[Marc_Paradise]

Not sure if this has been posted

Samsung Cannot Maintain Success Without Good Software | The Gadget Masters

Gadget Masters is an unmitigated BB fan site. No surprise there

Anyone else really like that moment when the market opens? Not just for BBRY, but for any stocks you mihgt be following. I always enjoy that moment... sitting, waiting for the [financial] world to start... watching my live stream of quotes from etrade... then the clock ticks 9:29 to 9:30, and it's on.

Sort of like waiting for the moment the sun crests the horizon, except made by humans

[Charles Martin1]

Well it's not so bad really. Here's the "Breaking News" ticker from CNBC this morning, an article from the New York Times "Samsung Armors Android to Take on Blackberry". It acknowledges BB as the gold standard in terms of security and I've highlighted the the "pros" that Samsungs Android Knox fix is supposedly going to try and "con" the IT world with. Reading between the lines, it's not about Samsung at all. It's about the superiority of Blackberry. Hope others see it in the same light.

Samsung, which continues to vex Apple, now has another target: the BlackBerry. Samsung Armors Android to Take On BlackBerry

Samsung's smartphones have been best sellers all over the world, but the company has been, until recently, marketing them to consumers, not businesses. But over the last year, Samsung, the South Korean manufacturer, has been quietly beefing up the Google Android software that runs on its smartphones to give businesses a phone with more security. It introduced that software, named Knox, as in the fort, at an international cellphone industry trade show here this week. Samsung said its new version of Android protected users from malware.

(Read More: Samsung's New Phone Will Debut on Apple's Turf)

The company hopes that the new software makes Samsung smartphones attractive to corporate information technology departments that worry about the theft of sensitive corporate data by hackers. I.T. managers have been among BlackBerry's most loyal customers because of the security BlackBerry built into its phones and the private communications network it maintains. Samsung said it teamed up with General Dynamics, a military contractor, to ensure its phones met the strict security standards of government agencies. Samsung executives have said Knox will first appear on a new Galaxy smartphone in the second quarter. That phone is likely to be the Galaxy S IV, which is expected to be introduced at an event in New York on March 14.

The company has also been focusing more on businesses in its advertisements. It ran a series of amusing commercials during the Academy Awards show on Sunday featuring the phones' handiness in a business.Samsung said it had evidence that it was ready for enterprise. Thousands of its Galaxy smartphones and tablets are already in the hands of American Airlines flight attendants, Dish Network cable technicians and Boston Scientific health care professionals.

"We will become No. 1 in enterprise," said Tim Wagner, a vice president for enterprise sales at Samsung who worked at BlackBerry. "If Samsung chooses to be No. 1 in a certain area, we will become No. 1." Samsung has become the top seller of televisions and cellphones, but persuading I.T. managers to risk their jobs on a new security system will be tricky. BlackBerry executives insist the BlackBerry is still the top phone for professionals. But the company is vulnerable. Android phones and Apple iPhones last year replaced BlackBerrys as the most-used phones among workers all over the world, according to a study by the research firm IDC.

(Read More: Samsung Follows Apple Results With Record Profit)

It found that more businesses were buying iPhones for their employees, and Android phones were the most popular among workers buying their own phones. That puts Samsung, as the leading Android phone maker, in position to become a top vendor for businesses. To appeal to the business user, Samsung added special features to Android. One tool allows the phone owner to create separate "personas" for personal and business use, a feature also on the new BlackBerry 10. In a phone's business persona, an office worker can use apps approved and monitored by the I.T. department. The worker can switch to a personal persona, where personal photos, games and calendar are stored, which cannot be seen by I.T. If the employee were to leave the company and keep the phone, the I.T manager can erase the data from the business persona, leaving the personal data untouched.

The business persona also has a layer of security. If malware were to infect the phone, it would not be able to invade the apps and data in the business persona, said Rhee Injong, a senior vice president for the Samsung group that developed Knox. Samsung also has teamed up with AirWatch, a company that makes tools for I.T. professionals to manage phones. AirWatch will make detailed tweaks inside the business persona of a Samsung device, like creating restrictions for Wi-Fi networks or blacklisting certain apps. John Marshall, chief executive of AirWatch, said that the benefit of Samsung's openness was that businesses could tailor their phone's software and also better manage the corporate fleet of phones. He said that because BlackBerry made its own I.T. management software, its flexibility was limited. BlackBerry, however, said that its approach offered higher and more consistent levels of security.

