RBC Capital’s Mike Abramsky, who has a Sector Perform rating on shares of Research in Motion (RIMM), and a $53.45 price target, writes that the deterioration of Nokia‘s (NOK) business, expressed in Nokia’s financial update this morning, could present opportunity for RIM.

With 16% market share in Europe, RIM “has the opportunity to replicate the success that BBM [the BlackBerry messenger software] has had in the U.K.,” where RIM has the top spot in smartphones with 24% share.

Abramsky had downgraded RIM shares from Outperform back in April.

However, Nokia’s erosion could be an omen, too, of what happens to platforms that are “in transition”:

NOK’s warning, along with RIM’s Q1 warning, shows the risks investors face from handset vendors transitioning to new platforms. Just like carriers de-committing from Nokia’s legacy Symbian platform, carriers may be reluctant to maintain significant channel inventory of upcoming BlackBerry 7 devices which could result in more moderate interim sell-through ahead of next-generation QNX-based smartphones that are expected to launch in early 2012. The difference however is that RIM’s fan base appears more loyal to its core Blackberry experience (helping upgrade cycles) vs. Nokia’s base which has defected to HTC, Samsung (SSNLF), RIM, and Apple (AAPL).

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

The Globe & Mail’s Paul Waldie and Body Erman posted a video this morning asking if Research in Motion’s (RIMM) co-CEO Mike Lazaridis should go. (A video preceded, I would note, by an add for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet computer!)

The question, as framed in the video, is whether the top “nerd,” Lazaridis, must go because he’s not “putting out the product.”

Lazaridis shares the CEO role with Jim Balsillie, regarded more as the marketing/financial person. One question was whether Balsillie has been distracted by his attempts to purchase hockey teams. Balsillie’s sometimes obscure language on company conference calls was contrasted with the smooth style of Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs.

Some of the guests on the video asked whether the problem is not so much either gentleman but rather the co-CEO structure itself, and whether the two CEOs still get along, as there have been rumors of a cooling in their relationship.

And then, too, it could just be more of the Street’s short-term obsession and its recent fixation on regime change.

RIM shares today are down 83 cents, or 2%, at $42.77.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Engadget’s Terrence O’Brien this morning speculates that a new version of Research in Motion’s (RIMM) “PlayBook” tablet computer with 4G wireless links could be on the way for the summer, as expected, based on Google search results for the phrase “Sprint PlayBook.”

Such as search comes up with links with provocative titles such as “Sprint | Introducing the BlackBerry 4G Playbook Tablet,” although said links actually lead to nondescript pages.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair this morning offers some hopeful, encouraging thoughts on both Nokia (NOK) and Research in Motion (RIMM) as the two pursue overhauls of their smartphone repertoire.

In the case of Nokia, Blair writes that his “checks” (he doesn’t specify, though I have a call in to his office to clarify) suggest that the company may introduce its first smartphones running Microsoft’s (MSFT) software sooner than expected. Blair thinks Nokia will host a “Nokia World” conference, which it does annually, sooner than usual. I’m not quite sure what he means, because he mentions a date of mid-October as being “earlier than usual,” when in fact Nokia World 2010 was in September of last year, in London.

In any event, Blair writes that the company’s “ahead of schedule in terms of development,” and he thinks the show could be used to debut Microsoft-powered handsets.

As for the big picture, “While we continue to feel the next three to four quarters will reflect the company’s transition away from the Symbian OS and show a marked drop in quarterly units for Nokia, we remain positive on the longer-term outlook for Nokia given the Microsoft partnership,” writes Blair. “It is our view that Nokia Window’s smartphones will become the fourth major player in the smartphone space, following [Google (GOOG)] Android, Apple’s (AAPL) iOS and RIM’s Blackberry OS.”

As for RIM, Blair was at the company’s “BlackBerry World” event in Orland, Florida this week and came away impressed with the “9900” version of the BlackBerry Bold that was introduced.

