ISI Group’s Abhey Lamba this afternoon writes that Apple‘s (AAPL) iPhone, as well as the constellation of Google (GOOG) “Android” -powered smartphones, should both see stronger Q2 results as Nokia’s (NOK) phone business suffers.

Regarding Nokia management’s remarks that it faced particular difficulty in China and in Europe, Lamba writes that the company’s phones based on the Symbian operating system had already been in trouble in those areas: IDC data showed a drop in Asia-Pacific Symbian market share from 72% in 2009 to 54% in 2010, and just 42% at the end of Q4. (I would note, however, that Symbian is a platform that’s used by multiple vendors, not just Nokia; I have a feeling these data points refer to all Symbian licensees.)

Android market share of smartphones should be over 40% this quarter, he estimates, giving a lift to HTC, among others.

For Apple, “Nokia’s management team admitted to strong competition from Apple as well.” Lamba expects Apple will build on this momentum when it hosts its developer conference next week in San Francisco.

Previously: RIM: RBC Sees Risk, Opportunity In Nokia Fall, May 31st, 2011.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

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

Options Trading in SAC Probe (WSJ, earlier)
Congressional investigators are broadening an early-stage stock-trading probe into SAC Capital Advisors, with plans to examine any suspicious trading by the hedge-fund giant in the options market, another arena where investors wager on the prospects of companies and deals, according to people familiar with the matter. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday night that Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is investigating roughly 20 instances over the past decade when the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a Wall Street regulator, suspected SAC could have bought and sold stocks based on inside information.

Fitch cuts Greek rating, warns over restructuring (Reuters)
“An extension of the maturity of existing bonds would be considered by Fitch to be a default event and Greece and its obligations would be rated accordingly,” the rating agency said. If private sector ‘burden sharing’ is coercive, the credibility of EU/IMF policy commitments not just for Greece but also Ireland and Portugal would be severely diminished and affect financial stability across the euro area, it said.

Lagarde Is Front-Runner To Head IMF (Bloomberg)
“Lagarde might be front-runner,” New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said in an interview with TVNZ television today. “She’s super impressive I’ve got to say,” he said, while echoing officials outside of Europe in calling for a selection “on merit.”

Singapore to Create Most Bank Jobs in the Next Year, London Recruiter Says (Bloomberg)
Singapore will create more jobs in financial services during the next 12 months than any other city, beating London and New York, said recruiter Astbury Marsden, which advises companies in Europe and Asia.

Biggs Buying as S&P 500 Profit Estimates Climb (Bloomberg)
“Investors are overreacting,” said Biggs, citing concerns about the European debt crisis, housing and reduced stimulus from the U.S. Federal Reserve. “All those worries are true, but I can see a number of them will be resolved in the next two months, and I do not think the global economy will slow down significantly. Stocks are very reasonably priced on earnings for next year.”

Zapatero’s Socialists Routed in Backlash Over Austerity (Bloomberg)
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s Socialist party had its worst electoral setback in more than 30 years, prompting a shift in regional governments that risks reviving concern over public finances…The transfer of power in the regions may spark doubts over Spain’s ability to contain its budget deficit, and Spanish bonds declined today.

S&P warning heralds tough times ahead for Italy (Reuters)
Standard & Poor’s surprising decision to revise downward its outlook for Italy could mark the start of increased market scrutiny on the euro zone’s third-largest economy, which faces tough challenges that it is probably unable to meet.

Times Columnist, Wife, Charged In Domestic Argument (Hartford Courant)
New York Times technology columnist David Pogue and his wife were charged with disorderly conduct earlier this week following a domestic argument at a Woody Lane house, part of which she recorded on her iPhone, police said…He told police his wife had bitten his left arm and that she had been filming the altercation with her iPhone camera. Arciola said David Pogue followed Jennifer Pogue into a bedroom and allegedly jumped on top of her and hit her in the head with a phone…In addition to his column, Pogue writes a monthly column in Scientific American. He also appears weekly on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” and on “CBS News Sunday Morning.”

JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley keep barbarians at the gate (eF)
Companies seeking to fight off a hostile takeover approach should consider hiring JP Morgan to defend them, according to new rankings compiled by Financial News.

Emerging market bond fund flows signal shift (FT)
Eight consecutive weeks of net inflows have taken the total invested in these funds this year to $7.9bn, according to EPFR, the fund data provider…Robust inflows into emerging market bonds stand in contrast to nervousness over potentially overheating equity markets in developing countries, and the debt crisis in western Europe’s periphery. Investors have pulled $12.9bn out of European bond funds this year, and more than $7bn was withdrawn from global equity funds last week, of which $1.6bn came from emerging market equity funds, according to EPFR.

Buyers Battle for Europe’s Bad Loans (WSJ)
As banks across Europe clean up their balance sheets, it is causing a feeding frenzy among hedge funds and private-equity firms hungry for their troubled assets…Among the buyers is Marathon Asset Management LP… Other buyers include Fortress Investment Group LLC, OakTree Capital Management, York Capital Management, and Och-Ziff Capital Management, according to industry officials.

Utah making gold and silver coins legal currency, pushing debate about national gold standard (AP via WaPo)
Utah became the first state in the country this month to legalize gold and silver coins as currency. The law also will exempt the sale of the coins from state capital gains taxes.

NY senators bat with banks on rule change (NYP)
The Senate agricultural committee is set to host hearings as early as mid-June to discuss new derivatives rules, which have become a hot-button issue on Wall Street, The Post has learned. US legislators, including Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, have been fighting on behalf of firms like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, arguing that new rules on complex derivatives securities being hammered out under the Dodd-Frank regulatory reforms put domestic banks at a “competitive disadvantage.”

Inside a Battle Over Forex (WSJ)
Bank of New York Mellon Corp. has been fighting accusations that it took advantage of clients while trading currencies…BNY Mellon priced 58% of the currency trades within the 10% of each day’s trading range that was least favorable to the fund, the analysis shows. As a result, the trades cost the pension fund, the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association, $4.5 million more than if the average trade occurred at the middle of the trading range for each day, the analysis showed.

Yuan Funds May Be More Illusion Than Oasis (WSJ)
But already, firms that manage dollar funds and are setting up yuan funds, too, are grappling with a conundrum: How do you convince your foreign investors—referred to as limited partners, or “LPs,” in the private-equity world—that you are keeping their best interests at heart while you scour China for deals to invest in with renminbi? Foreign LPs already had reason to worry that things weren’t going in their favor. When it involves foreigners, approval for an investment in China can take 18 months or longer. Also, more and more companies in China are reluctant to take foreign money because doing so complicates their ability to go public in Shanghai or Shenzhen, thanks to arcane Chinese listing regulations.

CDB seeks to join TPG stake purchase (FT)
China Development Bank, one of the country’s largest state-owned banks, has applied to regulators for permission to join a group of sovereign wealth funds buying a minority stake in buy-out firm TPG, according to people familiar with the matter. CDB’s request is the latest indication of the private equity fever sweeping China as local dealmakers leave the major buy-out firms and banks to set up their own investment firms.

KKR to Buy Ipreo, a Capital-Markets Data Firm (WSJ)
KKR is acquiring Ipreo from another buyout firm, Veronis Suhler Stevenson LLC. Ipreo, based in New York, provides a range of financial data, deal-related information and investor-communication tools to investment banks and companies. It also has software that assists banks and companies in marketing new stock to potential buyers. One of its databases, called Bigdough, contains contact information for thousands of institutional investors that Ipreo clients can use to pitch hedge funds and other types of investors.

