[FeitaInc]

I've been watching some videos on the Nikola One, and Nikola Motors in general. I am very curious to know if they work with QNX, but haven't found out much. The system they describe for how they are to optimise what and where the drivers pick up cargo seems like a future version of Radar, i.e. a marketplace with tracking.

If anybody have heard anything, please share.

[Corbu]

https://www.digitalnewsasia.com/busi...iness%E2%80%99

BlackBerry CEO: ‘We’ve done good but must now grow our business’
By Edwin Yapp | Nov 10, 2017

• BlackBerry growth to be powered by augmenting channels in SEA
• Future tech comes from within as well as acquisitions which makes sense

THE industry loves a good corporate turnaround story. The most famous and oft-cited one is how Apple Inc’s Steve Jobs got fired from the company he co-founded only to engineer a comeback, retake the top job, and in the process, save Apple from crumbling to ashes.

Or how it took a complete corporate outsider, Lou Gerstner, who had no knowledge of technology and IT, to prevent the behemoth IBM Corp from meeting death in the 1990s, when it came back from the brink of an US$8 billion (RM33.8 billion) loss in 1993, to grow its market capitalisation to US$168 billion by 2003. (US$1 = RM4.22)

Fairy tale comeback stories such as these are few and far between. But perhaps another story one could begin to consider as a comeback story is the recent return of Canadian technology company BlackBerry Ltd.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based firm seems to have recovered, coming back from a nadir of having lost nearly a billion dollars in 2013. The company's revenue also almost halved, to US$1.6 billion, while its cash pile fell by US$500 million to US$2.57 billion, according to Forbes.

Its recent Q2 2018 earnings report seems encouraging. While not exactly out of the woods yet, BlackBerry did turn a negative operating margin of US$352 million in August of 2017 into a positive US$19 million for Q2 this year. The company also reported a cash flow of US$2.5 billion.

The jury’s still out on whether current chief executive officer and executive chairman John Chen of the once unassailable push email pioneer and smartphone maker can completely turn things around or not. Or whether or not he can spur growth for the company after having stemmed the loss-making tide.

What’s clear for now is that BlackBerry seems to have turned a corner, and that Chen is recognised as being the prime mover for having done so.

The British-Hong Kong native has a corporate reputation of having reversed the fortunes of another tech company before he arrived at BlackBerry. In 1998, the struggling database software maker Sybase was sidelined by the world’s largest player, Oracle Corp.

After helming Sybase for 12 years, he made it attractive enough for German apps giant SAP SE to buy the company for US$5.8 billion.

Chen may seem affable and even at times jovial in his interviews on TV and in person, very often quipping about everything from his leadership style to his competitors.

But industry colleagues who know him say he is anything but. In fact, they describe the 62-year-old Chen as a “tough-as-nails” executive, who is very focused on what he wants to accomplish at BlackBerry.

When he left Sybase, he was reported to have said “After 15 years of leading Sybase, I want to take on a new challenge.”

This drive and desire was plain to see at last month’s BlackBerry Security Summit in London, where Chen told a select group of journalists that the journey for BlackBerry, “is just the beginning and we don’t think that we’re at the endpoint [as yet].”

In a 45-minute group interview session, Chen fielded tough questions on the state of his company, his strategy to pivot from being purely a hardware handset maker into a software, cyber-security and IoT company, and why he refused to change the brand name ‘BlackBerry.’

He also shared about BlackBerry in Indonesia, how he viewed competition, his plans for BlackBerry in 2018, and his view of the future of the company including keeping research and development (R&D) within the firm.

Below are excerpts of the interviews. Responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q. How do you see the security market given its highly competitive nature? How do you compete with some companies while at the same time cooperate with others such as Microsoft Corp and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd?

Chen: I’m a believer in this thinking; if the market is not big enough, you won’t have competition. This is the reason why some companies compete with us while others also collaborate with us.

This is the nature of the security business because as the market is so big, it forces us to compete and cooperate with others. For example, we cooperate with Microsoft Corp on its Office 365 product because our customers need to use these applications. On the other hand, we have the secure container technology which Microsoft doesn’t have, which will provide the security around the mobile accessibility of the Office 365.

