Reply to this post The 3.5mm jack survives the attempt on its life. With the launch of the iPhone 7 approaching, the chatter is once again focusing on the headphone jack, with consensus now having decided that the 100 year old design will stay. This makes complete sense to me as I have long been...
Reply to this post Integration with China not critical but it is elsewhere. Tencent has announced that it is leading a buyout of Supercell but the structure of the transaction raises questions as to whether Tencent will be able to earn a good return on its investment. Tencent is establishing a 100% owned consortium which...
Reply to this post 100m users begins to tip the scale in Spotify’s favour. Spotify has announced that it has past 100m users of which 30m are paying subscribers. Admittedly, it has taken Spotify a little longer than I anticipated to get there, but it has now reached a level of scale that should enable...
Reply to this post Apple can afford privacy where Google & Co. cannot. At its recent developer conference Apple gave more details about its intentions when it comes to privacy, highlighting a technology called differential privacy. Differential privacy is nothing new as it has been around since the 1960s and it works by injecting meaningless...
Reply to this post Tencent and Activision go where Microsoft and Sony fail to tread. Tencent appears close to buying a majority holding in the Finnish mobile games publisher, Supercell which is best known for its Clash of Clans and Clash Royale strategy games. This will bring Tencent into head to head competition with Activision...
Reply to this post 10% of SoundCloud fixes nothing. Twitter is investing $70m in SoundCloud by taking the majority of its current $100m funding round that will value the company at $700m. This will give Twitter a 10% stake in SoundCloud (and I presume a seat on the board) but how this will help to...
Reply to this post Developers are only increasing in their importance to Apple. Apple’s WWDC conference showcased a lot of catch-up upgrades, a serious nod to the importance of China as well as some delicious eye candy for messaging. More than ever before the developer was front and centre of everything that Apple does with...
Reply to this post Microsoft and LinkedIn steal Apple’s thunder. Microsoft has announced that it will acquire LinkedIn for $196 per share or $26.3bn which represents a premium of nearly 50% on Friday’s closing price. This is an all cash transaction that Microsoft will finance with the issuance of debt which makes sense as almost...
Reply to this post App store price cuts will hurt the little guys more. The fact that both Apple and Google are moving to make the economics more favourable for developers is likely to hurt the smaller players and potentially squeeze them out of contention. . Both Apple and Google have announced that they will...
Richard is founder, owner of research company, Radio Free Mobile. He has 16 years of experience working in sell side equity research. During his 11 year tenure at Nomura Securities, he focused on the equity coverage of the Global Technology sector.
Facebook & HTC – Collateral Damage. Pt II.
Reply to this post Oculus is back on the HTC Vive, but it won’t save HTC. Oculus Rift apps are once again running on the HTC Vive but I do not think that this will save the Vive or HTC as the road for its VR hardware is pointing to commoditisation. A firmware update for...