Cassette tapes make a comeback (WaPo)
Four years ago, cassette tapes were headed toward their funeral. In 2007, British tabloid The Sun declared the death of the cassette, after the announcement that a major electronics retailer in the United Kingdom would cease selling cassette tapes…Then, last year, cassettes began to rise from the dead. In the fall, NPR reported that cassettes were having a “kind of” revival, with at least 25 labels in the United States putting out new music exclusively on tape. In a lengthy essay in Pitchfork, contributor Marc Hogan detailed examples of the “broader underground resurgence” of cassettes.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

For States, a Glimmer of Hope on Deficits (NYT)
From stronger-than-expected tax collections in deficit-ridden California to projected surpluses in struggling states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, a growing number of recession-weary states are finally announcing a bit of good budget news for the first time since the downturn began. But it would probably be premature to pop the Champagne, or even the prosecco — or to otherwise declare the fiscal crisis that has hammered states to be over.

Howard Marks’ Oaktree Capital sows seeds for listing on NYSE (FT)
Oaktree Capital Management is planning to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a deal that would value the asset manager at between $8bn and $9bn, people familiar with the matter said. Oaktree, which manages $85bn, mostly in debt investments, listed shares four years ago on a quasi-public exchange set up by Goldman Sachs.

DSK Accuser Is ‘Afraid,’ ‘Overwhelmed’ (WSJ)
Investigators swabbed a sink and removed a section of carpet from the hotel suite where International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn allegedly assaulted a hotel housekeeper, a New York law-enforcement official said Tuesday, as a clearer profile began to emerge of the alleged victim. Her attorney [Jeffrey Shapiro] characterized her as a “simple woman, with little education” who is a single mother from Guinea. Mr. Shapiro said his client, a 32-year-old widowed mother of a 15-year-old girl, was granted asylum in the United States seven years ago from her native country of Guinea.

Fed seeks annual US bank stress tests (FT)
The Federal Reserve wants to subject US banks to annual capital tests, reserving the right to veto dividend pay-outs if they do not pass.

‘Gang of Six’ on verge of collapse as Republican Sen. Coburn withdraws (WaPo)
Since January, six senators have engaged in difficult negotiations and made painful concessions in a politically dangerous quest for something that has long eluded Washington: a bipartisan compromise to control the nation’s mounting debt. By Tuesday evening, however, the “Gang of Six” was on the verge of collapse. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) withdrew from the bipartisan working group, saying the senators simply could not overcome the polarizing political pressure that each faces.

Senate rejects measure to end subsidies for big oil companies (WaPo)
A Democratic measure that would have repealed tax subsidies for the five biggest oil companies failed to clear the Senate on Tuesday, falling short of the 60-vote threshold needed to advance in a near-party-line vote.

Geithner Warns On Debt Ceiling, Talks IMF Crisis (DJ via WSJ)
In his first public comments since International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was jailed on sexual-assault charges, [Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner added that the institution should establish a plan to fill its leadership vacuum on an interim basis, given that the IMF chief was “not in the position” to make decisions during a critical time. In remarks to the Harvard Club here, Geithner cautioned the GOP leadership against tying their budget blueprint to the contentious talks to lift the U.S.’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.

Citigroup’s Gain on Mortgage Hedge Fund Jumps as Volcker Trading Ban Looms (Bloomberg)
Citigroup’s Mortgage/Credit Opportunity Fund climbed 16 percent in the first four months of 2011, almost doubling its pace last year, according to internal reports obtained by Bloomberg News. About 90 percent of the $395 million invested in the fund is the bank’s own capital, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Dan Zwirn Seeks Comeback With Alda Three Years After Shutting Hedge Fund (Bloomberg)
Daniel Zwirn, the New York investor forced to shut a $4 billion hedge fund because of client withdrawals, is starting over with a new publicly traded fund that will be safe from redemptions. Zwirn will help manage a closed-end fund for Alda Capital Corp. that will lend to small and medium-sized companies, the Chicago-based firm disclosed in a regulatory filing this month with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Alda plans to raise about $50 million for the fund, according to the filing.

Morgan Stanley Sets Up Yuan Fund (WSJ)
Morgan Stanley said Wednesday it has set up a private-equity joint venture in the affluent eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, launching its first yuan-denominated fund that aims to raise 1.5 billion yuan ($231 million).

