Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Apple Tablet Is Delayed? So What?
Apple has reportedly decided to postpone the launch of its rumored tablet/slate until the second half of 2010. That’s the latest rumor from the occasionally reliable Digitimes, which claims that the device’s original March 2010 debut target became untenable after some component changes. The report, should it prove true, will no doubt be a disappointment to overanxious tabletites awaiting the mysterious device’s arrival, but really, that’s immaterial to Apple.
For Palm, 2010 will be a year of channel expansion, with its new webOS handsets coming to more carriers. Top among them, Verizon, which has been rumored to be getting a device “like the Palm Pre” since Palm launched it. In a research note to investors today, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu says a Palm smartphone from Verizon is pretty much inevitable. 
iPhone exclusivity officially came to an end in the U.K. yesterday when, joining O2, Orange became the second carrier to offer the Apple smart phone in the country. And judging by Orange’s first-day sales, the debut was quite a success. The iPhone went on sale at 7 am Tuesday and by 4 pm, Orange had sold more than 30,000.
The Pixi, the Palm Pre’s diminutive smart-phone sibling, arrives at market a few days from now (Nov. 15), and despite some potential pricing confusion with the Pre, analysts expect it to be another catalyst for the company’s comeback. In a note to clients today, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analyst Vivek Arya said Palm is well-poised for growth in 2010.
At 37.9 percent, Nokia’s share of the global handset market is the largest in the industry. Odd then to learn that it is not the most profitable. And odder still to learn that that honor belongs to Apple, which has been in the handset market for just two years.
Add Adobe to the fast-growing list of tech companies sacking employees in November. In an 8-K filing today with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Adobe said it will cut nine percent of its workforce–approximately 680 jobs. 
“The decrease in _____ revenue was primarily due to _____” and “uncertainty associated with the proposed acquisition by Oracle and increased competition.” That refrain is repeated over and over again in Sun’s latest grim earnings report, which was filed without much in the way of announcement Friday afternoon.
Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo says the demand for mobile devices improved in many markets during the third quarter–but you wouldn’t know it to look at the company’s earnings. This morning, Nokia posted an unexpected 559 million euro ($836 million) loss for the period, its first in a decade. Worse, its smart-phone market share declined to 35 percent from 41 percent in the previous quarter.
Six months. That’s how long it’s going to take Acer to surpass Dell in market share. Speaking at a news conference in London, company President Gianfranco Lanci took a few moments to talk a bit of smack about his rivals. Said Lanci: “Between this quarter and the next, we can finally pass Dell.”
Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney says Google’s Android OS will claim 14 percent of the global smart-phone market by 2012, putting it ahead of Apple’s iPhone but behind Symbian, which currently runs on about half of all smart phones. While this might seem optimistic, it’s not entirely unreasonable given the distribution deals Google has been lining up. Yesterday, the search giant announced a deal to bring Android-based devices to Verizon Wireless. Now comes word that Dell is building an Android handset for AT&T.
Analysts who follow Palm are already rolling their eyes over TheStreet.com’s claim that Verizon has balked at adding the company’s new Pre handset to its lineup. In a research note this morning, Deutsche Bank’s Jonathan Goldberg dismissed it as “off base.”