The device has a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm (QCOM) Snapdragon chip that is incredibly fast. The price of this chip is likely 2x that of Marvell’s however and is likely to create gross margin concerns. We moved through every application in our test and there was no lag, no hourglass icon telling us to wait, it was speedy in every way. Leaving Marvell [Technology Group] (MRVL) behind is good news for users. The company’s use of the term “liquid graphics” is legitimate. The transition between apps and opening apps and just generally navigating around the device is smooth in an iPhone-like manner.

Nokia shares today are down 9 cents, or 1%, at $8.52. RIM shares are up 71 cents, or 1.5%, at $48.08.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Shares of Research in Motion (RIMM) are down 41 cents, or 0.8%, at $48.28 this morning amidst a raft of product announcements this morning in advance of the company’s “BlackBerry World“ conference taking place in Orlando, Florida tomorrow through Thursday, with a capital markets talk by management happening this morning.

RIM offered two new versions of the BlackBerry “Bold” line of phones, the 9900 and 9930 models, both of which run on an updated version of the BlackBerry operating system, version 7. RIM said the devices feature a 1.2 gigahertz processor, 768 megabytes of RAM, support for “4G” wireless connections, and are the thinnest versions so far, at 10.5 millimeters. The two are to be made available this summer.

In addition to the devices, RIM said its software sold to corporate IT shops will soon be upgraded to manage not only BlackBerries but also Apple‘s (AAPL) iPhone and other iOS-based devices, and gadgets running Google’s (GOOG) “Android” software.

“We recognize the opportunity to continue leading in the enterprise market by providing customers with a common platform to help simplify the management of a variety of mobile devices,” said RIM VP Peter Devenyi.

RIM also offered up the first version of its own video chat application for its recently released “PlayBook” tablet computer, and a new set of functions for the BlackBerry called “Balance” that provides a sort of firewall between personal and corporate data on the handsets.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

eBay has acquired location-based advertising company Where. The deal follows eBay’s previous purchase of Milo. The acquisitions are a part of eBay’s efforts to build a mobile marketplace for local businesses.

Where operates a hyper-local ad network and a mobile app. It recently started to offer Groupon-style local deals. The app allows you to search for restaurants, entertainment, news, and more based on your location.
According to eBay, Where has 120 000 business customers and over 4 million active users. The service works on various mobile devices, such as iOS, Android, Blackberry and Palm.

Milo tracks inventory in local stores, so customers can find out where the product is available. Combined with Where the customers can find out about the best deals and even be able to get it immediately because of the real-time inventory.

eBay is really pushing into the mobile space. The company plans on integrating PayPal into Where’s mobile app so PayPal customers can access more local deals. Longer term, eBay could use Where’s platform to help drive adoption of its point-of-sale offering. eBay is rolling out its mobile app to facilitate mobile transactions and plans on having pilots out for point-of-sale by the end of 2011.

Where was previously known as uLocate. The company has received funding from Kodiak Venture Partners, GrandBanks Capital, and Venrock.

The purchase price was undisclosed. Ebay doesn’t expect it to impact the company’s 2011 guidance. The company will provide more color around the deal on its first quarter earnings call on Wednesday, April 27.

The monetization of mobile wil alsol be one of the key issues at VentureBeat Mobile Summit next week.

Tags: Android, Blackberry, iOS, Palm

Companies: eBay, Milo, Where

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Shares of Research in Motion (RIMM) took a hit yesterday, following negative reviews of the company’s new Playbook tablet. Reviewers were critical of the Playbook’s lack of native support for e-mail, calendars and address books.

Naturally, the company’s co-chief Executive Officer Jim Balsillie disagrees. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Balsillie defended RIMM’s approach, which allows Blackberry users to gain e-mail, calendar, and address book access by tethering their existing handsets to the Playbook.”A lot of people that want this want a secure and free extension of their BlackBerry.”

RIMM hasn’t offered a sales forecast for the new Playbook, but Balsillie told Bloomberg that “I like our chances for a lot of share. We’re very excited about where we are.”

Shares of RIMM are up 24 cents, or 0.5%, to $54.16 today.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Research in Motion (RIMM) this afternoon announced its “PlayBook” tablet computer, which will go on sale April 19th, will run apps written not only natively for its “QNX” operating system, but also programs written for Google’s (GOOG) “Android” operating system, as well as program’s written in the Java programming language.

