[Corbu]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/bu...on-brexit.html
THE WEEK AHEAD

TECHNOLOGY

BlackBerry’s turnaround plan is unproved ahead of meeting.

BlackBerry is no longer in danger of imminent collapse, as was the case when John S. Chen was brought in to lead the company in 2013. But as Mr. Chen prepares to run the company’s annual meeting in Waterloo, Ontario, on Wednesday and release first-quarter results on Thursday, his turnaround plan, which involves focusing on phone management and security systems for business and government, remains unproved. Despite adopting Google’s Android operating system, BlackBerry has not revived the smartphone business it once dominated. Last week, Maynard Um, an analyst at Wells Fargo, published a detailed case for finally shutting down the phone business. That would cut BlackBerry’s revenue almost by half to just over $1 billion, by Mr. Um’s estimates. But he forecast that without phones, BlackBerry could earn 27 cents a share this year rather than lose 10 cents a share.

[Corbu]

OT: China HW IP
China Smartphone Makers Enlisting Patents in Fight for Market Dominance - WSJ

China Smartphone Makers Enlisting Patents in Fight for Market Dominance

Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo and others acquire patents to mount challenge to Apple and Samsung

HONG KONG—China’s smartphone makers are increasingly turning to patents as ammunition as they try to reel in global leaders Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.

Chinese technology giants from Huawei Technologies Co. to ZTE Corp. and Lenovo Group Ltd. are acquiring patents through licensing deals, acquisitions and hefty spending on research and development—moves that could signal more legal challenges for Apple and Samsung not just in China, but overseas as well.

Huawei, which has an ambitious goal of becoming the world’s top smartphone maker in five years, sued Samsung in the U.S. last month, claiming the South Korean company violated 11 of its mobile patents. Samsung has said it would defend itself in the lawsuit. The suit marked the first major legal challenge by a Chinese smartphone maker against a market leader, turning on its head the idea of Chinese manufacturers being on the receiving end of patent disputes.

Last year, Huawei, the world’s third-largest smartphone maker and the leader in the telecommunications-equipment market, was the largest filer of international patent applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, which makes it easier for companies to file patents in multiple countries, according to the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization. Huawei was followed by U.S. chip maker Qualcomm Inc. and China’s ZTE.

Patents are also playing a role in the harsher mobile landscape Apple and Samsung are navigating in China, where regulators increasingly insist that foreign companies play by Beijing’s rules. Shenzhen Baili, a little-known Chinese startup, won a surprise injunction against sales of Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in Beijing, based on a design-related patent it claims to own in China.

Apple contests the claims, which analysts and legal experts say are an indication of the country’s political climate. But, at the same time, major Chinese competitors such as Huawei are mounting serious efforts to build patent rights and take on the industry’s big two. Three of the world’s top five smartphone makers by sales were Chinese in the first quarter, including Huawei, according to research firm Gartner.

“We are going to see a lot more Chinese companies filing patents outside China, and more deals and lawsuits involving patents and technologies,” said Benjamin Bai, a partner at Allen & Overy LLP in Shanghai who advises Chinese companies on international intellectual-property strategies.

A single smartphone can involve thousands of patents. The issues are so complex and thorny that Apple and Samsung have been locked in patent litigation around the world since 2011 as they battle for market dominance.

Huawei has increased its patent portfolio mainly from its extensive research-and-development investment. Over the past five years, Huawei has spent nearly $30 billion on R&D. Last year, its R&D spending rose 46% to $9.2 billion, beating the $8.1 billion Apple spent in its most recent fiscal year. Huawei now has 16 R&D centers around the world, including in the U.S. and Europe.

In a sign that Huawei is making progress in building its intellectual-property portfolio, earlier this year Apple and Huawei struck a licensing deal whereby the Cupertino, Calif., company is paying royalties for the Chinese company’s patents, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer business, told about 100 engineers at its Beijing research center in a speech in January that the company would pour more money into R&D. He added that engineers’ bonuses would increase as the business grows.

“We can be as big as Apple,” Mr. Yu told the engineers, according to people who heard his speech.

Other Chinese smartphone makers such as Xiaomi Corp., are buying patents from Western rivals to catch up. Last month, Xiaomi agreed to purchase about 1,500 patents from Microsoft Corp. as it seeks to one day sell its devices beyond developing markets such as India and Brazil.

“We must systematically negotiate licenses to international patents and build a strong IP portfolio for defensive purposes, by both filing and acquiring patents,” Xiaomi Vice President Hugo Barra said. Mr. Barra said Xiaomi is looking toward Western markets such as the U.S. and Europe.

Analysts said Xiaomi’s intellectual property isn’t strong enough to expand in developed markets such as the U.S. Xiaomi said it filed 3,738 patents in China and overseas last year, up from 2,045 in 2014.

To be sure, success in the smartphone market also requires more than just investing in patents and R&D, analysts say.

When Lenovo bought Motorola Mobility in a $2.91 billion deal in 2014, the Chinese personal-computer maker cited Motorola’s patents as a reason for acquiring the company. Even with Motorola’s patents, the company has struggled in the global smartphone market.

ZTE, which has expanded its patent portfolio, R&D and marketing, has become the fourth-largest smartphone maker in the U.S., according to research firm Canalys. But it ran into trade issues with the U.S. government earlier this year, which it is trying to resolve.

Still Huawei is hopeful that it can take on rivals with hefty R&D spending. At Huawei, a smartphone antenna-design team in Beijing has expanded 10-fold over the past five years to about 50 engineers. The team—one of several mobile antenna-design teams at Huawei—files four or five new patents every year, according to an employee.

When Apple released the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus last year, the team disassembled the phones and tested their antennas inside insulated rooms to compare them with Huawei’s own antennas.

“We are still behind Apple, but we think the gap is narrowing,” the Huawei employee said.

[kadakn01]

Some more interesting option trades.

Continuation of a trader writing the Jan 2018 calls with a strike of $7 and then buying 2X as much of the Jan 2017 calls with a strike of $8
They sold 750 contracts and bought 1,500.
This is a sell a longer term call to fund a shorter term higher strike call. See previous post for more info.

In addition another trader continued selling shares and buying super short term calls. Sold 166,250 shares at $7.05 and bought 4X as many of the Aug 8 calls for $.19 or 6650 contracts. Fun fact: the trade initially went out for 6,750 contracts and then was canceled and replaced as the trader probably goofed with the amount! You can see this on the intraday history. Again see previous posts for more info on this strategy. Trader took about 1M off the table

Posted on my Priv

[masterful]

Dumb it down please

Posted via CB10 on my BlackBerry Passport

[bspence87]

2 days away, and nobody has anything to say.
Pretty much sums up BBRY right now..

[Corbu]

Just like we did 3 months ago...

PSA for the serious contributors to this thread:

A friend of mine will have a Conference Call with BBRY this Friday. If you have any questions that you would like him to bring up, feel free to post them here and I will pass them along. Please have your questions ready by Thursday 5 PM EST at the latest.

Thank you.

[cjcampbell]

Just like we did 3 months ago...

PSA for the serious contributors to this thread:

A friend of mine will have a Conference Call with BBRY this Friday. If you have any questions that you would like him to bring up, feel free to post them here and I will pass them along. Please have your questions ready by Thursday 5 PM EST at the latest.

Thank you.

1) WTF?
2) with the lack of success of the Priv, do they still have carrier support for the next two devices?
3) they seem to have gone to a third party salesforce in Europe via their new partner. MOBL failed with this route and changed to a more controlled and engaged in house team. What makes them think being an add on to another service will help the bottom line when margin will be trimmed and no control of the message is there?

Posted via CB10

[Corbu]

Not sure he'll be able to ask the first one, CJ...

[spiller]

Just like we did 3 months ago...

PSA for the serious contributors to this thread:

A friend of mine will have a Conference Call with BBRY this Friday. If you have any questions that you would like him to bring up, feel free to post them here and I will pass them along. Please have your questions ready by Thursday 5 PM EST at the latest.

Thank you.

As Priv is not successful, why are they taking so long to release the next two? Priv arguably failed for 3 reasons: OS/apps weren't ready (heat issues), wonky build quality, not a great keyboard. The Rome would likely fix all of these issues. Why not get it out ASAP before more brand damage is done and even harder to climb out of the 'blackberry phones are no longer' story (when they sell 400K units this Q)

[Superfly_FR]

Just like we did 3 months ago...

PSA for the serious contributors to this thread:

A friend of mine will have a Conference Call with BBRY this Friday. If you have any questions that you would like him to bring up, feel free to post them here and I will pass them along. Please have your questions ready by Thursday 5 PM EST at the latest.

Thank you.

1/ How are relationships with Google; will they enhance, stand or is there any other option for an in-house OS a la Cyanogen [or/and getting closer to MSFT] ? (good luck with that lol)

Thanks Corbu !

[Corbu]

Thanks guys! Keep them coming. All questions welcomed!

[world traveler and former ceo]

Just like we did 3 months ago...

PSA for the serious contributors to this thread:

A friend of mine will have a Conference Call with BBRY this Friday. If you have any questions that you would like him to bring up, feel free to post them here and I will pass them along. Please have your questions ready by Thursday 5 PM EST at the latest.

Thank you.

1. Are there any major IP deals in the works? Is BlackBerry considering taking a much more aggressive strategy in monetization of their IP portfolio?

2. Will BlackBerry seriously entertain offers to sell their Hardware business?

3. Beyond the 30 percent growth in software / services forecasted earlier, Is BlackBerry aggressively looking at other options to maximize shareholder value?

Posted via CB10

[W Hoa]

Haven't heard from Mr Faucette

Meanwhile: 6/21/2016 RBC Capital Reiterated Rating Sector Perform $10.00

[Corbu]

Hey New York City Residents and Visitors: Check out our New Pop-Up Store! | Inside BlackBerry

[BanffMoose]

2) with the lack of success of the Priv, do they still have carrier support for the next two devices?
3) they seem to have gone to a third party salesforce in Europe via their new partner. MOBL failed with this route and changed to a more controlled and engaged in house team. What makes them think being an add on to another service will help the bottom line when margin will be trimmed and no control of the message is there?

2) They barely have/had any support as is. My add on to your question is what are they doing to address the lack of support from CDMA carriers? If Verizon and Sprint are unwilling to sell CDMA phones, will they get concessions from them to allow BlackBerry to sell through Amazon/ShopBB?

2A) What is their read on when carriers are moving to VoLTE and will BlackBerry have any devices that support that. Will BB10 devices survive that transition?

2B) Where is the BB10.3.3? Is one security patch a year sufficient to keep up with security threats?

3) Wasn't BlackBerry building up their in-house sales team? If so, what have they been doing?

4) How is the Indonesian response to the Movirtu rollout? Any other carriers adopting the service? Does Movirtu support dual SIM phones so a phone can be used with multiple carriers at the same time? That is, do they support multiple virtual SIM numbers with more than one carrier on the same phone due to the dual SIM?

4A) is the Movirtu service a revenue sharing agreement with the carriers? How does BlackBerry make money on that service?

5) are they doing any significant R&D? If so, in what areas? IIRC, BlackBerry's R&D spend has been a small fraction of what it used to be. That's a death knell for a tech company isn't it?

Thanks!

Posted via CB10

[BanffMoose]

Haven't heard from Mr Faucette

Meanwhile: 6/21/2016RBC CapitalReiterated RatingSector Perform$10.00

His boss got tired of him only changing the date on his past analyses and asked him to write something new. That takes a while.

Posted via CB10

[BanffMoose]

Verizon has opened up a little bit, but it's still a 'you can have color of the Model T as long as it's black' type of a situation. They have whitelisted some non-CDMA phones like the CDMA-less ShopBB Priv, but not all (like the ShopBB Passport.) The STV100-1 Priv in some specific situations gets LTE data and can make calls/sends texts over LTE (i.e. voLTE.) More interestingly, Verizon was under no obligation to allow the Priv -1 to work on their network, at all. If anything, the Passport is the one they're supposed to accommodate.

The bottomline is that it still comes down to Verizon being willing to play ball. They have to be willing to allow a phone on. If one's really motivated, he/she could fight to have a band 13 phone included but Verizon could just (out of spite, or whatever) allow it on as nothing more than a tablet. And getting them to do that might be a bigger PITA than what will come out of it.

Thanks Raino! Did all the carriers roll out VoLTE already?

Posted via CB10

[world traveler and former ceo]

Hey New York City Residents and Visitors: Check out our New Pop-Up Store! | Inside BlackBerry

Definitely not consistent with shutting down the HW business.... yet no announcement of new phones..... this quarter's results and any HW guidance will be interesting....surprise profitability on HW finally?...or EOL clearing inventory???

