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Posted on 11.27.07 by Nikhil @ 1:05 pm
Verizon Wireless (nyse: VZ), made an announcement this morning that could represent a turning point in wireless. The company said that starting at the end of 2008, it will allow its customers to use phones and software not sold by Verizon. Why would the company announce such a thing? Typically, the wireless carriers, concerned with protecting the value of their networks as well as the relationships they have with customers, have kept a tight control over the phones that they make available on their networks. Customers can only buy the phones made available by their carrier and they are restricted to the software loaded onto those phones. One reason: The fast growing wireless sector is being hit by new, innovative entrants. Google (nasdaq: GOOG), for instance, recently announced a plan to create an open platform for mobile phones. If Verizon did nothing, its business could, ultimately, be severely hampered. But Verizon is an astute company and is keenly aware of the market in which it operates and the threats that stand to attack its business plan. So Verizon has made a bold move and now says it will make its technical standards available to developers in the first part of 2008 and then open up its network at the end of the year so that consumers can buy phones and use software that is compatible with the network. To put this a bit more in perspective, all wireless carriers have recently been under pressure to open up their networks from regulators as well as from new competitors such as Google. But besides the pressure to open up networks, the move is also a good way for Verizon to increase traffic over its network. Increasingly, there are more devices that are being sold that are wirelessly enabled — from Internet tablets to digital cameras. Many of these are products that Verizon doesn’t now sell and could provide substantial revenues in the future. Another good reason for opening up its networks: If Verizon can get more software developers to create for it’s networks, that means that it can also sell more data plans – which is where wireless companies will ultimately be generating most of their revenues. Good news for Verizon. Filed under: Stock Watch and Infrastructure and News Comments: None |
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Posted on 10.10.06 by Nikhil @ 1:55 pm
Qualcomm and Broadcom have been fighting with each other for months now, each blaming the other for infringing on their patents. Last month, a federal judge ordered Broadcom chairman Henry Samueli and Qualcomm chairman Irwin Jacobs to meet him in court to reconcile their differences. The meeting took place last week. It’s not clear, though, that the judge’s efforts were successful. Apparently,neither chairman would let on to the discussions. You can read more about this in The Mercury News. Filed under: Stock Watch and Miscellaneous and News Comments: None |
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Posted on 10.10.06 by Nikhil @ 1:51 pm
T-Mobile just announced today that, yes, it has a 3G Wireless strategy! The company, which has been often criticized for lacking enough spectrum to keep up with competitors,said that it will spend $2.6 billion over the next three years to build a UMTS/HSDPA network. But don’t expect TV on your cellphone anytime soon, at least with T-Mobile. The company’s USA CEO Robert Dotson says that the first priorities are to applications already being used such as email. The company also said that infrastructure and handset vendors have already been picked for T-Mobile USA’s 3G network rollout. expect to see this network launched in the middle of next year. Visit WirelessWeek for more info. Filed under: Applications and Infrastructure and News Comments: None |
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Posted on 10.10.06 by Nikhil @ 1:44 pm
Nortel says it will build a research and development center in Bangalore India. While wireless research will be part of the focus, the center will also try to give Nortel an edge over the competition in developing rich applications for networks such as real-time apps, voice, video and multimedia. More on this in Cellular News. Filed under: Stock Watch and News Comments: None |
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Posted on 09.28.06 by Nikhil @ 1:55 pm
MVNOs (mobile virutal network operators) hold the promise of giving advertisers a highly targeted audience. But last week, Disney’s seven month old Mobile ESPN service decided to call it quits. The service has had trouble attracting enough subscribers to make it worthwhile to the company. I’m a little surprised by Disney’s decision. Reason: it doesn’t seem like Disney really gave Mobile ESPN much of a chance. The service was never available over a significant holiday period. And it wasn’t around during a football season, when demand may have picked up. Also, it’s not that easy for new subscribers to switch to a new service. They need time to get out of their long term contracts. The problems that this service faced are not, I believe, a bad sign for MVNOs in general. I think the problems here were specific to Mobile ESPN. The service was expensive and it didn’t own enough proprietary content. It seems that ESPN could have solved these problems. Now, it’s possible that the service will be acquired by a carrier. Meanwhile, Disney isn’t giving up on MVNO’s completely. The company is still pushing ahead with Disney Mobile -a cellphone service for kids that gives lots of control to Mom and Dad. Mobile ESPN will take on no new customers, and will continue to remain active to existing customers at least through the end of this year. If you have the service and you want to discontinue it, you can with no penalty. If you bought a Mobile ESPN phone, you can get a full refund. Filed under: Applications and News Comments: None |