Competition is a given when the market is big, especially when it comes to security. But I’m not worried about the competition. BlackBerry has a unique proposition. We have the best mobile security solution, and this has been validated by analysts, customers and partners. We have a lot of background and knowhow in security and we have enough to compete.

Q. How do you see the ‘new’ BlackBerry – the one that’s moving out of the hardware handset market into software security – play out especially in the Southeast Asian (SEA) market?

Chen: Our brand comprises two products; one is the BlackBerry phone and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) technology. In both cases, we’ve found partners to address those markets. I’m not willing to give up the handset market yet but what I’m willing to do is to not build the hardware. This is why we’ve chosen to license our brand to Chinese handset maker TCL Corp, PT BB Merah Putih in Indonesia and Optiemus Infracom Ltd in India.

SEA today is a very consumer-driven world and I want to make sure customers are still taken care of by our partners in the region. That’s why we’ve signed up with these companies to take our technology and brand and for them to put it in the devices, manufacture and market them in SEA. Our strategy is to employ partners to address such markets.

Q. But what about your security software efforts in SEA then?

Chen: The governments in SEA such as the financial services industries (FSIs) and multinationals (MNCs) all need secure mobile technology and I believe there seems to be a lot of interest from them. In Indonesia for example, we have a partnership with Telkomsel and Indosat, to sell our software both on the cloud as well as on premise. They are basically our resellers.

Businesses in SEA are dominated by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and our strategy is to use partners to reach them. For the government sector, we work with different partners because they buy software differently than SMEs. In Indonesia, they have a few major local software houses that the government buys from. We will have to go to each country and understand how they procure software and either directly work with them or with a partner that can provide this.

Q. In your keynote address, you mentioned your priority is to grow your channel partners. What do you mean exactly?

Chen: The current practice is for regulated industries such as FSI, government, healthcare companies to use a direct sales force, where we build a team and have a country manager and a local structure to manage that. For other verticals not in that category, we tend to use partners, system integrators (SIs), software application providers, value-added resellers and consulting firms to reach our markets. In SEA, we will mostly use partners, and hence the need to grow them.

Q. What is BlackBerry going to be focussed on in 2018?

Chen: We’ve done good in growing the software and services revenue but I have to start growing the company beyond these areas. We need to because the old revenue such as service activation fees will decline, and this is something I’ve already told the analysts to expect. In fact, by 2018, there will be no direct handset revenue because we’ve sold off our remaining hardware inventories. But next year, there will be revenue from royalties from companies like PT BB Merah Putih because when they start selling smartphones, they will pay us and our royalty revenue will go up. So, in 2018, we hope that we will start seeing this royalty growth on a consistent basis.

Q. How about BlackBerry’s QNX business? How do you see it going forward for 2018 and beyond?

Chen: On QNX, the focus so far has been about selling embedded software to auto makers and some IoT companies, such as the deal inked with Ford last year and more recently Delphi this year. Our aim is to build more recurring and service-oriented revenue. Essentially, we aim to create a ‘surface business,’ such as how to ensure a car is cyber readyon a continuous basis. The other area where we need to start doing more is to embed QNX into more than just cars, such as other verticals including heavy industry and medical, and we will continue to push for that.

Q. Is BlackBerry going to continue to focus more on research and development (R&D) or on acquiring technology?

Chen: Most of our security knowhow is still going to come from within because it’s the DNA of the company. If there are acquisition opportunities, we may acquire now that we have some positive cash flow. We won’t buy a technology as I don’t think that’s our priority. In fact, we have more technology than we know what to do with! But if there is a tech company with a ready business and a go-to-market pipeline, then we will consider.

Q. What key piece of advice in do you have for IoT cyber-security?

Chen: For IoT readiness, we recently commissioned a survey in which the results suggest that companies, especially large ones with 10,000 employees or more are not as organised as they think they are and are not coordinated readily for cyber-security and/ or IoT security readiness.

Can we ever be rid of cyber-security threats? I think not. I think this is a physical process and it’s up to a company’s operational working model to determine how safe they are and how prepared they are.