Samsung is also collaborating with developers. The note-sharing app Catch, for example, will use the persona system to allow people to divide notes so that the memos they share with friends do not show up in the notes they share with co-workers. "It's going to make it much easier for people to use the app they use for personal collaboration with loved ones and family members, and then be able to use that same one at work," said Andreas Schobel, chief executive of Catch, in an interview.

BlackBerry's Balance feature allows corporations and governments to segregate employees' phones for work-related data and apps on its BlackBerry 10 phones. If any of those phones are stolen, or an employee is dismissed, corporate I.T. departments can wipe out company data by remote control. In a statement, David J. Smith, the executive vice president for mobile computing at BlackBerry, suggested that Samsung's variation of Balance was wanting. "Only BlackBerry Balance can effectively keep sensitive corporate information secure while keeping an individual's personal information private," he said in a statement. Mr. Smith also reiterated BlackBerry's longstanding claim that it was uniquely secure. "Whatever any of our competitors announce, one thing won't change," Mr. Smith wrote. "The most secure mobile computing solution is a BlackBerry device running on a BlackBerry platform."
BlackBerry's first BlackBerry 10 phone, the Z10, is scheduled for release in the United States next month.

(Read More: All the Reasons BlackBerry 10 Will Fail: Analyst)

Alex Stamos, the chief technology officer of Artemis Internet, a computer security company, said that it would take more disclosure and months of study to assess the overall security of the Samsung system. He said that the ability to segregate work and personal data and apps was available for all Android phones from a number of other companies, including Good Technology and Fixmo. He said that I.T. managers may be wary. "You're trying to protect computations that operate in a secure container from an operating system you don't trust," Mr. Stamos said.

But because Samsung is a handset maker, its new system will have one significant distinction from other security products for Android. Like BlackBerry, Mr. Stamos said, Samsung will build a "trusted component" into the hardware of its phones that will verify that the phone's security and operating systems have not been corrupted. "That makes it much harder to break any device." he said. "It is much closer to what a BlackBerry does." (Read More: What, No Instagram or Pandora? The BlackBerry App Problem)

Chris Hazelton, an analyst at 451 Research, issued a detailed report calling Knox a "fortress" for enterprise data on mobile devices. He said that by splitting business and personal apps into separate containers, Knox might even open doors for government workers to bring their own devices to work. Chetan Sharma, a mobile communications consultant who has worked with wireless carriers, said that the BlackBerry remained the strong favorite of I.T. departments with strong concerns about security. But he said he was not sure that would last. And he said Samsung was in a strong position to attack. "I think BlackBerry e-mail is still a gold standard," he said. But he noted that the hard truth for BlackBerry was that people were choosing their own phones for use at work. Stronger security will become even more important as Samsung steps into the world of mobile payments. At the trade show, Samsung also demonstrated its new Wallet app that will allow for people to pay for things with coming Galaxy phones. It also announced a partnership with Visa to handle mobile payments.

Gee, sounds an awful lot like they're trying to reverse engineer BB10 technology.

[m0de25]

Gee, sounds an awful lot like they're trying to reverse engineer BB10 technology.

Samsung reverse engineers everything... They don't have the ripoff moniker for nothing, it's now BB's turn to be flattered.

[Charles Martin1]

Why not just sign on to use BB10?

[Sqoon]

Gee, sounds an awful lot like they're trying to reverse engineer BB10 technology.

Was it really necessary to quote the entire article?

Posted via CB10

[bungaboy]

Bell Canada increasing price of Z10 by $10 to $149 on 3 year contract as per Howard Forums post by Howard.

Blackberry Price changes on Bell: Z10 going up, 9790 going down.

[knrd]

Amazon Germany just announced they are going to start shipping the Z10 3/3. Given that Vodafone has been taking pre orders already (though without a date) we can expect them to launch within a week as well.

Posted via CB10

Actually, they are already shipping the black version and the white one got moved up to 3/4. Hopefully that also means they have more supply available.

