[Corbu]

Don't know if anyone has been following the Microsoft CEO news today but it is interesting that the whole narrative has been enterprise/cloud/services/mobile based with little mention of smartphones or consumer products.

Indeed. To that point, among other sources:

Some analysts suggest Mr Nadella's background in cloud computing - a growth area for Microsoft - will be advantageous.

"Satya was really one of the people who helped build up the commercial muscle,'' said Kirk Materne, an analyst with Evercore Partners.

"He has a great understanding of what's going on in the cloud and the importance of delivering more technology as a service."

BBC News - Microsoft names Satya Nadella to replace Steve Ballmer

[Shanerredflag]

Don't know if anyone has been following the Microsoft CEO news today but it is interesting that the whole narrative has been enterprise/cloud/services/mobile based with little mention of smartphones or consumer products.

And this is what will propel our stock in the future...SaaS, secure cloud, BES security software, QNX, QNX cloud for M2M and MDM...exciting times a coming.

Zee Z30 pozted thiz

[leafs123]

Indeed. To that point, among other sources:



BBC News - Microsoft names Satya Nadella to replace Steve Ballmer

Further, I think we'll see MSFT pull a BB (on some level with BBM) and offer its products cross-platform on iOS and Android, primarily Office and better integration with OneDrive (formerly known SkyDrive). They've missed a huge opportunity to further monetize Office with the lack of touch compatible versions for tablets.

I'm personally interested to see how much enterprise stuff they do and what happens to consumer products like xbox. May spin it off?

[dusdal]

Official Statement from BlackBerry on thier ties to CIBC and TELUS mobile payments

Earlier today we had a source let us know that BlackBerry�s network was behind CIBC and TELUS mobile payments, we reached out to BlackBerry for comment on this. BlackBerry issued the below statement letting us know �in fact, BlackBerry does operate the infrastructure that enables the secure over-the-air provisioning of credentials (e.g. credit card) into any NFC device that TELUS supports including Google�s Android and Windows devices.� :

Official Statement from BlackBerry on thier ties to CIBC and TELUS mobile payments – NerdBerry

Now this is news! Fantastic.

Van City Coffee ; WhitecapsFC ; PreMed Community ; Bristol Rovers Football Club

[Bacon Munchers]

Radiation happens whether data is turned on or off. The device is still maintaining radio connectivity with the cell towers for calls and SMS.

Yes, of course, but the duty cycle is greatly ramped up when data is calling for push notifications, etc.

Thanks.

[Bacon Munchers]

The University of Waterloo has purchased five buildings and land from BlackBerry Ltd. for $41-million.

The deal, which is expected to close Feb. 14, will add an additional 300,000 square feet and more than 1,000 parking spaces to the school?s property holdings.

The University already agreed to buy some buildings
Copied from the globe article

Posted via CB10

Ah, Feb.14th...

Be my valentine BlackBerry!

I don't know about Waterloo land value assessments, but most of Canada has a constant 'A'preciation, so I have to side with Morgan on figuring the under evaluation, even if slight.
Shoot, If this land was in Vancouver, we would have enough to finance BlackBerry into the new millennium.

[erbby]

Morgan, wondering your opinion on HALO here after the seemingly low stock offering price. Sorry to be off topic. I am holding shares originally purchased 13.28. The wily investor I am, held to 18 and all the way back down. My Blackberry situation is eerily similar, breakeven for BBRY 14. Thank you.

[cjmartin]

Since BES10 is now one of the main focuses of the company (and this thread), this seems relevant. How does BES10 not included secure/enterprise SMS?

They are just leaving the door wide open - TigerText Raises $21M To Bring Its Secure, Mobile Messaging Platform To The Healthcare Industry | TechCrunch

Replying to myself, since my last post wasn't very well received. The responses were basically "SMS isn't secure by nature", "enterprise will use BBM" or "$21M is small". My main point here was that, if you are an enterprise that cares at all about security, it shouldn't be enough that employees *should* use BBM, or email. If their phone is capable of SMS, then that means they can easily leak corporate data from their corporate phone through SMS . . . and the reason a company such as TigerText exists, is to prevent enterprise users from using insecure SMS for corporate communications.

Also, a $21M series B does not mean the company is small, or insignificant. This puts their total funding at $30M, giving them a valuation in the $200+M ballpark. Also, if you follow the (tech) Venture Capital world, it is VERY clear that the focus of 2014 is on enterprise software. There will be a ton of huge enterprise investments being made . . . with the Box IPO kicking things off.