It’s really more than just technology as this is a cat-and-mouse game. For example, some of the largest cyber-security breaches are still because they have not updated their security software patches. There isn’t a magic pill in security – It’s really about the discipline, completeness in processes, a proactive cyber-security mindset and something that should permeate across a whole company.

Edwin Yapp reports from the BlackBerry Security Summit in London at the invitation of BlackBerry Ltd. All editorials are independent. He is contributing editor to Digital News Asia and an executive consultant at Tech Research Asia, an advisory firm that translates technology into business outcomes for executives in Asia Pacific.

[Corbu]

https://www.digitalnewsasia.com/digi...and-mouse-game
BlackBerry CSO: Security will continue to be a ‘cat-and-mouse’ game
Alex Manea

[bbjdog]

It’s really more than just technology as this is a cat-and-mouse game. For example, some of the largest cyber-security breaches are still because they have not updated their security software patches. There isn’t a magic pill in security – It’s really about the discipline, completeness in processes, a proactive cyber-security mindset and something that should permeate across a whole company.

If there is no door to enter, then there is no need for security. security is only as good as we build it!

Cheers gang and I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!

[world traveler and former ceo]

Smartphone competition in India... a new entrant

http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/10/tech...dia/index.html



Posted via CB10

[Corbu]

Alex Thurber‏ @Alex_Thurber
Halfway across the Pacific on @united flight 1. Great satellite internet. Quick trip to Sri Lanka for some @BlackBerry and @BBMobileIndia excitement!
9:26 AM - 13 Nov 2017

[DREXcb]

I had to check the date on this article just to make sure it was current. Last year's price target and stock ticker.

THE BLACKBERRY LTD. (BBRY) EARNS “UNDERPERFORM” RATING FROM CREDIT SUISSE GROUP AG

November 13, 2017 Ivanka Thompson

Credit Suisse Group AG reaffirmed their underperform rating on shares of BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) in a research note published on Friday. They currently have a $6.00 price target on the smartphone producer’s stock.

Several other brokerages have also issued reports on BBRY. RBC Capital Markets boosted their target price on BlackBerry from $7.00 to $7.50 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, September 29th. Macquarie upgraded BlackBerry from an underperform rating to a neutral rating and boosted their target price for the company from $7.00 to $8.50 in a research report on Thursday, September 29th. Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their target price on BlackBerry from $7.00 to $7.50 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a research report on Thursday, September 29th. Morgan Stanley restated an equal weight rating and set a $7.00 target price on shares of BlackBerry in a research report on Thursday, September 29th. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. restated a sell rating and set a $6.00 target price on shares of BlackBerry in a research report on Thursday, September 29th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, fourteen have given a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. The stock has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $7.93.

Shares of BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) opened at 7.50 on Friday. The stock’s market capitalization is $3.93 billion. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $7.47 and its 200 day moving average is $7.42. BlackBerry has a 1-year low of $6.23 and a 1-year high of $9.46.

BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, December 20th. The smartphone producer reported $0.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of ($0.01) by $0.03. BlackBerry had a negative return on equity of 3.36% and a negative net margin of 78.41%. The business earned $301 million during the quarter. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned ($0.03) EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 45.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts expect that BlackBerry will post ($0.01) EPS for the current fiscal year.

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of BBRY. Greylin Investment Mangement Inc. raised its stake in BlackBerry by 137.9% in the second quarter. Greylin Investment Mangement Inc. now owns 86,300 shares of the smartphone producer’s stock valued at $579,000 after buying an additional 50,025 shares during the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can acquired a new stake in BlackBerry during the second quarter valued at approximately $32,778,000. Capital Fund Management S.A. raised its stake in BlackBerry by 59.2% in the second quarter. Capital Fund Management S.A. now owns 241,875 shares of the smartphone producer’s stock valued at $1,623,000 after buying an additional 89,980 shares during the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. raised its stake in BlackBerry by 2.2% in the second quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. now owns 804,797 shares of the smartphone producer’s stock valued at $5,376,000 after buying an additional 16,940 shares during the last quarter. Finally, World Asset Management Inc raised its stake in BlackBerry by 7.8% in the second quarter. World Asset Management Inc now owns 32,372 shares of the smartphone producer’s stock valued at $217,000 after buying an additional 2,330 shares during the last quarter. 61.36% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Posted via CB10

[DREXcb]

In my previous post the date was this year but the material was from last year????
If that post ever shows up!!!

