[sixaxis_ms]

I like that picture, I hope they will use the black theme for the Priv, and not those colorfull background we've seen in the phone.

Posted with a Red Passport

[bungaboy]

OT: This should be fun to watch.

Investment firm targets Ernst and Young for Madoff losses

SEATTLE — Nearly seven years after Bernie Madoff’s investment empire was revealed to be a $17.5 billion fraud, the battle by investors to recover their losses ramps up in a case that goes to trial this week in Seattle.

A Washington state investment company is seeking to pin about $100 million of its losses from Madoff’s crimes on auditor Ernst & Young.

Investment firm targets Ernst and Young for Madoff losses | The Chronicle Herald

[cjcampbell]

Hypothetical:

JC told us that at 5M devices they will break-even/profitable on device side of the business. Let's say, they sell 6 million devices. 1 extra million. Le'ts say, to sell this extra million they had to offer some discounts. And their average profit per device is only $150 on the last 1million devices.

That's extra $150m/year. Roughly $37.5M/quarter PROFIT from device-side (which is right now making losses). How would that impact share price?

You keep looking at the manufacture cost alone when there is so much more to consider. Shipping, duties, taxes, warranty, and other costs of selling. The revenue uptick will be nice, for sure, but don't expect too much in the way of the static profit you are assuming. Just look to LG who makes 1% profit before taxes on their mobile devices and they move far more than 5-6 million units.

Just my two cents.

Posted via CB10

[Corbu]

BlackBerry and Google hosting BES12 and Android for Work webinar | CrackBerry.com

[sati01]

Hypothetical:

JC told us that at 5M devices they will break-even/profitable on device side of the business. Let's say, they sell 6 million devices. 1 extra million. Le'ts say, to sell this extra million they had to offer some discounts. And their average profit per device is only $150 on the last 1million devices.

That's extra $150m/year. Roughly $37.5M/quarter PROFIT from device-side (which is right now making losses). How would that impact share price?

Android sales are concentrated in the low-end segment.
Let's say 10% of the Android sales are high-end devices, that is 120 million devices a year.
BlackBerry would need to capture 5% of the Android high-end segment to fulfill your projections. That's very optimistic.

[chrysaurora]

You keep looking at the manufacture cost alone when there is so much more to consider. Shipping, duties, taxes, warranty, and other costs of selling. The revenue uptick will be nice, for sure, but don't expect too much in the way of the static profit you are assuming. Just look to LG who makes 1% profit before taxes on their mobile devices and they move far more than 5-6 million units.

Just my two cents.

Posted via CB10

Ok, I think I didn't explain it well. Let me try again:

All costs for all aspects of the business (software, payroll, office expense, marketing etc) is already in balancesheet that they release every quarter.

Now, we've been told it'd take 5M device sold for BlackBerry to break-even on device side of the business. Upto 5M sales, device sales aren't going to contribute to company's profit. But at 5M sales, they'll stop negatively hurting balance sheet.

So, if we sell 6M devices (1m extra), and make an average of $150 profit per device, that's $37.5M per quarter profit coming from device side of the business.

Would that significantly impact stock price or be like meh?

[morganplus8]

Morgan, when I look at https://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=BBRY+Key+Statistics I have those metrics, with the 50-dma sitting at $7.07.
Is there a particular explanation regarding the offset V.S your $7.23 ? Do they use prior trading day or the likes ?
Sorry for this basic question, again, but since I use it sometimes for "passing points", I may have to explain it or add a note ...

Attachment 375557

Isn't that strange? How simple is it to add up 50 days worth of closing prices and divide them by 50? Having said that, I never trust anything Yahoo puts out to begin with. If you call up a 20 day chart from StockCharts.com and add together 20 days of data and divide by 20 they are bang on. The difference between $ 7.23 - $ 7.07 is $ .16 times 50 days equals an error of $ 8.00/shr which suggests that one of them is one day under in their math. The problem for me is that I'm too lazy to see what went wrong but I think it would be Yahoo missing one day's worth of data.