[DragonFlyer]

Apps, we don't need no stinking apps

BlackBerry 10 Built For Success In U.S. Markets - Seeking Alpha

[bungaboy]

Financial Post article this morning . . . . kinda positive.

Terence Corcoran: All hail BlackBerry!

Terence Corcoran | Feb 27, 2013 8:47 PM ET | Last Updated: Feb 27, 2013 8:54 PM ET
More from Terence Corcoran | @terencecorcoran

The icon is playing the game of capitalism in glorious fashion

Whether the greatest tech phenom in Canadian history succeeds or not with its do-or-die BlackBerrry 10 platform and devices, the national corporate icon is playing the game of capitalism in glorious fashion.

Executives have been turfed, the original creators of the company shown the door, the business model revamped, it’s standalone character retained, government bailouts eschewed, new products have been launched, market analysts and experts are at war over the company’s prospects, the outlook is uncertain. Isn’t the free market great? And made so, right here in Canada.

No sporting contests, from Stanley Cup series to the Super Bowl or even the World Cup, can match the BlackBerry saga for tension, drama, strategic plays, execution challenges and uncertainty of outcome. The company once known as Research in Motion, considered a loser and all but dead to the world last year — Sell it! to Microsoft or anybody and just get it over with — has fought back and stands today with what appears to be a chance at winning.

This is a guess. I’m just a corporate sporting fan, sitting in the stands with no inside knowledge or even much of clue about how it is possible for a small group of business executives, people like BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins, to marshall the talents of thousands of people and a million business and technological issues on multiple continents behind the goal of imagining, designing, producing and selling a piece of technology as complex and amazing as the mobile miracles that smartphones have become.

The BlackBerry Z10 device has been launched in Canada, the United Kingdom, India and elsewhere. In March, the Z10 debuts in the United States, the launch to be announced by the major U.S. telco carriers and BlackBerry. That BlackBerry has come this far is itself an entrepreneurial marvel achieved in the face of relentless criticism from a constant procession of naysayers and harpies.

A year ago, I wrote: “The current Grand Canyonesque gap between Research In Motion’s upbeat self-portrayal and the outside world’s lost-in-cyberspace view of the company represents one of the greatest disconnects in modern corporate history. Somebody is going to end up with a muddied reputation.”

It is too soon to determine where the mud will fall. The canyon between BlackBerry’s backers and its critics opens daily in reports and commentaries, continuing a pattern that has played out over the past year. Every step the company took — and takes — has been greeted with jeers.

The later U.S. launch in March was seen as a disastrous strategic bungle. But now, well, maybe it will turn into an advantage. The company and its telco partners certainly have had enough time to draft an effective marketing campaign, the market has been tested in Canada. Maybe demand is building.

So far, BlackBerry seems to have risen above the critics — and above the market for ideas that constitute the stock trading and media communities. “We believe BB10 is likely to be DOA,” said Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette last November. He was still at it this week. “We continue to believe the Z10 launch involves relatively small shipment volumes and only moderate sell-through so far in markets which have historically been so me of BlackBerry’s strongest.”

On the other side of the market, a guy named George Kesarios wrote Wednesday the BB10 may be doing better than many imagine.


According to MarketWatch, more than half of the customers purchasing the new Z10 smartphone in Canada are new to the BlackBerry platform. This was disclosed during a conference for the company’s enterprise customers and developers in San Francisco. BlackBerry’s VP Richard Piasentin also said more than 33% of customers buying the Z10 in the U.K. are also new to the company’s smartphone platform.

BlackBerry is expected to do well in Canada (its home turf). Canada’s biggest independent mobile phone retailer, Glentel Inc., said the BlackBerry is the leading smartphone sold in all of its 330 Canadian retail stores since Feb. 5. But Canada is not the only market that BlackBerry is doing well.

For those who don’t know it, England is the biggest BlackBerry market in the world.
.
Somebody else questioned the varacity of BlackBerry’s statements. Another battle developed over whether the company was botching the market in India. As for the stock, which closed Wedneday at $13.55, it’s either set to tank or, as one analyst predicted this week, is heading for $39.

And so it goes in the market, for ideas and smartphones. In a global environment dominated by giant Androids and iPhones, the BlackBerry is still in the game in a dazzling display of what it takes to marshall resources and people to create products, with all players — from shareholders to designers, from the CEO to the sales reps — voluntarily participating in a living demonstration of what can and does happen in a free market economy.