Posted via CB10

[Corbu]

In my previous post the date was this year but the material was from last year????
If that post ever shows up!!!

Posted via CB10

Indeed.

Last year's price target and stock ticker. Plus last year's dates: Thursday, September 29th

Probably robot-generated.

I found it here:
The BlackBerry Ltd. (BBRY) Earns “Underperform” Rating from Credit Suisse Group AG - BangaloreWeekly

Bangalore Weekly...

[Corbu]

BB POWERED‏ @xBURK

#BlackBerry CNN Ad. / #BBM#BlacKBerryMobile#Android

https://twitter.com/xBURK/status/930...517184/video/1

[Corbu]

TCL to start sales of BlackBerry smartphone in Korea

[Corbu]

Hey Superfly_FR, this one is for you... And for anyone else in Paris!

rampagingpanda, morganplus8, rarsen and 1 others like this.

[Corbu]

NYC BlackBerry Summit
BlackBerry CEO Chen sees increased channel focus key to regaining mobile security supremacy - ChannelBuzz.ca

[Corbu]

https://www.computerdealernews.com/n...partners/57431
BlackBerry betting big on channel partners

[_dimi_]

Hi Morgan! Is it 'from here on up'? Or could we be facing some more head winds with regards to share price?

Posted via CB10

[morganplus8]

Hi Morgan! Is it 'from here on up'? Or could we be facing some more head winds with regards to share price?

Posted via CB10

Well I just came in the door and had a look at it. The stock is back to its 50-dma which I believe CJ mentioned as a possible target. The volume is light, there hasn't been news in sometime now so it makes sense to bounce off that level. The 50-dma has been raising nicely to meet the stock so it is actually at my valuation point now.


i would like to hear something from this company but I'm happy with the current price too so I don't watch it much. We can't go up without news, its that simple. No reason to panic but it is flat on ultra-light volume over the past few days. Let's see if it is purely TA, it has been for 2 weeks now easily. The entire market is really boring right now so I'm working on other things. The 50-dma is a major support/negative if you break it so it becomes an entry point after it confirms that it wants to stay above that level. Typically, the stock touches it, plus or minus a penny and then rallies a bit, it then comes back to confirm support and moves higher or spreads out. Let's see what happens here.

[morganplus8]

Here is my 3-minute chart for BB for the past 7 1/2 days:



I drew that downward sloping channel a few days ago and it has been following it nicely. On Friday we popped up and out of it but we formed a head and shoulders which meant that Monday we would give it back. We stayed out of the downward channel until 11:30 AM this morning when we tried to rally and failed. That action has sent us back into the channel and heading for the 50-dma. They might hunt for stops down here but so far the volume implies that the market is bored. Again, let's see how it closes now that it is back for a retest of support at the 50-dma. You know, RSI = 40 so there is limited downside here anyway. We will find out soon enough, GL!

[Corbu]

rarsen likes this.

[Corbu]

https://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs...y-keynote.html
John Chen: Messages from the BlackBerry Keynote
Rob Enderle

I’m at the BlackBerry annual Security Summit event in New York and this is a real treat for me. BlackBerry’s CEO, John Chen, is one of the more entertaining CEOs out there and, like me, he works best largely unscripted, which adds to the entertainment factor and the unusual facial expressions that his communications team has during his talk. I’m going to cover what he says in real time and add my own commentary as I go.

Cost of Cyber Attacks

From 2016 to 2021, the cost of cyberattacks is expected to increase from $400B to $6T, as the attack surface area increases from $6.4B to $46B. In the last 12 months, we have had WannaCry with a $4B impact, Petya hit 65 countries, Equifax hurt 143M (but estimate is everyone in the U.S. now), and these are only the top exploits.

