Samsung: We NEVER sniffed around RIM... or BlackBerry licence Samsung has once again slapped down rumours that were circulating about Samsung licensing RIM's next OS. Yesterday's prediction, which came in the form of a note to clients from a veteran analyst, pushed RIM's shares up 6 per cent. But Samsung was in touch with news agency Reuters first thing this morning to say it wasn't even …
"Poor old RIM. Time to sit at the back of the class with Nokia, Zynga and HP."
Nokia? 2nd place is back of the class? Yes, it's true they've now been overtaken by Samsung, and who knows what may happen with their risky Symbian to WP transition and I'm sure there are endless criticisms people can make about Elop or their management since 2011, but there seems to be a myth that they've completely shrunk away, or even that they were overtaken years ago. Not true.
(And aren't HP the world's number one PC maker? Okay, I guess you mean phones, but then in phones Apple are too "back of the class" behind Nokia.)
Umm... Nokia's sales have continued to slip for over a year. They made a loss the first half of the year. They're cutting 10,000. Just check their Wikipedia page. And we already know what will happen with the Symbian to Windows transition. It already failed. The market isn't magically going to turn around and adore WinPhone, no matter how much better it is than other OSs. The dye has been cast.
Nothing there contradicts what I said - yes their sales have fallen in the last year, and I already stated they were overtaken by Samsung. But I'm not sure that the number two worldwide is "back of the class"... Even without any sales from Symbian or WP, they would for now retain that position. If we go by relative changes, than Apple's sales have been sliding massively this year - a drop of 10 million in the last quarter alone!
The issue isn't about profits or losses, I thought we were talking about what people bought. Nor is it about the number of people they employ (when Apple employs less people, it's spun by the media as being more efficient - remember that Nokia vs Apple R&D story a while back?) Indeed, if a company is making losses despite being the number two seller, it would suggest they need to cut costs.
I'm not sure what you mean about dyes being cast - it's hard to predict what will happen in fast moving markets, I think.
Just to add regarding BB, on "Businesses may still use BB, for their security. But the common consumer has long since abandoned them." - BB actually had massive growth from 2007 (11.77m) to 2010 (47.45m - still outselling Apple) ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone#Historical_sales_figures ), and I would have thought that much of that growth came from consumers, not businesses, though I may be wrong. Their sales have since declined and yes non-business consumers may be moving away, though I'm not sure about "long since abandoned" - their sales are still several times their 2007 level, suggesting they still have a lot more than their traditional business use that they had years ago (or if few consumers use BB anymore, it suggests a lot more businesses do).
Never used BB myself - but let's base arguments on factual data, not assumptions. The Apple fans would have us believing that the IPhone has been the number one platform, after all...
We may be arguing different things here. I think Nokia is a failing company, in the sense that they lose money hand over fist and they have no clear strategy for making profit in the future, other than hoping WP becomes fashionable (SPOILER ALERT: it won't). It's too far behind development. For that reason they need to sit at the back of the class, in the corner. I don't know anyone or see anyone who uses a WP phone. Where are they all?
This post has been deleted by its author
"Hidden in plain sight" was my experience - only when I started developing for the WP7 was it that I started recognising the handsets, ringtones etc. and while they still don't have the proliferation of the iPhone or the various handsets that contribute towards Android's increasing fragmentation, they're out there all right.
Re: "It's worth remembering that the same analyst predicted that Apple would be launching a cheapo iPhone in 2009, measuring a third the size of the existing models. He also assured investors that the iPad would be delayed, or perhaps limited to America, thanks to production problems which never materialised. He's probably been right equally often, but the El Reg's pages only seem to list his failures."
Analysts never get remembered for their correct productions. I used to work with an Australian analyst called Greg - he probably did some fantastic analysis work for the company, but after the staff Christmas party in rural Norfolk, we all called him Greg the sheep shagger....
I'll get my coat
A rumour of Samsung gold pushes RIM shares up. Who benefits?
Does this raise the possibility that the analyst in question was, if not involved in something shady, then perhaps being used by someone with a big stake, feeding him elaborate misinformation?
Though I wouldn't rule out a bidder for RIM. No idea about Samsung, but I wonder if, say, Oracle or IBM would see value in integrating Blackberry's business services and customer base into their own?
I tried a PlayBook in a shop the other day and really liked it, initially appears to be much better than Android on my Galaxy Tab 8.9. For a start, there's no stupid bar that takes up part of the screen which just looks plain ugly (yes, you can hide it if you've rooted your device, but you need to keep enabling it and disabling it, causing apps to resize and it's just not nice). Whoever came up with that idea should be given the sack.
I've had a go with a PlayBook previously, but didn't buy one because there wasn't a decent PDF reader that remembered reading position for it. Now you can run most Android apps on the tablet (albeit, repackaged), it has a much larger number of decent apps (one of the best things RIM did for the platform, if you ask me). I really like the fact that RIM's business isn't spying on you and selling that information to advertisers. I really like the swiping from the sides doing things. I really like that the 32GB model only costs £150, so I've put in an order.
If RIM can pull off a decent touch screen phone (the London?) next year for a good price, my next phone may well be a BlackBerry running BB10. Though I'm happy enough with my Galaxy S running an unofficial ICS at the moment (but battery life could be a little better, at least it doesn't suffer from the performance problems Samsung introduced with the last two updates).
...and I'm not keen on it but it is a business phone. From a corporate view point it is excellent and locked down to make sure it remains a business tool.
I like my iPhone as its a personal tool with quite a few 'fun' things loaded.
On the other hand my wife and daughter are Blackberry addicts as are their friends.
...........and this results in the stripy shirted sharks trying a few tricks as far as market manipulation goes. We have seen this about three times in the last year or so with Nokia shares - rumour being in each case that someone was about to make a bid for the company (the alleged suitors were, respectively, MS, Samsung and recently Lenovo. The technique in itself is straightforward and (if it works) very cheap to carry out. You spread rumours to create an artificial jump in the share price, you then borrow shares in that company from some broker (without having to pay for them at the time) and "short sell" at the artificially high price only to buy again when the air has gone out of the balloon that you yourself created and pocket the difference. Of course, if for any reason the price remains at the higher level for the whole period of the loan of the shares or (much worse) goes even higher, you end up taking the mother of all baths. Analysts' market intelligence is in part based on rumours of course. This is understandable and not in and of itself suspicious, however, it can mean that their sources may be being deliberately poisoned by the above mentioned stripy shirted sharks.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