[_dimi_]

Android sales are concentrated in the low-end segment.
Let's say 10% of the Android sales are high-end devices, that is 120 million devices a year.
BlackBerry would need to capture 5% of the Android high-end segment to fulfill your projections. That's very optimistic.

Is the 10% a guesstimate? Zaydub explained it yesterday. JC is looking to increase the pie, so he's not looking to sell 5 million devices to current Android users per se..

[bungaboy]

OT: Could this be fitting? LoL

[gedob]

Anyone recall how much money Blackberry invested in Nanthealth, Allscripts paid $200 million for 10% of the company? Looks like they have ambitions to IPO by the end of the year. Hopefully an IPO results in an appreciating BB investment asset.

The partnership with Allscripts was a key step in getting NantHealth ready to go public, Soon-Shiong said.

�We feel we have one or two transactions to accomplish, then we will initiate the public offering that we anticipate will happen probably within this year,� he said. �We're setting the infrastructure, so when we're in the public world we can really execute,� Soon-Shiong said.

I'm too new to post the link but a quick "Nanthealth IPO" search should produce the LA Times June 30th article.

[Corbu]

I'm too new to post the link but a quick "Nanthealth IPO" search should produce the LA Times June 30th article.

Here it is:
http://forums.crackberry.com/bbry-f3...l#post11757816

Unless I am mistaken, the amount BB invested in N has never been made public.

[sati01]

Is the 10% a guesstimate? Zaydub explained it yesterday. JC is looking to increase the pie, so he's not looking to sell 5 million devices to current Android users per se..

Yes, a guesstimate.

According to IDC, the high-end segment was 19.82% of Android sales in Q2 2014, but that was before the launch of the iPhone 6 and IDC defines high-end as +$400.
Worldwide Smartphone Shipments Edge Past 300 Million Units in the Second Quarter; Android and iOS Devices Account for 96% of the Global Market, According to IDC - prUS25037214

The share of +$600 Android devices in a post iPhone 6 world should be below 10%.

[gedob]

Corbu - Thank you!

[_dimi_]

comScore Reports August 2015 U.S. Smartphone Subscriber Market Share - comScore, Inc

BlackBerry still had 1,2% of the U.S. market..

[ZayDub]

comScore Reports August 2015 U.S. Smartphone Subscriber Market Share - comScore, Inc

BlackBerry still had 1,2% of the U.S. market..

Only way to go is up from here! *knocks on wood* lol

BBM Channel: C002165D3 Tour 9630 > Bold 9650 > Q10 > Playbook > Classic AND Passport SE!!!

[Bacon Munchers]

This begs the question. How many times can one be dead.....in BlackBerry's case....talk about coming back from the dead.....damn I said it again!

Posted by my fabulous red Passport

According to the Bible, it is appointed once for a man to live then death (judgment); not withstanding feline animals!

... Now, since John Chen is one cool cat....


PS - Shorts are up:

Attachment 375605

[Bacon Munchers]

OT: DELL buys EMC and takes them private.
$33.15 a share (+19% premium)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/del...MethodeStories

EDIT: EMC owns 80% of VMWare. Lots of reports showing how many large companies(ex.Appl) are ditching VMWARE solutions for open Hypervisors.

Seems to me VMWARE marketshare may be peaking.
Posted via CB10

Can you or anyone in the know comment on how this may affect BES?

[Corbu]

J.P. Morgan to Some Employees: Pay for Your Own Phone - WSJ

In its latest round of cost cuts, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is picking BlackBerrys.

The nation’s largest bank by assets is hoping to save tens of millions of dollars by eliminating support for the BlackBerry wireless devices next year and mandating that some employees pay for their own devices, BlackBerry or otherwise, according to people close to the bank.

The move is part of a broader effort at big U.S. banks to keep costs low, especially as interest rates set by the Federal Reserve remain stuck near zero. Higher rates generally bring fatter profits for banks’ lending businesses. The lack of rising rates—along with sluggish trading revenue—means bank executives must tighten the belts some more to keep profits growing.

