Media running with a story.

When you look into tech news recently one story or in the case company will stand out beyond the rest. RIM or Research In Motion the creators of the Blackberry smartphone seem to be in the news daily. While the reasons they are in the media merit the coverage the amount and how much media companies have run with it is extremely questionable. It seems that almost everyday or anything said will be front page in the tech section and sometimes make the front page. Blog after blog and even professional journalists digging deeper into a story and coming out with a completely wrong outcome. Now there are stories that need to be run with and being Canada’s biggest tech company it draws extra attention.

– RIM’s stock was and is an important story but now it has passed the residual book value and the shareholders meeting, if your not a share holder it means little. The numerous blogs and stories about the loss of share value are completely useless and focuses on a past company that has gone through significant changes. These types of stories shouldn’t come back into the press until the shareholder meeting, a company plans a takeover or RIM plans to go private.

– RIM’s financial numbers while important in the short term and for those paying attention to the company long term aren’t headline tech news or front page news. Unless RIM is announcing a bankruptcy then I’m not sure why this is really necessary for the news. The company has shown time and time again that its moving to a new platform and that its taking a lot of money and time to do so. In the mean time there sales are dropping due to a lack of new/interesting phones on the market. Yet, the titles “RIM is dead” or “RIM’s death spiral” continue to light the blog boards.

It really amazes me that the North American media pays such attention to RIM besides the fact its in transition and has made some serious misjudgements is in good position globally. It has 2.2 billion in cash, 0 debt and in number 1 in many of the developing countries. These facts continue to allude people when they write articles about RIM but what else is going on in the tech world also seems to disappear after the news hits.

Nokia was once the biggest phone manufacturer in all of the world and was one of the bigger employers in Finland. With the transition to smart phones from feature phones, Nokia failed to pay attention. They have lost billions of dollars and even last quarter (3 months) they lost 1 billion. But yet the media and the company found silver linings in the news and it was out of the media within hours. In that quarter Nokia moved the last plant out of Finland and into the developing nations, a story which likely received attention in Finland but did nothing for North American media. To Finland the company has the same recognition as GM, now imagine if GM moved all its plants to Mexico the media attention that would get!

HTC is another company running Google’s Android operating system. They make good phone and were extremely successful for a number of years. It really didn’t start having problems till Samsung released the extremely popular Galaxy S2 and Galaxy Note. Since then the company has been pushed out of markets by Samsung and there phones are having a huge issue of recognition after the media campaign by Samsung. Why isn’t HTC in the news more then the few hours after there market share numbers are released or the new quarterly report? If they continue, the company could be relegated to a much smaller market share or be squeezed out of the market by Samsung and other cheap phone manufacturers. HTC is a fairly big company and to be squeezed out of that market would be a huge story for the media but it seems like no one cares.

Sony doesn’t have the market share of RIM or any of the major companies but yet its smart phone division has been losing cash like they been wiping there ass with it. Apple has the Foxxconn issues and the legal battles with Samsung that never make more then a bloggers front page.

So why RIM, is it just an easy company to hate on as people moved from Blackberries to iphones, galaxy etc? Is it the way it fell or how it fell? Is it because it was Canada’s shining star in the tech world?

Leave your comments in the section below, what you think.

Could HTC and Blackberry work together?

The mobile tech space is a fast paced and unforgiving sector where only the strong survive and the weak die. There are numerous differences between these two companies but there are also a couple major similarities that could help to revitalize these two. Both companies are currently struggling with the changing mobile space and are being forced out by bigger and better known companies like Apple and Samsung.

HTC phones run on Google’s Android operating system which is the largest and fastest growing OS of any currently available. Google’s Android OS is open scourced which allows any company that wants to license it from Google to use it in there own phones and add little touch ups to make it there own. The OS has garnered a lot of success with companies like Samsung, HTC, Google, Motorola, Asus, and more all using it for there devices. Having all these different options also allows for developers to have a better audience and many companies support the operating system for that reason. The problem that companies like HTC are now realizing is that Samsung is starting to muscle them out of there market share. HTC has been pushed out of a couple markets by different companies and the budget sheet is starting to show the effects of the loss. Its also widely thought that Android is synonymic with Samsung and that many people are using the brand because of the name. HTC has had trouble differentiating itself from the rest of the pack and is starting a downward slope.

Blackberry is also a struggling brand and is in major need of good news. Research in Motion who owns the Blackberry brand lost 500 million last quarter and shipped the lowest number of phones since 2007. The brand is currently in transition to its new operating system Blackberry 10 from the BB OS brand which has served them for 15 years. While the operating system has yet to be proven there has been a lot of support and excitement for what has been seen to date. When released in January, 2013 the BB10 OS will only be available on a Blackberry phone. The time between today and the release will be important for the company as a whole to keep afloat and to have enough cash to push the product. One of the ways that Research in Motion has talked about staying afloat is possibly licensing the BB10 operating system to another company or opening up portions for a fee. Companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Samsung and Amazon have all been rumored to have interest but nothing has officially materialized.

Two companies that I could see working together at HTC and Blackberry. HTC is a company that is getting lost in the mess of Android, even as they produce good phone. Blackberry is in the middle of pumping out a new OS which could help to find its way in the changing marketplace. Blackberry’s weak point in the past has been a full touchscreen phone and that is likely were HTC could help out the most. HTC has only built touchscreen phones and has been successful in making extremely good phones. In turn for the help HTC could license BB10 and allow them to become a company with a different perks then the other android phones. These two business could come together to build a stronger platform and create a viable third option to iOS and android. Together these companies could form a strong relationship like Nokia and Microsoft to try and reclaim the 3rd spot. Each has there own strengths and weaknesses but together they could push out a great phone and a great OS to reclaim a portion of the mobile space.

