BlackBerry now looks stable but commoditising fast Blackberry held an event in San Francisco where it unveiled the new version of its server product (BES12) and launched a partnership with Samsung for regulated industries. The new version of the server makes a number of meaningful improvements over BES10 that include: First: Seamless support for all...
Far more changes are required to meet the long term goals. Twitter made some bold promises at its analyst day giving investors some confidence and sending the shares up 7%. Firstly, a series of product announcements aimed at increasing engagement for logged-on users and casual visitors that include: Instant timeline. Gives new users and casual...
MCX is likely to fail unless something changes. The combined power of Apple and the major credit card companies is likely to exert so much pressure on MCX that something will have to change. Retailers have problems with credit cards. The credit card companies charge them a fee every time a card is used which...
Amazon Echo does nothing to address the big issues. As long as Echo is a great Bluetooth speaker it is unlikely to be nearly as big a disaster as the Fire phone. Amazon has initiated its latest experiment with the consumer with the launch of the Amazon Echo which is basically a Bluetooth speaker with...
Microsoft moves to cement Office’s dominance. Microsoft is moving to tighten its grip on the Digital Work ecosystem before anyone else can really get a decent foothold. Digital Work is the professional equivalent of Digital Life and describes the digital activities undertaken by users in the workplace and is measured by the amount of time...
Apple joins long-suffering Microsoft as a target for viruses. Apple has a difficult time ahead of it as I suspect that it is not best prepared to deal with the increasing number of attacks being aimed at its systems. For years, Apple has been virus-free for no other reason than the hackers could not be...
LG trades margin upside for safety. LG has struck a patent deal with Google which looks to be almost exactly the same as the deal struck with Samsung on 27th January 2014. I continue to believe that this deal was a huge strategic blunder for Samsung (see here) but in LG’s case there is little...
There is very little left for investors at $45bn. If Xiaomi can raise money at a valuation of $40bn-$50bn, this will be its greatest achievement to date. Now that Xiaomi is the leader in the Chinese smartphone market, it is beginning to turn its eye to other potentially huge markets such as India and Russia....
The journey to ecosystem remains very hard. Sony reported a difficult set of results but there were no real surprises. Q2 14A Revenues / operating profits were slightly better than forecast at JPY 1,902bn / LOSS JPY 85.6bn compared to consensus at JPY 1,812bn / LOSS JPY 62.7bn. The main reason for the better than...
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.
Yahoo! and Aol – Heaven and Hell
A deal with Aol would be great for the stock but bad for the company. The Aol and Yahoo! story is heating up again (see here) as Starboard has gone back into Aol and now has a reasonable stake in both companies. There is substantial value to be released in both companies and while putting...