J.P. Morgan, led by Chairman and CEO James Dimon, will shed new light on its expenses Tuesday afternoon, when it is set to disclose its third-quarter results. Even though analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimate revenue fell 2% during the quarter, earnings per share are expected to edge higher thanks in part to cost discipline.

For the year, J.P. Morgan’s operating expenses are expected to fall about 6% to $57.67 billion, according to estimates from Nomura Holdings Inc. analysts.

The bank’s cost-cutting efforts have gotten a tailwind from a drop in legal expenses; those peaked for most big banks in 2013 and 2014, as J.P. Morgan and many of its peers signed large regulatory settlements with the Justice Department over alleged misdeeds during the financial crisis.

Banks are now looking to trim expenses elsewhere and raising new questions about costs they didn’t think about as closely before: “Should we look at whether or not we’re having too many large meetings?” U.S. Bancorp Chief Executive Richard Davis asked at an investor conference last month. “Should we take more time to get rid of the paper in the company?”

At the same conference, Bank of America Corp. Chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan said his firm would manage expenses on “a very, very careful basis in a low-growth environment.” In May, Mr. Moynihan said that if the trading environment didn’t improve, he would look to cut expenses further in that unit.

In the most recently reported quarter, three of the four largest U.S. banks by assets cut noninterest or operating costs from the year-earlier period. The metric fell 25% at Bank of America, 30% at Citigroup Inc. and 6% at J.P. Morgan.

J.P. Morgan has taken a number of other cost-cutting steps: It reduced the number of hotels it will approve for business trips, leaving some employees seeking manager approval to stay at five-star hotels such as the St. Regis in New York or Claridge’s in London, according to the people familiar with the bank.

Some parts of the bank are also testing “ratio seating,” in which employees essentially share desks with others who work at different shifts or those working across multiple office locations, the people close to the bank said.

“Cutting wasteful expenses frees up resources" for J.P. Morgan to continue investing elsewhere, said bank spokesman Joe Evangelisti.
With the bank’s device-policy changes, employees won’t be able to access certain J.P. Morgan email on a BlackBerry. Those who wish to keep a BlackBerry will need to pay for their own data plans.

More bank employees also will need to begin paying for their smartphones, whether it is a BlackBerry or other device.

Outside of J.P. Morgan, other firms and government agencies have dropped BlackBerry as the devices have been ceding ground to iPhones and other smartphones. A spokeswoman for BlackBerry Ltd. said in a statement that the company’s clients include the largest banks and all G-7 governments.

J.P. Morgan’s overall cost-cutting push is expected to shave hundreds of millions of dollars in annual savings but the bank hasn’t disclosed a specific estimate. Earlier this year, the bank detailed plans to reduce the number of tellers; The Wall Street Journal reported the bank planned to cut at least 2% of its current workforce by next year.

In the past two years, the bank also redoubled efforts to cut costs with moves ranging from relocating employees to less-expensive office space to shutting off employee voice mail.

[sidhuk]

http://press.blackberry.com/press/20...customers.html

Posted via CB10

[Corbu]

Ford to Pour $1.8 Billion Into Smartcars for China - WSJ

SHANGHAI— Ford Motor Co. is betting that a new generation of smartcars will help its rides stand out in China, where its sales have been slipping amid industrywide weakness and rising competition.

The U.S. car maker said on Monday it will invest 11.4 billion yuan, or $1.8 billion, over the next five years to research how to add greater smartphone connectivity, autonomous driving and other smartcar features to its Chinese products. With that investment, the next generation of Ford vehicles for China will be designed around customers there, said Ford Chief Executive Mark Fields.

Ford is hoping the R&D spending push in China will help it develop smartcar features specifically tailored to Chinese drivers. Currently Ford is seeking to install smartcar systems in China using technology it developed and uses in other markets.

“We see China as a very big growth market,” he said on Monday. “It’s a great opportunity to grow not only our core business of selling cars and trucks but also provide services to people that may not want a car but still want to be mobile.”

Potential features include allowing drivers to control more car systems through their smartphones and to use their mobile chat functions, particularly during traffic jams. A video showing snarled traffic from China’s recently ended Golden Week holiday went viral in recent days and illustrated the depth of the problem.