Could apple be in the beginning phases of a slow down?

Apple likely is the richest company in the world and likely is the most prosperous company in North America. There Iphone has been a hit and sold all over the world in millions, it has taken down titans like Palm and Blackberry. The Ipad (while a ipod touch expanded) was the first tablet into mass production and into the hands of millions. The Ipad owns around 90% of the world wide market and continues to expand with new models. The Ipad 3 or the ‘new Ipad’ sold 3 million units in the first three days and sales continued to grow as time went on. The Ipad and the Iphone 4S helped apple to have its best quarter on record and pull in amazing amounts of money. With success there are always problems.

In recent months a report was released about the supply chain that Apple uses to produce its products. The I products are built by a company called Foxxcon which is based out of China in multiple locations. It was found that the supply chain was extremely damaging to the environment, in some cases employed child workers and the workers were working an extremely high number of hours. The biggest issue that was played by the media was the high number of suicides at Foxconn plants. Nets had to be installed around the top of the buildings to catch people that jumped and stop them from killing themselves. This has a major affect on Apple’s reputation as a company and the new CEO took right away to fixing the problems that were shown in media across the world. The damage was done to the image and still problems persist with the supply chain and Foxxcon in specific. One of the areas of improvement was workers would get a raise from $200 a month to $350. They also reduced the number of hours that an average worker would put in which caused the issue of workers complaining about money issues. This issue has been kind of pushed under the rug and is in the process of being fixed but news articles still pop up on tech blogs and other sites. While this may have hampered the image of Apple a little but it hasn’t done much to slow the sales that are being seen by Apple.

It was just a couple months ago that Apple released its Iphone 4S which was basically a Iphone 4 but with a slightly better camera and processor. These phones are in the higher end and sell for around 750 bucks when bought as an outright. The mass migration to the Iphone 4S seems to be worrying some companies that since such a huge number of people purchased that phone that the Iphone 5 (which is set to release in the fall) likely wont be as popular due to price and contract obligations.

“The sheer volume of recent iPhone 4S buyers could very well impact demand for the upcoming iPhone, however, and at least at AT&T, this seems like it may be the case.” – BGR.com

It seems as if the recent rush to the Iphone 4S will likely hamper the number of people who will be able to afford the newest Iphone. With the great acceptance and uptake the next phone might shock the investors with lower numbers and cause some turmoil to the ever growing Apple stock. This could also be the case for the next Ipad (likely release March 1st, 2013) as millions went away with there old Ipads and took up the newest toy from Apple. Many people will not be willing to shell out $500+ every year to get the latest toy and this could be another source of disappointment for Apple. While its Ipod and Ipod touch sales will likely continue to stay stable they as well could see a decrease in the number of units purchased. Phones can now do so many things that they are replacing items like GPS systems, lower end cameras and music players like the Zune and Ipod. The success of phones in general will likely see the downturn of the mobile music player as they are integrated into people’s phones.

Competition is a growing problem for Apple. The Android system is activating up ways of 800,000 new phones a day and that number is rising. While the two operating systems have a lot in common there is a small shift of people going/talking about android where Apple normally would have been the only talk. Phones like the HTC One X and the Samsung Galaxy III are likely to hit Apple’s activation numbers as the Iphone 4S ages a little bit and the new hot thing takes over. The sheer number of cheap android phones are also hitting Apple’s shares in emerging markets where the average income isn’t as high as North America. The high price of the Iphone will likely also be a factor in people’s future purchases as the state of the global economy continues to be a question mark. North America and Europe are the hot spots for Apple sales and both these areas are experiencing financial troubles and Europe is seeing high levels of unemployment. The release of Windows 7 on Nokia phones is also taking a small chunk back from Apple and other competitors as the phone gets rave reviews and sales have been ok/good. In latter 2012, Blackberry will also be releasing its new operating system BlackBerry 10 which could (if uptake is good) reclaim users from Android, Apple and Windows.

The operating system is also starting to get up there in age with only mediocre changes from the original. While I give Apple credit for revolutionizing the way we use our phones (App world, Itunes and touchscreens) the OS is slowly starting to become a tired giant and likely could use a update and a refresh to keep people interested and wanting to know more. The Iphone was released in 2007 and the OS is dating back between 2005-2006 which means that its 6-7 years old. While this doesn’t sound old in real world terms, in tech term this could be considered a soft spot for Apple. Without a major revitalization they could follow the same path as Blackberry and have the carpet pulled from beneath them.

While I don’t expect Apple to fall tomorrow in the world of tech it is only a matter of time. Its happened to companies like Blackberry, Palm, Nortel and more. All companies who sat on the top and looked invincible and seemed to be. With the competition chipping away at the base of its throne and its own success seemingly coming to bite them this could be a down year for Apple. We could see the first signs of Apple under pressure from other companies and maybe in a few years see a changing of the guard. Apple obviously has the money and the support (isheep) to keep it running for many more years but it needs to continue to innovate and change with the market to make sure it keeps on top. If not it could become RIM 2008-2012 and see a decline in sales and product shipments.

Sometimes its good to get kicked from the top. You get complacent and keep pumping out the same garbage. You can see this with what RIM did and is now doing with Blackberry 10.

Just my 2 cents.