The Android and Java programs will be supported on the PlayBook via two “app players” provided as an option to PlayBook users. Users can then download Java and Android apps from RIM’s BlackBerry App World online store, the company said.

RIM said as well that games developers Ideaworks Labs and Unity Technologies will bring video game titles to the PlayBook.

RIM is branding QNX as the “BlackBerry Tablet OS,” and said that it will “shortly release the native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook enabling C/C++ application development” for the operating system.

RIM shares are down $7.41, or almost 12%, at $56.68 after the company offered a disappointing Q1 forecast this afternoon.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Breezy, a mobile startup that helps users print and fax documents from their phone, just announced that it has raised $750,000 from big-name investors.

I last wrote about the Oakland, Calif. company in December, under its old name BreezyPrint. Founder and chief executive Jared Hansen told me he changed the name because he doesn’t want to be limited — the app already allows users to fax as well as print documents from their phone, and Hansen said he’s interested in adding a scanning feature too.

It’s pretty easy to see why the app might be useful — if you do a lot of work on your phone, particularly reading emails, then it can be a pain to have to switch to your computer when you need to print something out. Breezy removes the intermediate step, and Hansen has estimated that the app can save seven minutes in the process. (Hansen is a former corporate lawyer, and he said he created in the app out of frustration with the lack of a print feature on the BlackBerry.)

The bigger question is whether Breezy can turn into a viable business, especially when it’s competing with built-in features like AirPrint on the iPhone. For a consumer, the most promising thing about Breezy is probably its partner network, which will allow users to print in hotels, copy shops, and other partner locations. The network hasn’t launched yet — in part, Hansen said, because he’s been more focused on fundraising for the past few months.

For a business that wants to offer Breezy to its employees, Hansen said Breezy can do more than a service like AirPrint because Breezy works on multiple devices (BlackBerry, Android, and Windows Phone right now, with an iPhone app in the works), and because it provides analytics about who’s printing what, which can be useful for security and controlling costs.

The funding comes from well-known investor Jeff Clavier’s firm SoftTech VC, Accel Partners (whose partner Rich Wong previously invested in successful mobile companies like AdMob and GetJar), and Felicis Ventures (whose founding partner Aydin Senkut invested in mobile startups Erply and Bump, and who is also an investor in VentureBeat).

Breezy is a graduate of the Founder Institute, an entrepreneur training program and incubator led by TheFunded’s Adeo Ressi.

Tags: mobile printing

Companies: Accel Partners, Breezy, BreezyPrint, Felicis Ventures, Softtech Vc

People: Aydin Senkut, Jared Hansen, Jeff Clavier, Rich Wong

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Phone manufacturer Motorola has acquired 3LM, a stealth startup that develops security technology for phones running Google’s Android mobile operating system.

3LM develops software designed to make phones running Android as secure as BlackBerrys to make them more viable as enterprise-class smartphones, said co-founder Tom Moss. The company wants to work with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to pre-load its security software on phones rather than posting an application on the Android Marketplace.

Despite being a part of Motorola, 3LM still plans to work with other Android phone manufacturers. That’s because the both Motorola and 3LM want to avoid creating an arms race when it comes to security software for Android smartphones, Moss said.

“You want OEMs on one consistent solution,” Moss said. “That way customers can pick whichever phone they want instead of having to rely on whatever the company asks for.”

Moss, a former Google executive that worked on Android, said Android was more secure than the iPhone and Windows Phone 7. Android is typically seen as a more open mobile operating system, so it’s easier to run third-party applications — which means it’s a better candidate for enterprise phones, he said. Moss also plans to work with tablet computer manufacturers and package 3LM’s software tablets for enterprise use.

3LM has actually been around for less than a year. The company was founded in July last year, and actually began talking with Motorola about a potential deal in September, Moss said. The company wasn’t disclosing any additional details about the acquisition. 3LM has raised around $1.5 million from a seed funding round led by a number of angel investors and Accel Partners.

[Photo: Daniel Leininger]

Tags: Android, Blackberry, enterprise, security

Companies: 3LM, Google, motorola, Research In Motion, RIM

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals