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Posted
Jun 05 2009, 03:41 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Analysts have said that Apple (AAPL) does not need Steve Jobs. Apple shares are up 60% since he took a break to work on his health with his doctors. Because the form of cancer he has can be particularly deadly, a large number of investors believed that he would never be back. The Apple board would be forced to replace an icon.
But, The Wall Street Journal says Jobs will be returning soon, at just about the time the company will release a new version of the iPhone, one with more multimedia functions. Apple may also release a less expensive version of the handset to bring in consumers who have stayed away because of the device’s high price.
Everything is not OK at Apple. The iPhone faces threats from new versions of the Research In Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry, the Palm (PALM) Pre, and new smartphones from global handset leader Nokia (NOK).
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Posted
Mar 06 2008, 12:11 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
A friend of mine was thrilled to get an Apple iPhone for Christmas from his wife. But he returned it a few weeks later. Why? Because he couldn't access his work e-mail on the device. The iPhone, for all its cool features, lacked one essential tool: the ability to sync easily with corporate e-mail on the Microsoft Exchange server.
How many times has this story been repeated? That's why today's news from Apple is huge. The company said it will work with Microsoft to license the ActiveSync synchronization program, which lets iPhone users get e-mail, contacts and calendar information from Microsoft Exchange servers. It sounds like this could happen sometime in the summer.
The move means Apple is going after Research in Motion's ubiquitous BlackBerry in the corporate market. But this isn't a death knell for Research in Motion, which has a huge lock on enterprise customers. RIM had a 73% market share for smartphones in February, according to ChangeWave Research. Palm's market share has declined over the past year to 18%, and Apple's iPhone is around 5%.
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Posted
Jan 25 2008, 11:34 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Palm shares, already down 50% from October, slid slightly further today to $4.86 on news that the company is closing 34 stores -- pretty much all its retail locations -- by the end of March. Palm also plans to pay up to $75 to Treo owners who have had their devices repaired at least twice in the last two years. The only Palm store left, if you can even call it that, is the one inside its headquarters. Palm had eight stand-alone stores and space in Airport Wireless stores at airports around the country, the Mercury-News reports. Palm began opening stores in 2002, and debuted its flagship store in Rockefeller Center in 2006. The store in San Jose was empty whenever I walked by. Opening retail locations is a risky strategy for electronics companies. Gateway learned a hard lesson in that department. Some expected Apple to fail, but the company has 204 stores and another 35 to 40 on the way this year. Store traffic averages 14,700 visitors per week.
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Posted
Jun 18 2009, 11:42 AM
by
Catherine Holahan
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
If you complain -- loudly -- Steve Jobs and friends will listen.
In response to online tirades from existing Apple iPhone owners, iPhone service provider AT&T changed its upgrade policy today to allow more users to buy new phones at introductory prices. IPhone 3G owners who would be eligible to upgrade in July, August or September can now purchase the recently released iPhone 3G S for the same $199 price as new customers. The new upgrade policy takes effect today, Thursday, June 18.
"We've been listening to our customers. And since many of our iPhone 3G customers are early adopters and literally weeks shy of being upgrade eligible due to iPhone 3G S launching 11 months after iPhone 3G, we're extending the window of upgrade eligibility for a limited time," said AT&T in a statement on the corporate Web site.
IPhone owners have lobbied for the change since Apple unveiled the latest version of the phone on June 8. The new 16GB iPhone 3G S is faster, has longer battery life and more storage than the earlier Apple 3G (no S). It is also about $200 cheaper, with a price tag of $199 instead of $399. Apple is now offering the older 8GB iPhone 3G for just $99.
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Posted
Jun 18 2009, 04:03 PM
by
Tobin Smith
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
I’m a big professional basketball fan, and one of my favorite players is Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics. In a now-famous quote, Pierce once described what it felt like when a player is in the zone, “The rim is looking bigger and bigger every game.”
Now, being in the zone when it comes to diagnosing the trends in specific market sectors is a feeling I’ve been fortunate to experience for many years, thanks to the ChangeWave Alliance Research Network. By conducting targeted surveys of experts in specific industries, the ChangeWave survey results have accurately called many of the biggest secular growth trends of the past decade.
One of the sectors we’ve been able to dial-in the best is smart phones.