I don’t think many fully grasp just how bad things are, let alone how bad they are likely to become. With moves into smart cities (like the one Bill Gates is building in Arizona), to smart cars, to human-carrying drones, and ever smarter autonomous weapons systems, the exposures to cyberattack have and continue to expand massively.

BlackBerry Centric

Over the last few years, BlackBerry has changed greatly. From a company that was focused mostly on secure smartphones and communication, it has pivoted to a cross-platform mobile security provider. It has developed for synergistic siloes, enterprise, embedded, pro services and licensing. It has developed a comprehensive platform that encompasses the network, communications, embedded platforms, unified endpoint management and applications.

All three of the major research companies rate BlackBerry number one now in terms of mobile device management. Thus, software and services efforts are growing 75 percent in enterprise channels, 25 percent in BlackBerry Solutions channels, and 44 percent in the enterprise apps marketplace. In a turnaround, you focus primarily on the growth areas for the firm as the company races to ensure that by the time the legacy revenues collapse, the new revenue areas make up the revenue and profit difference. I think most would now agree that BlackBerry has turned the corner, though impressions of what the company was still surround the firm, showcasing how hard it is to change perceptions. BlackBerry still has 8M BlackBerry phone users.

BlackBerry has enjoyed record software and service revenue, record gross margins, and non-GAAP operating profit.

Hardware

BlackBerry is largely out of the hardware manufacturing business, at least regarding smartphones, but continues to license to others that build BlackBerry phones. However, it has entered hardware deals for IoT efforts, mostly as components for other more complex products to ensure their security.

Placing BlackBerry Back on the Top

In response to a question on how to make BlackBerry become dominant again, Chen responded that the firm is looking to be the security heart for solutions coming to market that fall into the “smart” category. Given that many of these products have started out as relatively unsecure, this focus should represent a massive revenue opportunity. The anticipated breaches and losses in these categories are expected to be equally massive and drive revenue to BlackBerry. While they are generally operating in developed markets, they plan to move initially into developing markets though partners.

Super Secure Communications

Chen touched on a super secure communications product that is marketed to governments and indicated that this offering remains very popular and growing. Given how often governments are compromised, I’d be surprised if this solution didn’t move more aggressively out of government and to governments that don’t now use it. Chen was circumspect about the nature of these, but government-level protection from what is now clearly a ramp-up of government-related attacks would seem to be an increasingly popular option for cloud services looking to provide secure communications at scale.

The Unsecure Smart Car

After Chen left the stage, next came an interesting showcase of a smart car, and the presenters spoke to the fact that in a few decades, we went from having nearly no intelligence or connectivity to cars with hundreds of millions of lines of code, potential exploits in about one line out of 10,000 on average, massive number of sensors, and more individual computers in each car than most would imagine. It isn’t just cars; planes (especially airliners), ships and other vehicles have also had similar advancements and exploding potential exploits. Worse, right now, it is almost impossible to update these systems, which means those that can’t be updated, or updated in a timely manner, will become more unsecure over time.

The demonstration was using an electronic key fob. They showcased that very cheap technology (under $500) and open source software can capture fob codes in a parking lot and then unlock your car while you are away. The demonstrators showcased that they could hack the GPS code and reroute your navigation by making your car think it was someplace else. This could be massively problematic with autonomous cars. Given that law enforcement uses GPS data for evidence, the ability to attack that data and make a car appear to be someplace else could either protect the guilty or convict the innocent.

Wrapping Up: Pay Attention BlackBerry’s Focus on Security

BlackBerry and Chen have come a long way since he has been running the firm. They continue to focus on security problems that are not only critical today but could reach even more pronounced crisis levels in the future. Whether you choose to use BlackBerry’s solutions or not, you should likely follow them because the kinds of things they are fixing will help you properly prioritize the classes of system that are mostly likely to be breached.

