[morganplus8]

Just a heads up on BBRY stock on a TA basis, the 50-dma is at $ 7.34/shr and the 200-dma is at $ 7.40/shr, please look up what a "Golden Cross" is, on a technical basis. We will see the 50-dma cut up through the 200-dma by the end of this week and that is very bullish. I picked up 20,000 more shares because of this and thought I had better mention why. There are no guarantees in all of this but the stock has corrected back to an RSI=70 level, it isn't over-bought any more on the Bollinger Bands and the chart looks very good here. As long as the DOW Jones holds .... it looks to be moving higher on the cross. GL

Here is one definition:
http://www.stockopedia.com/content/t...ly-work-69694/

[fanBBRY]

Baidu to share self-drive car technology

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39637972

Chinese internet giant Baidu has said it will share much of the technology it has created for its self-driving cars.

The firm predicted that the move would help drive the development of autonomous vehicles.

Called Apollo, the project will make a range of software, hardware and data services available to others, especially carmakers.

Other firms in the sector, such as Tesla and Google, have tended to keep key developments secret.

'Greater innovation'

Baidu, often described as China's Google, has been developing self-drive vehicles since 2015.

Making the announcement ahead of the Shanghai Auto Show, it said technologies for use in restricted test environments would be available as soon July.

There will then be a gradual roll-out of other technology, with an aim to offer its full range of developments to support self-driving for highways and city roads by 2020.

In a statement, Baidu's group president Qi Lu said it wanted to create a "collaborative ecosystem" using its strengths in artificial intelligence (AI) to "encourage greater innovation and opportunities, making better use of our technology to drive the evolution of the entire industry".

What's in it for Baidu?

This move could be likened to Google's decision to release Android, the free operating system for smartphones, says James Chao of IHS Markit.

Even though it was free to use, it became a success for Google because it drives users to the company's various mobile apps and services.

By becoming the supplier of the "brains" for more cars than just the ones it makes itself, there are clear benefits. One is potential revenue from carmakers in the long term.

And what is also crucial to the development of self-driving vehicles is data. The more cars using its technology, the more data it should be able to harvest.

"It really sounds like they want to treat this like a smartphone platform," Mr Chao said. "The holy grail for software in cars is to become the Android or iOS that everyone is using, and this is their strategy to do that."

Who is likely to want to use this tech?

Baidu's statement alludes to opportunities in the US, but also in its home market.

"China is the world's largest market for automotive sales and production. It has many car brands and an open environment that is ripe for collaboration," group president Qi Lu said.

Analyst Mr Chao agrees. "I can think of at least 20 Chinese carmakers who would be perfect candidates," he told the BBC.

"They don't have huge research budgets or the resources to figure out how to make self-driving vehicles themselves.

"These are firms that tend to rely on suppliers so they can build a car and so this fits in perfectly for them."

He said this could mean that Baidu's technology will be used in millions of cars on China's roads by 2020.

However, bigger international carmakers who are already working on autonomous vehicles are unlikely to follow suit.

How advanced is Baidu's driverless car technology?

Motivated by the widespread pollution problems, Beijing has pushed for more electric vehicles and Chinese carmakers have responded significantly.

And in the race for driverless car technology, Chinese companies are taking big strides. Along with Changan and Geely, Baidu is one of the big players, with AI research being done in both China and Silicon Valley.

But it is not clear how the software and hardware Baidu has developed compares with that of its rivals. Some analysts say it has done less testing, and therefore has less data to work with, than Google and Tesla.

[Corbu]

BlackBerry Partners with a Leading Insurance Provider to Boost Enterprises’ Cybersecurity | Inside BlackBerry

[Corbu]

https://www.ft.com/content/ed71a126-...c-50ba212dce4d
BlackBerry chief predicts second life for its phones

Licensing others to make distinctive handsets is strategy as software future beckons

It has only been six months since BlackBerry took the decision to stop making the handsets that bear its name, but John Chen, the chief executive who pulled the plug, is already predicting the phones will make a comeback.

The Canadian company that once dominated the smartphone market has licensed its brand to three “white label” phonemakers in Indonesia, India and China, who now manufacture handsets designed to appeal to the 14m BlackBerry users around the world — a number that has dwindled from 80m at the company’s peak.

Even so, Mr Chen is happy to have made the decision for BlackBerry itself to have left the highly competitive smartphone market. Sitting in the basement of the Bulgari hotel in London, he is pleased with the move out of hardware, describing the smartphone market as “commoditised” and the latest models from his former rivals as “boring”.

“Something has to happen. I’m glad to let my partners deal with it,” he says of the uniformity of smartphones.

Instead, BlackBerry has, in the words of Mr Chen, gone “back to its roots” by focusing on its security software, servers and productivity tools, while also tapping into new markets including connected cars.

BlackBerry’s switch was perhaps inevitable under the pragmatic Mr Chen. The latest industry data from Gartner showed that BlackBerry’s share of the mobile operating system market had plunged to a rounded 0.0 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2016. It had launched phones using Android’s software, but none sparked the turnround in volumes to justify continued investment.

Yet he believes that using the local manufacturing “muscle” of its partners — China’s TCL, Indonesia’s PT BB Merah Putih and India’s Optiemus — means that BlackBerry phones may enjoy an unlikely second life. “A couple of years from now, more people will be buying BlackBerry phones than today. My prediction, and I could be wrong, is we will have a comeback in handsets,” he says.

If the strategy succeeds, it will bring in licensing dollars, but not enough to restore its denuded revenues line. BlackBerry reported fourth-quarter revenues of $4.2bn in 2012, when it was still riding high in the smartphone market. Five years on, the equivalent fourth-quarter figure was $286m.

Mr Chen, who was appointed in 2013 with the business on the brink of collapse, is unfazed. The former Sybase chief argues that he has achieved his aim of turning around BlackBerry. “I am no longer in a turnround state. I am in a growth state,” he says.

As evidence of its transformation, the software and services portion of BlackBerry’s revenue has grown from $100m to $640m since he joined. Fourth-quarter results showed that losses had been reduced to $47m compared to $238m a year earlier, and guidance that the company should be profitable this year sent shares up 12 per cent.

An extra boost came last week in the form of a $815m refund from chipmaker Qualcomm — ironically, a result of its failure in the smartphone sector. The payment boosted the company’s cash balance and could clear the way for a more aggressive tack on acquisitions.

The move back to software and security reflects a world that has become more attuned to the cyber security threats of unprotected mobile phones, especially in an office environment. Governments also remain large customers of BlackBerry technology, with all G7 countries using its software.

The company estimates that the market for its “enterprise of things” technology is worth $17.6bn. Mr Chen also sees an opportunity to introduce a sub-brand similar to the famous “Intel Inside” strategy pioneered by the chip company.

The company’s acquisition of software maker QNX in 2010 has also made the business a player in the connected car market. It works closely with Ford, which took on 400 BlackBerry staff this month to boost its in-car connectivity development. There are now 60m cars on the road that use BlackBerry software.

BlackBerry is testing two autonomous vehicles and expects to do real road tests in the late summer in Toronto. Mr Chen argues that cars have become little more than big chains of code. “It’s like a very expensive golf cart running around,” he says of future autonomous vehicles.

Yet he admits that his efforts to distance BlackBerry from its smartphone heritage has been somewhat hampered by its brand. He opines that he is constantly asked about new handsets in meetings and that he did consider changing the name of the company back to Research In Motion to draw a line under its legacy. He has now ruled out such a move, saying that only “weak” companies change their names in the middle of a turnround.

“I have a joke that if my son is not doing well at maths at school, I don’t change the name of my son. That does not improve the maths,” he says.

[Andy_bb_king]

https://www.ft.com/content/ed71a126-...c-50ba212dce4d
BlackBerry chief predicts second life for its phones

Thanks Corbu! The funny thing is all analysts gave 0 value to handsets, yet we believe, not just myself I think, that handsets business is going to be the biggest business part in the near future.

Posted via CB10

[Bacon Munchers]

Hi guys,
sorry for the long blackout, there has been a few storms in the business area here, had to fix it first ...
So, I went to my BBRY account today and noticed I'm in the green (+0.97%) for the very first time in ... years; that's good news anyway I see it !
Thanks Corbu, Morgan (among others) for all the super valuable info you continue to inject here; this thread is far more than the one-stop BBRY ...
Will be back, now I should be able to find some hours to share and discuss.

Cheers
SF

Oh great. You had to mention the SP going green....

[Corbu]

PR: Allied World
https://ca.blackberry.com/company/ne...ess?id=2138717
BlackBerry Expands its CyberSecurity Services Reach via Allied World

[Andrew4life]

Thanks Corbu! The funny thing is all analysts gave 0 value to handsets, yet we believe, not just myself I think, that handsets business is going to be the biggest business part in the near future.

Posted via CB10

Technically, it would fall under licensing, so handset as $0 is correct.

Posted via CB10

[farmwersteve]

Just a heads up on BBRY stock on a TA basis, the 50-dma is at $ 7.34/shr and the 200-dma is at $ 7.40/shr, please look up what a "Golden Cross" is, on a technical basis. We will see the 50-dma cut up through the 200-dma by the end of this week and that is very bullish. I picked up 20,000 more shares because of this and thought I had better mention why. There are no guarantees in all of this but the stock has corrected back to an RSI=70 level, it isn't over-bought any more on the Bollinger Bands and the chart looks very good here. As long as the DOW Jones holds .... it looks to be moving higher on the cross. GL

Here is one definition:
http://www.stockopedia.com/content/t...ly-work-69694/

Nice move!

[Bacon Munchers]

...please look up what a "Golden Cross" is...

All I could find was this:




... You don't want to see what 'Bollinger Bands' search came up with.

[Superfly_FR]

Oh great. You had to mention the SP going green....

I was in the green, not the SP actually ...
Should have mentioned it for the anti-jinx effect, my bad, sry

[kadakn01]

QCOM just released earnings and in their quarterly report or 10Q that was posted just now, it shows 974M as the total amount BBRY will receive as they use 10% interest rate since June 2015. They're meeting again on May 30th to determine the amount they will get for attorney fees which is in addition to the 974M

[Corbu]

Qualcomm Q2 tops estimates | ZDNet

Qualcomm noted that revenues were negatively impacted by a reduction related to the BlackBerry arbitration decision, which it says totaled $974 million.

[fanBBRY]

So another 30 cents jump for BBRY at open tomorrow? Good timing on your trade Morgan.

[morganplus8]

So another 30 cents jump for BBRY at open tomorrow? Good timing on your trade Morgan.

Ha! Ha! I don't know if it is worth the full $ .30/shr tomorrow but I like how you think! I still think we should be above $ 10.00/shr on all of the news, the next short data should be very interesting indeed. GL

Oh yeah, we hit a closing 52 week high today, we can take out the intraday high of $ 9.20/shr tomorrow and we did all of this with the DOW Jones hitting a 2 month low, when has that ever happened? We make a Golden Cross on Friday, should be even tomorrow and cleared by then.

[Corbu]

https://blog.bbm.com/2017/04/18/late...over-services/
Latest BBM Packed with Improvements and New Discover Services

By Matthew Talbot

[FeitaInc]

From Yahoo finance:

[$$] JPMorgan accused of fraud over tech company sale

JPMorgan steered a technology company client to sell itself to BlackBerry at a knockdown price because it wanted to win lucrative future investment banking business from the smartphone pioneer, according ...

Read More

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/cc639df4-205...dev&yptr=yahoo

Does anyone know which company the article is about? (I'm not a subscriber)




Posted via CB10

[alludba]

I think they're talking about the Good Technology acquisition.

[Corbu]

Indeed.

[QUOTE=Does anyone know which company the article is about? (I'm not a subscriber)[/QUOTE]

Here you go FeitaInc:

JPMorgan accused of fraud over tech company sale

US bank engineered cut-price deal to curry favour with BlackBerry, lawsuit claims

JPMorgan steered a technology company client to sell itself to BlackBerry at a knockdown price because it wanted to win lucrative future investment banking business from the smartphone pioneer, according to an investor lawsuit.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of some shareholders of Good Technology, a security software provider, accuses the bank of committing “fraud on the board” over the advice it gave when directors were debating whether to pursue a public listing or a sale in 2015.

Good, once a “unicorn” valued at more than $1bn, was sold to BlackBerry in September 2015 for just $425m, amid a cash crunch.

The suit, which raises questions over potential conflicts of interest in such “dual-track” processes, alleges JPMorgan mishandled the planned initial public offering and then dismissed other buyout offers and rescue financings for Good Technology because it wanted to build a relationship with the much larger company. Under chief executive John Chen, BlackBerry has been moving out of smartphones to focus on software.

After the deal was signed, Jennifer Nason, JPMorgan’s global chair of technology, media, and telecom banking, wrote to colleague Curt Sigfstead: “Fantastic result! Glad bberry didn’t use [a banker]. Curt — we should have Jamie [Dimon, JPMorgan chief executive] call/email Chen,” according to the lawsuit.

Good Technology’s common shareholders are also suing the company’s board and management, accusing them of breaching their fiduciary duties in selling Good Technology at an unfair price. JPMorgan was the tech group’s lead financial adviser in 2015 and is accused of aiding and abetting the management and board’s breach of duty.

The bank, in court filings, has denied wrongdoing. A spokesperson declined to comment.

Attorneys for the directors did not respond to inquiries. Good Technology which is not a defendant, says that contractual provisions prevent the shareholders from bringing their action. A trial is scheduled to begin in the Delaware Court of Chancery in June.

JPMorgan earned a fee of just over $4m in the sale to BlackBerry. Its lead position on Good Technology’s $100m IPO likely would have netted it only $2m, the shareholders contend.

Cristina Morgan, a vice-chair in the technology banking group at JPMorgan and the relationship manager for the Good account, wrote in an early 2015 internal email, recently disclosed in a court filing: “The important assignment here [at Good] is the M&A engagement so whatever we have to get that matters.”

Ms Morgan, in a recent deposition, was asked by the suing shareholders if IPOs were a loss leader for JPMorgan. She responded that “IPOs are a loss leader for all banks”.

JPMorgan did not share its candid views about the risks of an IPO planned for March 2015, the suit also claims. The bank had private doubts about successfully completing a listing before the company’s first-quarter results were published, the lawsuit says.

The shareholders also accuse the bank of dismissing other buyout offers, including an $825m preliminary bid in the spring from CA Technologies. CA, unlike BlackBerry, did not contemplate retaining Good Technology’s chief executive, Christy Wyatt, who had helped hire JPMorgan.

One private equity investor that was interested in investing in Good Technology wrote in an internal email after the acquisition was announced: “I’m shocked it went that low. I am really disappointed they signed exclusivity so early with BlackBerry. JPMorgan and/or Board just totally ignored us.”

One of Good Technology’s venture capital backers wrote in an email after the sale that the price reflected the cash crunch the company had run into, as the months ticked away. “BlackBerry got an absolutely fire sale fantastic deal because the company couldn’t have made payroll next week…….ugh.”

In summer 2015, after the IPO was pulled and CA offer rebuffed, Riverwood Capital, another Good Technology’s investor, wondered in an internal email about JPMorgan’s capability. “Certainly not clear that JPM is best equipped to do this [advise Good], definitely feels like it could yield a result that is not good for our interests. . . Did [JPM] turn over all stones and find nothing there?”

[fanBBRY]

Ha! Ha! I don't know if it is worth the full $ .30/shr tomorrow but I like how you think! I still think we should be above $ 10.00/shr on all of the news, the next short data should be very interesting indeed. GL

Oh yeah, we hit a closing 52 week high today, we can take out the intraday high of $ 9.20/shr tomorrow and we did all of this with the DOW Jones hitting a 2 month low, when has that ever happened? We make a Golden Cross on Friday, should be even tomorrow and cleared by then.

Well, its looks like an additional 159 Million USD from the initial order. If John Chen could use the funds and grow the company even at the pace of the industry (dont even need to beat the industry growth), why not value it in immediately for the potential?

So that would imply 27 to 30 cents increase to BBRY valuation, right?

[morganplus8]

Well, its looks like an additional 159 Million USD from the initial order. If John Chen could use the funds and grow the company even at the pace of the industry (dont even need to beat the industry growth), why not value it in immediately for the potential?

So that would imply 27 to 30 cents increase to BBRY valuation, right?

Of course that's one way to determine the added value but you also have to look at where the price is now, did it discount some of that news already? I said back when the news broke that it should be trading at $ 9.50/shr and I also stated that no one was pricing the stock with a very large interest settlement as well. With Chen knocking it out of the park on earnings day, and now this along with news on BBM etc., I don't know why we aren't over $ 10.00 collectively so I'm thinking much higher numbers here. I don't want you to get your hopes up too high, there is also the Golden Cross and new 52 week highs for the stock, but, it is the stock market and there is still plenty of hate out there. I can't wait to get up each morning to see how it does as I believe it should be well into $ 10.00/shr myself. Let's see what they do to it today, tomorrow is the cross and it should get some TA news on that too. The shorts have a say in where it goes, good luck.

[Corbu]

Yesterday:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/video...software-video

BlackBerry has officially pivoted its business strategy to software services. After receiving US$800M in a settlement with Qualcomm last week, the question now is what the company's next move will be. Bloomberg Intelligence senior telecom analyst John Butler speaks on "Bloomberg Markets: Canada." (Source: Bloomberg)

[Corbu]

https://blog.bbm.com/2017/04/20/disc...und-the-world/
Discover BBM News — Around the World

By Mattew Talbot

[_dimi_]

Anyone with a subscription to this site?

http://m.litigationdaily.com/#/artic...Dnws%23spf%3D1

Posted via CB10

[Corbu]

Nice find, dimi.

I don't have access to it, unfortunately.

This is the lawyer who seems to have been responsible for this case:
https://www.sullcrom.com/lawyers/GarrardR-Beeney