Also, in the last week since the TigerText funding, there have been 2 other major secure/disappearing SMS for enterprise investments:
Confide Raises $1.9 Million In Seed Funding To Bring Disappearing Messages To Enterprise Users | TechCrunch
Red Hot Remind101 Gets $15M From John Doerr To Bring Free, Secure Text Messaging To Teachers | TechCrunch

Confide is obviously early, but nearly $2M for a seed round is big money for basically an enterprise version of Snapchat. And remind101 is just a clear message that everyone from business (the schools) to consumer (parents/students) are willing to pay for secure SMS.

There is a lot of demand out there for secure SMS, and it seems like something BlackBerry could easily handle . . . I want the next big enterprise news story to be about BlackBerry, not some startup doing something BlackBerry overlooked!

[BBUK14]

I think we have to be realistic about what we can expect from BlackBerry. They can't be expected to do everything, and all at once. To chase SMS when they are building BBM, and chasing enterprise, and improving the BlackBerry 10 OS, and whatever else is perhaps too much for a company that had let go thousands of staff.

BlackBerry doesn't need to run around plugging every little hole that some tiny company tries to fill in the hope that BlackBerry falls. They need to go in their own direction and get it absolutely right. If they do that, no one will give a damn about TigerText.

Posted via CB10

[cjmartin]

I get that sentiment . . . but these are companies with maybe 50 engineers at most, solving problems major corporations are clearly concerned about. And BlackBerry has already solved the secure communication (while within a BES 10 environment), so this doesn't seem like a huge stretch. I worked at BlackBerry for 2 years, and saw the extremely bureaucratic crap that put them in a weak position . . . then moved to Silicon Valley and now see how fast tech startups innovate. I still truly believe BB10 is the best mobile OS (z30 loyalist), and that BlackBerry will win the enterprise, but they can't ignore SMS. Obvious examples are that Apple, Google & Facebook all integrated their IM products with SMS.

[BBUK14]

I get that sentiment . . . but these are companies with maybe 50 engineers at most, solving problems major corporations are clearly concerned about. And BlackBerry has already solved the secure communication (while within a BES 10 environment), so this doesn't seem like a huge stretch. I worked at BlackBerry for 2 years, and saw the extremely bureaucratic crap that put them in a weak position . . . then moved to Silicon Valley and now see how fast tech startups innovate. I still truly believe BB10 is the best mobile OS (z30 loyalist), and that BlackBerry will win the enterprise, but they can't ignore SMS. Obvious examples are that Apple, Google & Facebook all integrated their IM products with SMS.

If they can do that without stretching themselves too thin, then fine, but it's not the most important thing at this moment. Six months from now, if all is well, they can put a foot out and step on TigerText if they need to, but I would like to see BlackBerry get BBM fully out and running smoothly, enterprise contracts rolling in, and OS improvements and penetration through the Jakarta and whatever flagship might be next. Again, if they have the resources, of course adding SMS makes sense, but with limited time and resources, they need to hit the most important areas as hard as they can.

Posted via CB10

[crackerdoodle]

Misek upgrades BBRY price to $9 with bull case scenario of $16

BlackBerry (BBRY) Price Target Lifted by Jefferies' Misek

[Superfly_FR]

My main point here was that, if you are an enterprise that cares at all about security, it shouldn't be enough that employees *should* use BBM, or email. If their phone is capable of SMS, then that means they can easily leak corporate data from their corporate phone through SMS . . . and the reason a company such as TigerText exists, is to prevent enterprise users from using insecure SMS for corporate communications.

(while OT) Simple and short : Allow SMS IT policy rule
Disable SMS in enterprise BES policy and you're done. 100% secure in a single click.
More, the users will still be able to receive SMS (data failover case - this can also be blocked) ... but not to send.

[georg4BB]

I like to read here some OT stuff here, as long as it is not heavily discussed and helps me to understand the direction BB is moving (or not moving)

Nice read: blackberry investors have faith in the company.

[foxdog0007]

(while OT) Simple and short : Allow SMS IT policy rule
Disable SMS in enterprise BES policy and you're done. 100% secure in a single click.
More, the users will still be able to receive SMS (data failover case - this can also be blocked) ... but not to send.

Long time follower, didn't speak much. I don't consider this secure SMS discussion as OT since it's related topic and could affect bbry price. But you are the OP, respect what you say...

[Tornado99]

I get that sentiment . . . but these are companies with maybe 50 engineers at most, solving problems major corporations are clearly concerned about. And BlackBerry has already solved the secure communication (while within a BES 10 environment), so this doesn't seem like a huge stretch. I worked at BlackBerry for 2 years, and saw the extremely bureaucratic crap that put them in a weak position . . . then moved to Silicon Valley and now see how fast tech startups innovate. I still truly believe BB10 is the best mobile OS (z30 loyalist), and that BlackBerry will win the enterprise, but they can't ignore SMS. Obvious examples are that Apple, Google & Facebook all integrated their IM products with SMS.

