Free upgrade is excellent news for the Microsoft ecosystem. Microsoft’s ambition to become an ecosystem company have crystalised further as upgrades to Windows 10 from 7, 8.1 and Windows Phone will be free. Microsoft gave a deeper preview of Windows 10 at its event yesterday and at the same time launched its own foray into...
HP loses more face over Autonomy. The end of the criminal investigation into HP’s allegations of fraud at Autonomy leaves the management of HP with egg all over its face. The UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has declined to proceed with fraud charges against the former executives of Autonomy stating that there is not enough...
Xiaomi must have exclusive services to succeed. Xiaomi is following in the footsteps of its rivals in building an ecosystem via purchasing small shareholdings but this is not enough. Most recently, Xiaomi has purchased 2.98% of productivity software company Kingsoft for $68m. This is in addition to a $205m purchase of a 1.98% stake in...
There is no reason why Samsung would want BlackBerry. BlackBerry has had a wild couple of days as rumours surfaced that Samsung was willing to buy BlackBerry for around $7.5bn or $14.4 per share. This is what was responsible for a 29% rally in the share price only to be almost all given back today...
Duck in danger becomes chicken and egg. Samsung has at last launched a handset based on Tizen’s software. The device is called the Z1, has been launched in India and will cost just over $90. It was 5 months ago that Samsung delayed its handset yet again citing the need to “enhance the ecosystem” (see...
Lenovo offers far more value than Xiaomi. Following the acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google, it looks very much as if Lenovo has realised that to get a thriving handset business one needs vast investment. Lenovo has announced that is considering a public listing of its mobile device business at some point in the future....
Office 365 is reaping the rewards of change. Microsoft’s change in attitude towards Office software is starting to reap real rewards. Only 12 months ago, in order to use Office a user had to have Microsoft Windows as its operating system. On iOS and Android, third party applications were available where a user could read...
Android Lollipop is still nowhere to be found. Despite being launched over 7 months ago, with availability for the last 4 months, Lollipop devices are still not appearing in the wild. Google’s own developer website revealed that in early January Kit-Kat (4.4) and Jelly Bean (4.3) were present on 85% of all devices visiting Google...
Huawei now has the eggs but can it bring home the bacon? One of the most interesting developments at CES was the emergence of understanding by Huawei that it needs an ecosystem to make money. Huawei and Stanford University spin-out, Omlet, have announced a collaboration to create an open social ecosystem on Huawei devices. Omlet...
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.
Google – Control freak.
Google’s move to be an MVNO is all about control. It looks very likely that Google will launch its own branded MVNO during 2015 using the networks of T-Mobile Inc. and Sprint. This is not good news for either T-Mobile or Sprint despite the share reactions to the news. While they will get more traffic...