Oyster Herpes in France Ravages Harvest (Bloomberg)
A deadly virus is stalking France’s coastline, killing at least 60 percent of the young oysters there since 2008…The virus is not just a blow to France, Europe’s biggest producer. The global industry, worth at least $3.3 billion in 2009, has been plagued by OsHV-1 in Ireland, England and Australia.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

$$$ In Europe, a first call for IMF chief Strauss-Kahn to quit (WaPo)

$$$ This is what Ben Stein had to say about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn situation: “The prosecutors say that Mr. Strauss-Kahn “forced” the complainant to have oral and other sex with him. How? Did he have a gun? Did he have a knife? He’s a short fat old man. They were in a hotel with people passing by the room constantly, if it’s anything like the many hotels I am in. How did he intimidate her in that situation? And if he was so intimidating, why did she immediately feel un-intimidated enough to alert the authorities as to her story?” (American Spectator)

$$$ A Once-Tight Flock at Goldman, Now Scattered [Dealbook]
$$$ Skepticism grows on Geithner’s debt limit deadline (Reuters)

$$$ losing faith in world economy (FT)

$$$ Hedge Funds Line Up for AIG Pitch Meeting (CNBC)

$$$ LinkedIn IPO: Biggest Price Bump Since Tech Bubble (Deal Journal)

$$$ Goldman’s Hatzius: The Next US Recession ‘Is Years Away‘ (CNBC)

$$$ Barclays Pays Its Top Staff 7% Interest on Five-Year Deferred Cash Bonuses (Bloomberg)

$$$ A colour-coded guide to the Greek crisis (BofA/ML via FT Alphaville)

$$$ Reality vs. Matt Taibbi, Part I [Stone Street Advisors]

$$$ Warren Buffett’s Ride on the Rails Is Paying Off (Businessweek)

$$$ Suit vs Citigroup execs over mortgages tossed out (Reuters)

$$$ Kohn ‘regrets’ pain of millions in financial crisis (FT)

$$$ fine fat people for not dieting? (BBC)

$$$ Famed NYC eatery Elaine’s to close down six months after owner Elaine Kaufman dies (NYDN)

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Symantec (SYMC) this evening report fiscal Q4 results ahead of expectations and forecast the current quarter slightly ahead as well.

Q4 revenue was up 9.3% at $1.67 billion, yielding EPS of 38 cents, versus the consensus $1.6 billion and 36 cents.

For the current quarter, the company sees revenue of $1.57 billion to $1.59 billion, ahead of the average $1.55 billion, and EPS of 36 cents to 37 cents, versus 36 cents expected.

Symantec shares are down 11 cents, or half a percent, at $19.30.

International revenue, which was 51% of all revenue, was up 10%, including a 4% rise in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, while Asia revenue rose 22%, or 12% on a currency-neutral basis. Americas revenue, which has some overlap with International in the case of Latin America, rose 9% and was 55% of revenue.

CFO James Beer took some time to talk with me following the announcement.

Beer said the company was particularly pleased with the performance in its consumer products, hosted services, data loss prevention, and backup products, and also the performance of recent acquisitions.

On the consumer side of the house, “We’re doing a very good job of getting new customers but also upselling and cross-selling them to things like backup,” said Beer.

On the enterprise side, “data loss prevention had a strong quarter as customers increasingly focused on this problem of losing information,” said Beer. The “Wikileaks episode,” as he calls it, has put a particular focus on that issue, he thinks.

Hosted services was, “reflective of how some customers, particularly smaller companies, are getting comfortable taipang into software through a browser.”

The company got $81 million from its recently acquired businesses, including the security business it bought from Verisign (VRSN), and the PGP and GuardianEdge businesses. Beer declined to give a year-over-year growth rate for those businesses, as they have been owned for less than a year by the company, but said the bookings growth for they saw was “very strong” in the quarter.

Beer said Symantec will focus its efforts this fiscal year on three new emerging growth opportunities in particular: mobile, virtualization, and cloud.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Sterne Agee’s Shaw Wu this morning reiterates a Buy rating on Cisco, advising that investors underestimate the possibility of a turnaround.

Wu’s immediate focus, though, is not the turnaround but the fiscal third quarter due to be reported next Wednesday.