The announcement came at a time that growth of China’s car market has stalled amid a cooling economy and local curbs on car ownership to stem pollution and traffic. China’s new-car sales fell 3.4% to 1.42 million vehicles in August from a year earlier.

Ford and rivals such as General Motors Co. and Volkswagen AG have recently cut prices and run their plants there at less than full capacity. During the first eight months of this year, Ford sold 531,702 passenger cars in China, down 1.2% from 537,997 cars it sold in the same period last year.

Mr. Fields said he expects growth of China’s new-car sales will slow from the double digit rates of past years. “I do see the slowdown this year. But we are starting to see customers come back to the market place,” said Mr. Fields.

Mr. Fields, who took the top job in July, is pushing the company to find new ways globally to attract a younger generation who aren’t necessarily in a position to own vehicles. Congestion, air pollution, the lack of parking lots and the emergence of on-demand car-booking app providers like Uber Technologies Ltd. have turned some young consumers off ownership.

Ford hopes to introduce next year a connectivity system called Sync 3 that would offer hands-free control of phones, entertainment, climate control and navigation. Enhanced voice recognition technology, a more smartphone-like interface and easier-to-read graphics will help to deliver an easier way to stay connected, said Ford.

China has fewer than one private passenger car for every 10 people, compared with roughly eight per 10 people in the U.S. Ford in September launched a pilot carpooling program in crowded Shanghai and Beijing. Ford and its partner Dida Pinche, a Chinese online carpooling service provider, has completed 170,000 rides, said John Lawler, Ford’s China chief.

Five years ago, Ford unveiled an ambitious $5 billion plan for China with an aim to double its annual car-manufacturing capacity there to 1.2 million vehicles. Since then, Ford’s share of China’s auto market has doubled to 5% from 2.5% in 2010, according to China’s auto manufacturers’ group.

[theRock1975]

Can you or anyone in the know comment on how this may affect BES?

This was off topic. A friend of mine has been there almost a decade and is worried for his job. It turns out Dell doesn't have the money or financing for both EMC and VMWare. Shareholders will get $24 per EMC share and a pro-rata VMWARE share worth around $8. He had some sweet call options that were given to him instead of a cash bonus.

It doesn't really affect BES but i've been reading how companies are ditching VMware virtualization solutions for cheaper alternatives. I'm wondering if this is something QNX Hypervisor will be used for. Ie. A competitor in the enterprise VM Host space.

Posted via CB10

[JonCBK]

I don't see how investing in an already public company is supporting it. BlackBerry doesn't get any money from the buys or sells of their existing outstanding stock. If they were a new company issuing an IPO, that would be different. Therefore, buying or selling shares to take advantage of market conditions of an already public company, is not helping, or hurting the company.

I think the 'I support BlackBerry' mantra of the title is in reference to those who bash the products, mgmt, direction and future of the company. I believe the title of the thread of supporting BlackBerry and buying shares is mutually exclusive. You can buy or sell shares and still support the company. The way you show support for a company is by buying their products.

Now it is true that a company's stock price can affect it's perception to consumers and it's industry, but if a company is doing what it needs to do from a business perspective and creating shareholder value, then the price of the stock will be incidental and will take care of itself.

BBM Channel: C002165D3 Tour 9630 > Bold 9650 > Q10 > Playbook > Classic AND Passport SE!!!

Since the employees are paid partly in stock options and buying the stock (and then not selling it) supports the price of those options, buying the stock does actually support the company. But it is also a way to, hopefully, make money for the investor.

[bspence87]

Can anyone she'd some light on how the sale of VMWare affects the valuation of BlackBerry? How similar are their offerings?

[cjcampbell]

Can anyone she'd some light on how the sale of VMWare affects the valuation of BlackBerry? How similar are their offerings?

It doesn't. They are two very different business'. The only similarities are with AirWatch which they purchased a while back but that's only a small portion of their business.

[theRock1975]

Can anyone she'd some light on how the sale of VMWare affects the valuation of BlackBerry? How similar are their offerings?

Unrelated offerings, off top.

My Apologies.

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