[slipstream89]

Ot: acad

Hey everyone! Been travelling Asia and decided to look into my holdings. Morgan would you be able to share some of your input on the recent ACAD price action? All I can think of is a reemergence of shorting. I know they recently made their 52 week high and short interest dropped over 60%. Their earnings are great with 33% increase in sales every quarter. What am I missing here? If anything it would seem the company is close to a buy out with their ramp up in commercializations. Any input is greatly appreciated as always!

[masterful]

[QUOTE=morganplus8;13071807]

Hi Morgan8 sir, if you have a minute I would like to understand how this take over effects on TSE:ACB

http://business.financialpost.com/bu...mpany-cannimed

I own some shares in ACB so wanted to know if this will push the stock higher or will drag it down.

[Corbu]

November 14, 2017 4:00 PM
BlackBerry Survey Finds Financial Industry Lacks Confidence Meeting Regulations

[morganplus8]

Ot: acad

Hey everyone! Been travelling Asia and decided to look into my holdings. Morgan would you be able to share some of your input on the recent ACAD price action? All I can think of is a reemergence of shorting. I know they recently made their 52 week high and short interest dropped over 60%. Their earnings are great with 33% increase in sales every quarter. What am I missing here? If anything it would seem the company is close to a buy out with their ramp up in commercializations. Any input is greatly appreciated as always!

Hi Slipstream89!

As always, welcome back to the board. You are 100% right, everything you pointed out about the company is true and as a pharma play, it is really, a great investment at this level. I also think shorts are taking it down much like HALO went through when they were accused of heart issues with their study years ago. That data was false, more of a reason to hammer the stock. In this case, it is everything from under-funding to stock compensation issues to a limited open box label challenge that won't allow physicians to prescribe the drug for other uses. Oh boy, give me a break! I saw the ER and those numbers don't lie so we are buying down here all the way to $ 25.50/shr as we are fully back to December levels now and this company isn't that company any more. An absolutely stupid cheap price down here. In the defense of the shorts, the IBB Index is also getting whacked hard too, with terrible TA. Years ago, this price was like getting the stock for $ 16.00 (2014) after it had made a huge run. I see zero reasons for it to hit $ 25.50/shr but it likely will and I'm there to load up for our most conservative accounts. Sometimes when the Index gets whacked as hard as it has today, with a target that looks to be even lower in the weeks ahead, despite it already being outsold, the margin calls for Funds hit everything, even the best of the best.

[morganplus8]

[QUOTE=masterful;13072071]

Hi Morgan8 sir, if you have a minute I would like to understand how this take over effects on TSE:ACB

Aurora Cannabis makes proposal to acquire rival medical marijuana company CanniMed | Financial Post

I own some shares in ACB so wanted to know if this will push the stock higher or will drag it down.

Masterful,

That is one complicated deal. You end up with a bloated company that gave a 56% premium to a rival while itself, it is up 130% without much retracement from its highs. And when the dust clears, you have a $ 3 B company with $ 8 MM in revenue for the past quarter! I can't get my head around the valuation here, it could drop back to $ 1 B over night. The good news is that not only are they competitive, they know what the Government wants and there are other crazy valuations out there to support theirs. A smarter person than me might be able to see how this thing grows into a $ 3 B valuation but I can't see it. You have the Amazon of Canada in this sector if all goes well, with barriers to entry for possibly years, then you have the need to get revenues high enough to convince stock holders to hang in there for years themselves. I don't know what breaks first. I know plenty of money has been made in this sector but I can't follow the valuation here so I'm not a buyer. At $ 6.30/shr isn't there anything else that has far less downside risk that can get you to $ 12.60/shr equivalent? Best of luck!

I roll in and out of things that I like simply because I prefer to limit my down side risk.

[morganplus8]

Here is a chart of BB:



We literally raced through the 50-dma today, while the DOW appears to be rolling over. We are still inside a downtrend that sees us moving back to $ 10.00/shr. At the low today, the RSI was at 32 so that $ 10.00 number sounds about right. It is nice to see that we bounced off that low for now but I would think it isn't over based upon how quickly we took out the 50-dma. Dropping back to $ 10.00/shr gives the stock more time to move sideways while we await some kind of news John Chen! Let's see if there are signs of the stock finding some support down here. GL