He thinks Cisco will turn in slightly less than the $10.8 billion the Street is modeling, but probably meet the consensus 37 cents per share. His “checks” of the supply chain indicate “relative strength in networking,” though the trends are a bit “mixed” for Cisco.

The switching business transition to the “Nexus” product line is going to take some more quarters before resellers and partners come up to speed on the technology, he writes. Routing’s healthier, he thinks, as are the new business products, and overall, North America, emerging markets, and Asia-Pac are doing better than Europe at the moment.

Cisco shares this morning are up 15 cents, or 0.9%, at $17.62.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Goldman BRIC Fund Among Most Hurt in ‘Panic’ Commodities Selling (Bloomberg)
The $831 million Goldman Sachs BRIC Fund (GBRAX) and the $825 million Templeton BRIC Fund (TABRX), which focus on Brazil, China, India and Russia, both fell 5.7 percent in the week ended yesterday. The funds, from New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and San Mateo, California’s Franklin Resources Inc., lost the most among diversified equity funds with more than $500 million in assets and at least 20 percent in energy or basic materials stocks, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Glencore IPO Orders Continue To Roll In (WSJ)
Glencore on Wednesday set the price range for the offer at 480 pence to 580 pence, valuing it at around $61 billion, including the new money being raised. Around $10 billion in shares will be sold, plus a $1 billion overallotment. Most of the offer is in the form of new shares. Bankers said the order book was covered after the first day of subscriptions. One on Friday said a “material” amount of orders were added to the total on Thursday, even as oil and silver prices slid sharply.

Paulson’s Biggest Fund Said to Be Down in 2011 After April Gain (SFGate/Bloomberg)
Paulson’s Advantage Plus Fund, which uses strategies designed to profit from corporate events such as takeovers and bankruptcies, is down 1.7 percent in 2011 after gaining 0.1 percent last month, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the returns are private. The fund’s gold- denominated share class rose 6.3 percent in April and 4.9 percent this year.

Bank of America Had Positive Trading Revenue Every Day of First Quarter (Bloomberg)
Trading-related revenue was positive every day and exceeded $25 million on 98 percent of days during the year’s first three months, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender said today in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In 2010, it had gains on 90 percent of trading days, with perfect records in that year’s first and third quarters, according to previous filings.

AIG quarterly net income drops 85% (MarketWatch)
First-quarter net income attributable to AIG was $269 million, compared with $1.8 billion a year earlier, the company said. On a per-share basis, AIG reported a net loss of 35 cents, versus a profit of $2.66 a share in the first quarter of 2010…AIG expected to make 34 cents a share, according to a FactSet survey of three analysts. A Thomson Reuters survey of three analysts came up with a consensus estimate of a loss of 15 cents a share.

JPMorgan Chase Said to Be Subpoenaed by SEC Over Mortgage Debt Documents (Bloomberg)
JPMorgan received a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over failed mortgages, a person familiar with the investigation said, as the agency probes banks including Credit Suisse Group AG for allegedly failing to share refunds from sellers of faulty debt.

RBS core operating profit jumps 25 pct (Reuters)
RBS, which is majority-owned by the British government, made a first quarter loss of 528 million pounds ($841.5 million) after it racked up 1.3 billion pounds in bad debts at Ulster Bank… RBS said Irish loan losses would stay high this quarter before “gradually declining” in the second half of the year. The bank’s core business – namely its main retail and investment banking arms and excluding its insurance unit which is due to be sold off or floated on the stock market in 2012 – had an operating profit of about 2 billion pounds a quarter.

Schumer Tilts Toward Offer by Germans for Big Board (WSJ)
Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, remains publicly neutral on the competing proposals: a roughly $10 billion bid from Deutsche Börse AG, which agreed in February to buy NYSE Euronext, and a hostile, $11 billion offer from Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. and IntercontinentalExchange Inc.  But Mr. Schumer is favoring the German deal as the best way to protect New York, according to the people who have spoken with him. Mr. Schumer focuses on the question so much that he tracks the number of Bloomberg terminals sold in major financial capitals.