Why not just make locking out SMS on bb10 an option from bes? Corps could then direct users to bbm as txt alternative with more than just an sop. Either way, there will always be risks....no one mentions an employee can just pick up a phone and call an outside contact to leak Intellectual Property. No controls around that. At a certain point corps must trust their staff.


Flicked out via Zed10

[Superfly_FR]

Long time follower, didn't speak much. I don't consider this secure SMS discussion as OT since it's related topic and could affect bbry price. But you are the OP, respect what you say...

No offense intended. This topic is interesting for sure
On the other side, any news related to Blackberry or security can affect the stock price ... but then, I'd just suggest to go one level up, in the BBRY section and post it here as a new thread: this will allow broader discussions . My "since OT" was explaining my "short" answer (didn't want to appear "brutal").

[Superfly_FR]

Why not just make locking out SMS on bb10 an option from bes?

It is an option. See above.

[Superfly_FR]

Misek upgrades BBRY price to $9 with bull case scenario of $16

BlackBerry (BBRY) Price Target Lifted by Jefferies' Misek

lol, basically he sets the SP from $2 to $16 and then averages ...

[morganplus8]

Morgan, wondering your opinion on HALO here after the seemingly low stock offering price. Sorry to be off topic. I am holding shares originally purchased 13.28. The wily investor I am, held to 18 and all the way back down. My Blackberry situation is eerily similar, breakeven for BBRY 14. Thank you.

Pretty discussing isn't it? We hit a 52 week high (HALO) two times over the past 3 weeks and now they have trimmed $ 5.00/shr from the asset value of the company. The fair thing to do would have been to sell those shares closer to $ 14.50 - $ 15.00 but they give them away. I sold out of this trade back at $ 18.00/shr and bought back in again, ( a block of stock before the close and that news) but those new shares are underwater now and I'm not happy about that. All of this will blow over in a few weeks and the stock will bottom out here at just under $ 13.00/shr (today is the low) and then we have to wait until Feb 10th when the deal closes and we can go up again. The stock has to trade below the issue price in order to "legitimize the value" of the offering. I doubt we are down here more than a couple of days, just long enough to complete the deal. The good news comes later when they run the stock up again to hedge those shares with a large profit. This is one of the best pharma/biotechs out there and now they have $ 160 million in cash, credit for $ 50 million more and a great pipeline and you will forget any of this happened in a few weeks time.

As for the general market, the DOW is confirming today that it has turned bearish. We could be in for a rocky ride over the next few weeks and months ahead. We are testing and failing on the 200-dma for the third time this week.

Now in the face of all of this, BBRY is performing brilliantly! It is very close to a breakout point today and if the DOW could move sideways and stay out of serious trouble, we could go for a nice run here. If I get a chance I'll post a chart on BlackBerry as it approaches a breakout point. It would be nice to see the DOW move closer to even on the day and give BBRY a chance to breakout, it wants to so badly.

[BBUK14]

Not to get too OT, I wonder if anyone in Canada has noticed a sharp increase in BlackBerry 10 phones in public? Obviously I ask because I'm wondering what the news will be at the next report, even if they don't come out with specific numbers. I've stated briefly elsewhere that in London UK I've seen a very sharp rise in BlackBerry 10 sighting in public over the last 10 weeks.

Now, there is actually a statistically sound way of estimating populations based on such sighting, but you will forgive me for not standing in the same spot every day with a clipboard - nonetheless I strongly suspect that we will get some very positive (by comparison) news regarding consumer sales in the next few months, at least in the UK. As phone sales seems to be practically written out of the SP at the moment, perhaps we will also see a pleasant and surprising boost to the SP in the next two quarters. I'm just wondering if this is a UK only phenomenon, or if it's happening elsewhere...

Posted via CB10

[Corbu]

Though I often question the relevance and seriousness of many of the articles that are published on BBRY, I think it is better to post them here, for what they are worth:
Potential Buyers Wait For Blackberry's Patents - Forbes

[morganplus8]

Here is a quick chart on BBRY to illustrate my point:



In the short-term, we have been in a nice uptrend with a welcomed correction. That appears to be ending now as the stock wants to move higher on such a bearish day for the general market. The green arrows are the indication of a breakout line that would fail to hold back the stock as long as it can turn positive today. It appears that we are going to break it this week. We corrected the over-bought issue with the RSI > 70 and now we have room to pop from here, at least back to the recent highs.

[Superfly_FR]

North !

[chaud57]

Just came back inside from shoveling a ton of snow. I don't hate the snow as much when I come back in and BBRY has moved north. I'll go shovel more if it means BBRY will be even higher