Posted via CB10

[morganplus8]

Definitely not consistent with shutting down the HW business.... yet no announcement of new phones..... this quarter's results and any HW guidance will be interesting....surprise profitability on HW finally?...or EOL clearing inventory???

Posted via CB10

I'm with you on this, our first Q report without any expectations what-so-ever. This is the first time that I don't have anything on my wish list that could come true. Is it possible non-HW is doing better than the projected 30% organic growth slated for this year? Hardware break-even would be great news but it seems to be too soon for that, really there isn't much to get excited about this time around. I added to my position, sort of like re-investing your dividends in the same thing over and over again. I'm holding another record amount for no reason other than I keep adding to the pile hoping one day this will be the start of a major upturn in the price of the stock. I'm away tomorrow at the lake so I'll be following this thread for any important news. The stock is bullish again, in the short-term, but none of that matters when news is coming. Best of luck to everyone this time around.

PS. Banff, that was one funny comment on Faucette man!

[randall2580]

I would love for him to ask for BlackBerry to be more transparent with QNX's contribution to the bottom line and rate of growth. I think we all feel that QNX is about to be a gold mine for them, it would be nice to have some hard numbers to back that up with.

[W Hoa]

I would love for him to ask for BlackBerry to be more transparent with QNX's contribution to the bottom line and rate of growth.

Chen did say that with this quarters numbers he would be giving a segmented view. Which is a first. You may get what you're asking for.

[raino]

Thanks Raino! Did all the carriers roll out VoLTE already?

Not in the US, no. Sprint hasn't..

Cross-carrier voLTE calls are also being worked upon--between AT&T and Verizon as far as I'm aware--but that too isn't nationwide yet. Not sure where TMO figures into cross-carrier, but they certainly have voLTE.

[Corbu]

BBM Video Beta Brings iPhone and Android Cross-Platform Video Calling to Asia-Pacific | Inside BlackBerry

This 1.0 version of BBM Video is part of a larger BBM release, currently slated for later this summer. That version will also include a couple of other exciting feature requests from users: phone number registration, improvements to group chats, and expanded message retraction for stickers, files, and other content. Plus, Android users will be able to share larger videos with their contacts. And iOS users will be able to mute chat and group notifications.

Phone-number registration has consistently been at the top of the customer request list. This new feature will allow iOS and Android users to create a BBM account with a phone number instead of an email address. This streamlines the sign-up process significantly and provides a more reliable way to secure your contact network. It also creates a more reliable method for resetting forgotten passwords, as people are moving toward having a single phone number and keeping it longer than they keep their email addresses.

Phone-number registration will also make it easier to find and add new BBM Contacts. BBM will be able to match the phone numbers of people in your device’s address book with people who have registered for BBM with their phone number. BBM will then list these contacts in your app as People You Know, meaning you can initiate a chat with them in just a few taps.

Don’t worry: we’re not doing away with PINs or Custom PINs. We’re simply adding another option for added flexibility, giving people more than one way to sign up.

[Corbu]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BG7JVspmrMw/

[kadakn01]

Dumb it down please

Posted via CB10 on my BlackBerry Passport

Both trades I posted are similar in that they both sold some shares and used that cash to for the right to buy an even larger amount of shares. So to give an example, say a trader owns 1M shares of BBRY. They are bullish in the short term (by August 19, 2016 in the actual trade) and think the stock can move. They want to buy some options to speculate on a move occurring. They could just come out of pocket and buy some call options, or in this case, they sold about 15% of the 1M shares they owned or 165K, and used the money they got from it to buy some call options. In the actual trade, the trader sold the 165K shares and bought 4 times that amount, or 660K shares, in the holding of call options. So the additional shares the trader has the right to buy is about 500K, so now they have about 1.5M in total vs, the 1M they started with.
. If BBRY stays flat or goes up, but below $8, this is a losing trade. If BBRY goes up say above $9, the trader is better off with doing this as keeping those 165K shares and NOT buying the options would result in less money at a price of $9 or higher. The second trade is similar in some aspect. Bottom line is they expect BBRY to move quite a bit in about 2 months time from now.