless Rimm can migrate their phone into a mini computer like Apple they are soon to be roadkill.

I loved all the excitement that Rimm is moving into China. Apple has a touch keyboard that can adapt for use in China. Are the Chinese going to text in English on their blackberry and then translate it into Chinese. How do you text OMG and LMAO in Chinese. The answer on the blackberry is English only which means no penetration in China except multinational types.

Nokia Ovi Store Launch: A Complete Disaster

The Ovi store is a joke. For the N96 there are 990 items in the store of which 392 are screen savers/ringtones and another 160 are videos. If apple counted videos, songs and ringtones then the apps would be in the millions.

This will be a giant fail as the market is too fragmented among too many different handsets while apple has the iphone and the ipod touch. 37 million devices. Nokia has 40 milliion devices fragmented into 100 phones.

Smartphone Wars to Heat Up This Summer

In less than 2 years is apple now the most profitable cell phone provider in the world?

Based on last quarter (Apple - using iphone nongaap earnings)

Apple $699 million
Rimm $518 million
Nokia $161 million
Sony Ericsson <$0
LG ?
Samsung ?

Nokia's a Juggernaut, But What's Left to Conquer?

In less than 2 years is apple now the most profitable cell phone provider in the world

Based on last quarter (Apple - using iphone nongaap earnings)

Apple $699 million
Rimm $518 million
Nokia $161 million
Sony Ericsson <$0
LG ?
Samsung ?

The Ongoing Smartphone Revolution

Crazylegs - I saw my first zune yesterday being used by a person. No social there. You can say what you want but Apple is crushing the competition. If they weren't would Verizon really need to give you a free blackberry when you buy one. Talk about Margin Compression for Rimm. Dell needs a phone yet the carriers reject their proposed phone (LOL), MSFT is all about vaporware. Please stick with us we promise to come out with something cool some day - really. Sony may be reduced to a niche player in consumer electronics since we only have BBY and WMT left. At least Apple has their own stores.

The Ongoing Smartphone Revolution

His basis is that the "The Zune is a great bit of kit" which we all know is rubbish. Thus from the author's dim view, MSFT should be the best since they are the biggest. In autos, GM was the biggest yet they never made great cars. Android will be hampered by too many different handsets and a fight over the app marketplace - carrier, google or handset maker or all 3. Nintendo and Rimm is a laugher. That would destroy Rimm which is doing a good job of that to itself. Dell might buy Rimm which I hope happens since I am short Rimm and Dell, that marriage would definitely fail miserably.

Face it - the cell phone business was a dud. Rimm had an email machine that played brickbreaker (wow). Then Apple enters the market, everyone laughs, the phone begins to sell and then everyone says crap we need to do something. If the MSFT RIMM and others could not innovate before Apple how are they going to do it now.

Lastly, Apple should buy Sony and "become a world class consumer electronics company overnight." Where is the author hiding - under a rock. Apple is the premier consumer electronics company. I have Sony TVs but that is the only thing I would buy from Sony. Apple could easily make TVs. I did buy a Sony touchscreen camera which got the screen scratched first time in the pocket with keys. You can put your iphone in your pocket with keys and nothing happens.

Thus Apple should continue being Apple while the others pray that Apple runs out of ideas.

Cell Phone Demand: Worse than You Imagine

While Apple keeps rolling along making the most money in company history during a recession. It may be the economy but most likely now that money is tight, people want more than junk for their dollar.

Research in (Slow) Motion

Clearly the Storm was not moving to Verizon's satisfaction and they issued a 2 for 1 sale on all blackberries last week. This week, Rimm says subs are going great but the margin and earnings are on the low end. Thus, Rimm is taking the hit on the 2-1 sale and not Verizon. You know Rimm did not want their phones in the 2-1 bin but they do not control the sale Verizon does. This to me means that Apple and AT&T are putting the squeeze on Verizon and Verizon is in turn putting it on Rimm.

Rimm's other big problem is too many phones on too many networks. Reminds me of when Porsche made 4 different models in the 80's and there were no similar parts. Rimm is stretched too thin trying to make all these different phones all work on tons of different networks and spectrums.

Rimm's last big problem is that their cost of goods is rising while the asp is falling. That is the margin problem. Anyone can now make an email phone and thus the blackberry needs to do more. The browser is weak, the media player weak so why does the consumer need this phone. Email only. It is too expensive as a push email for the consumer. Thus they need business customers but businesses are laying off every day.

It is the perfect storm that may drive Rimm to $30

Review of Last Week's Tech Earnings

My thoughts exactly on Rimm. The stock has been strong and broke thru the 50 day moving average but I expect this occurred on Rimm's favorable guidance by management. As Rimm has now missed 3 times in a row, I would look at this quarter as another miss if Apple is seeing weak phones and Nokia is getting crushed.

Buy, Sell or Hold: Research in Motion Poised to Snag More Market Share

They handily beat guidance after preannouncing that they would miss the original estimate. That is 3 quarters in a row of missed earnings. The new phones are problematic (Storm), too expnsive (the bold) and sold thru a third tier carrier (the flip). Apple has one phone with two memory sizes. Rimm has about 20 phones and there is the problem. One giant company with people working on one phone as a platform and one smaller company trying to keep 20 phones going.