The most recent ChangeWave surveys show big demand for smart phones (as opposed to ordinary cell phones) going forward. In fact, demand has never been bigger, and we’re actually seeing that demand accelerate. So which smart-phone manufacturers are set to make the biggest splash
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Posted
Feb 19 2009, 07:15 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Maybe, just maybe, Sprint (S) is starting to climb out of the mess it's in.
That's what investors were thinking Thursday, sending shares of the company up 28% after a fourth-quarter report that, while still ugly, wasn't nearly the train wreck some expected.
Customers are still dropping Sprint like a hot potato, and about 1.3 million left Sprint's mobile service in the quarter. Sprint's reputation is badly tarnished, and even though the company has improved customer service and network reliability, it now must convince customers (current and potential) that things are better.
"It takes time for perceptions about our customer care and financial stability to catch up to the reality," said CEO Dan Hesse during the earnings call,
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Posted
Dec 19 2007, 03:52 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This year has been a disaster for some tech companies. Oh sure, it's been a fabulous ride for Apple, Amazon and Google.
But this post is about the losingest losers out there. The train wrecks. The Lindsay Lohans of technology. Here are the companies, and their "oops" moments, that made 2007 memorable:
Yahoo
Share performance: Down 30% since the end of October.
Oops moment: Launching a public soul-searching in the form of a 100-day self-examination to craft a strategic plan.
What happened: The 100 days ended with no big announcements. Yahoo is too large and too laden by its own bureaucracy to be nimble. What's more, the company lost valuable search market share to Google this year.
Chance of recovery in 2008: Moderate. Yahoo is overhauling some core services, including e-mail and photo, but has been unable to monetize a user base that numbers some 475 million. Lots more work to do.
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Posted
Mar 17 2008, 12:19 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Palm's cute Centro phone is a hit, but that caused shares to fall today. Citi analyst Jim Suva wonders if the $100 Centro is selling a little too well, to the point where it's cutting into margins. Palm reports earnings Thursday, and Suva thinks the company will miss analyst estimates and stop providing guidance.
That's some pretty bold predicting by Suva. We'll see how close he is to the mark later this week. (Analysts are expecting $315.3 milion in revenue and a 14-cent loss). Palm shares fell today but climbed back in afternoon trading to just under $5.
The question -- and it's a valid one -- is whether the Centro is snagging buyers who otherwise might have picked up the higher-margin Treo. Of course, the other side of this is whether the Centro is snagging buyers who otherwise might have gone for an iPhone or Blackberry. Palm's subsidizing the Centro partly in hopes of getting new data users, and internal research shows that 72% of Centro buyers previously used a traditional handset and not a smartphone.
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Posted
Jun 08 2009, 12:09 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Apple (AAPL) announced an improved iPhone Monday, beating back a small uprising by rivals and securing its place as the far-and-away leader in the consumer smartphone business.
There were no big shockers with the new phone, called the iPhone 3GS. The upgrades are nice, and some of the new software applications were impressive. But the most significant news, in my mind, was Apple's pricing: $199 for 16 GB of storage and $299 for 32 GB of storage. The old iPhones will drop to $99. That compares to $299 for Palm's new 8GB Pre, though it comes with a $100 mail-in rebate. Hmmm, so I can either buy an 8GB iPhone for $99 or an 8GB Pre (with Sprint as a carrier, no less) for $199. Tough choice! The Pre launched to amazing buzz last week, but was very hard to find in stores. Many Best Buy locations reportedly only received two to four units per store. The BlackBerry Storm, by the way, costs $199. This is where Apple goes in for the kill.
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Posted
Feb 21 2008, 12:30 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This could be a turnaround year for struggling Palm, and all because of three letters: GSM. The beleaguered smartphone maker already got a boost in the arm four months ago when its new Centro smartphone became an overnight success. But the $100 Centro was exclusively made for Sprint, and that meant it could only be used in the U.S. on Sprint's CDMA network. That exclusive contract has ended, allowing Palm to take the Centro to other carriers. AT&T jumped at the chance, and this week, both companies announced a new Centro that runs on AT&T's Edge network, which uses GSM technology. That's significant because GSM is the global standard for wireless phones -- 86% of the world's wireless subscribers use it, according to AT&T. The new Centro can place calls in nearly 200 countries.
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