[Charles Martin1]

Was it really necessary to quote the entire article?

Posted via CB10

Absolutely.

[Charles Martin1]

Positive article:

BlackBerry Positives: Short Interest, Goldman And Forbes Counter Samsung Knox - Seeking Alpha

[crackerdoodle]

BIG buys coming in

[lcjr]

So, is the prediction the same as the last few days, or are we going to see this thing get turned around here shortly?

[m0de25]

Why not just sign on to use BB10?

... Because BB10 it's in its infancy stage, not yet proven, has app gap, etc... Right now, it would be a bad, risky business decision for them to abandon the money printing relationship they are enjoying running Android.

[Charles Martin1]

I'm liking the surge this morning...would love to see it hold onto the gains.

[neteng1000]

Opinions on this mornings activity?

[bobor9]

I found this somewhat inspirational:
Terence Corcoran: All hail BlackBerry! | FP Comment | Financial Post

whatever happens, Blackberrys bi-polar stock and its activites has certanly made this years February blues less...blue :P

[Charles Martin1]

... Because BB10 it's in its infancy stage, not yet proven, has app gap, etc... Right now, it would be a bad, risky business decision for them to abandon the money printing relationship they are enjoying running Android.

My point is that if you're going to recreate a not so good version, why not just wait 6 months, see how it goes and if good then buy into it. It costs a lot of money to create something like this and to do so in a way that doesn't lead you to being sued after so blatantly copying another technology. Seems (no, it is) asinine.

[Charles Martin1]

My point is that if you're going to recreate a not so good version, why not just wait 6 months, see how it goes and if good then buy into it. It costs a lot of money to create something like this and to do so in a way that doesn't lead you to being sued after so blatantly copying another technology. Seems (no, it is) asinine.

LOL...I can see it now...Samsung's new SS11 Enterprise Operating System

[DragonFlyer]

My point is that if you're going to recreate a not so good version, why not just wait 6 months, see how it goes and if good then buy into it. It costs a lot of money to create something like this and to do so in a way that doesn't lead you to being sued after so blatantly copying another technology. Seems (no, it is) asinine.

You don't need 6 months to see where this is going.

[duckJAI]

Does anyone know if there is a record of stock option history?

I'm really thinking of those Jan 2014 $25 calls or maybe even $27 leaps.

80 cents for $25 and 65 cents for $27.

These LEAPS are up 20% now.

[Charles Martin1]

You're preaching to the converted

[duckJAI]

Today's volume is looking quite impressive now.

I think the lead up to the USA launch and once a solid date is reached we will be back in the $15s realistically. The beatdown seems to be all the negativity and the ideaology about a delayed USA launch but if it's mid march we are good for a little uptick.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

You don't need 6 months to see where this is going.

Really I think it will take at least 6 months to see if BlackBerry will regain traction in the US market and thus become a success.

Consumers aren't going to really be attracted to BB10 right out of the gate, there isn't really anything for them to get excited about. Expect to see a lot of "fans" on day one, but a week or two later....

Government.... depending upon what happens March 1st might not be doing any new purchases.

Business/Corporations - some will be quick to make the switch, but many that purchase the lower cost devices are going to take a "wait and see" stance.

It is going to be a slow, but hopefully steady uphill battle to regain marketshare.

Samsunge doesn't have the time to wait and see. In fact they probable started making the plans we are hearing about now several months ago or even a year ago.

[knrd]

Bought $15 Jan 18 for $2.5, up to $3. My $22 Jun 20 are finally out of the red as well. Hopefully we'll end Feb with those numbers D:

Oh and something I've been wondering for a while now: Why the h ell would you be day/short term trading the stock? Requires way too much capital for decent returns, you gotta get both the entry AND the exit perfectly right (yeah, good luck with that) and any mistake will most likely set you back. Plus you're constantly worrying about whether to sell or buy...

I got in at $28 and kept buying till $6.9. At some point I was down $10k with an avg purchasing price of $13.5. I could have sold at $18 for a nice profit. But you know what I did instead?



So yeah, why the **** would you day trade stocks..