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Posted on 09.20.06 by Nikhil @ 2:12 pm
I found this news from Alltel Wireless interesting and innovative. Alltel said this month that it would partner with a company called JumpTap, which specializes in the development of innovative, carrier-centric mobile search and advertising. The plans is for the two companies to work together to develop a mobile search system so that Alltel subscribers can search for information from a host of different mobile, local and web-based providers. Alltel says that these new capabilities will be offered to its subscribers at no additional cost. The search technology will let Alltel customers quickly search for things like ringtones and wallpapers, maps and directions, news and sports, flight updates, weather, white pages, stock quotes, chat services, and any mobile website included in JumpTap’s Mobile Search Index. Filed under: Stock Watch and Applications and Cutting Edge and News Comments: None |
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Posted on 09.19.06 by Nikhil @ 2:23 pm
Today, Motorola announced that it will acquire Symbol Technologies in an all cash deal for $15 per share - or $3.9 billion. You may wonder why Motorola would want anything to do with this maker of bar code scanners. The company, after all, has been less than a star performer over the past few years and its business has lost ground to more nimble competitors. But Motorola sees a silver lining: A way to boost its own business in the enterprise with Symbol’s radio frequency indentification technologies (RFID used in bar code scanners) as well as its mobile software aimed at businesses. Its a big market and as more companies turn to wireless technologies to boost producitivity of their employees, Motorola can make inroads into warehousing companies and manufacturing companies that need the technology to track inventory. The acquisition, of course, must receive regulatory approval. If all goes through, the deal will be finalized at the end of this year, or in the early part of 2007. Shares of Motorola (MOT) are off a little on the news, but shares of Symbol Technologies (SBL) soared 15% on Monday over speculation about the acquisition. Filed under: Stock Watch and Infrastructure and News Comments: None |
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Posted on 08.09.06 by Nikhil @ 6:08 pm
Good news: Shares of SVR are up about 16% so far today. The reason: Sales came in stronger than expected for its second quarter. Analysts had been expecting sales of $77.3 million, however, the company generated sales of $82.2 million. Investors seemed to discount the fall in net income. Net income fell to $9.5 million, or 14 cents per share, from $11.8 million, or 18 cents per share, in the year-ago period. But the good forecast also boosted the stock: Syniverse expects that in the third quarter, it will generate cash net income of between $17 million and $19 million on revenue of between $89 million and $91 million. (Cash net income includes the cash savings arising from tax deductible goodwill amortization.) Shares of SVR are now up 30% from my Buy recommendation. For my take on the company, please CLICK HERE for Forbes Wireless Stock Watch. Filed under: Stock Watch and News Comments: None |
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Posted on 08.09.06 by Nikhil @ 2:12 pm
Comverse, recently, has been under scrutiny recently for its handling of stock options. Today, three of its former top executives were charged in a scheme to manipulate stock options. Former CEO Kobi Alexander, former finance chief David Kreinberg and former senior general counsel William Sorin were all charged with manipulating stock options by falsifying the dates on which they were granted. Apparently, from 1991 through 2005 Alexander exercised options and sold stocks worth approximately $150 million, of which approximately $138 million was profit. On top of that, Alexander and Kreinberg are accused of using fictitious names to generate hundreds of thousands of backdated options which they then parked in a secret slush fund. So far, both Kreinberg and Sorin have surrendered the FBI – however no one is exactly sure where Alexander is. Interestingly, the stock is up on the news, by just over 1%. Time to buy? This, too, is covered in Forbes Wireless Stock Watch. Filed under: Stock Watch and News Comments: None |
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Posted on 07.31.06 by Nikhil @ 11:43 am
There is some talk that Sprint Nextel could soon make an announcement that it will deploy mobile WiMAX in the 2.5GHz band. This would be big news since Sprint is the largest holder of 2.5GHz spectrum, and the company has never really explained what it intended to do with it. The company has been testing other technologies such as TD-CDMA and Flash – OFDM. You may recall that just recently, Intel and Motorola made a significant investment (about $900 million in total) to McCaw’s Clearwire, which is a mobile WiMAX play. If this news is actually true, it would be a big step forward for WiMax. You can read more about this at Signal Research. Filed under: Stock Watch and Infrastructure and News Comments: None |
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