Coffee, Sex, Blowing Nose May Increase Risk of a Stroke, Dutch Study Finds (Bloomberg)
Researchers from University Medical Center in Utrecht, the Netherlands, analyzed 250 patients who survived such a stroke and identified eight risk factors tied to the event. They included drinking a cup of coffee, which carried the highest risk, having sex, physical exercise, nose blowing, straining to defecate, drinking cola and being startled or angry.

Carlyle faces questions over China investments (FT)
Carlyle, the US private equity group, is facing questions over its investments in two Chinese companies that have been accused of fraud and suspended from trading on stock exchanges in Hong Kong and New York. The scrutiny comes at an unwelcome time for Carlyle, as the manager of some $106bn in funds seeks to burnish its reputation ahead of a planned initial public offering. China Forestry, a Hong Kong-listed plantation operator in which Carlyle has an 11 per cent stake, and China Agritech, a Nasdaq-listed fertiliser maker in which Carlyle has a 22 per cent stake, have both had their shares suspended from trading in recent months.

CME launches London clearing house (FT)
CME Group is considering offering clearing services to exchanges in Europe as the largest US futures exchange establishes a beachhead in the region by launching a new clearing house in London on Friday.
The move into clearing in Europe highlights the Chicago-based operator’s ambitions to expand into Europe, where CME’s two biggest rivals, IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) and Deutsche Börse, have established clearing businesses.

US Lawmaker Wants To Require Whistleblowers To Report Internally (DJ via WSJ)
A U.S. House Republican lawmaker plans to introduce legislation that would require whistleblowers to report wrongdoing to their employer to be eligible for a Securities and Exchange Commission bounty program, Dow Jones reported.

Indonesia Imposes More Sanctions on Citigroup (WSJ)
Bank Indonesia on Friday announced a raft of additional sanctions against Citigroup Inc. as investigations continue into the alleged embezzlement of millions of dollars and the death of a debtor…[Bank Indonesia Deputy Governor Budi] Rochadi said, the central bank imposed a number of restrictions on Citi’s operations in Indonesia, including a one-year ban on the local unit signing new clients to its Citigold wealth-management unit and a two-year ban on it issuing new credit cards. The central bank also forbade Citi’s local unit from opening new branches in Indonesia for one year and imposed an offshore travel ban on some of the unit’s executives, effective from Friday, while investigations continue.

Allen Stanford Indicted Again as Prosecutors Drop 7 of 21 Criminal Charges (Bloomberg)
The original indictment contained 21 criminal counts. The new one contains 14, including conspiracy to commit money laundering, obstruction of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, wire fraud and mail fraud. Two wire-fraud counts were dropped as were five mail-fraud charges. Stanford, 61, still faces five of each count, conviction for any one of which could result in a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

A wide-open Derby field of odds (USA Today)
With so many unknowns among local 3-year-olds, it might pay to take a chance on Master of Hounds, a new face shipping in from afar — Ireland, via Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Trained by perpetual Irish champion Aiden O’Brien and owned by the imposing Coolmore partnership, Master of Hounds has never raced on dirt, but the same can be said for several other leading Derby contenders. Bred to stay every yard of the 1¼-mile Derby distance, Master of Hounds was beaten by a nose in his last start, the UAE Derby run on a synthetic surface in March. Master of Hounds stalked the leaders, burst to the front in the stretch and was just caught after battling gamely all the way to the finish.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

PapayaMobile, the Chinese mobile social game platform start-up, has raised $18 million in a second round of funding. It’s another sign that mobile gaming is heating up.

The company plans to use the funding to expand its ecosystem of Android developers in both the U.S. and Europe, said Si Shen (pictured), chief executive and co-founder of PapayaMobile. The company makes a platform for game developers, who use it to create mobile games with social features that can spread quickly and be easily monetized.

The amount of money is typical of deals in mobile games these days. The market has heated up since Japan’s DeNA bought rival Ngmoco for $403 million last year, and Japan’s Gree bought another rival, OpenFeint, last week for $104 million.

The round was led by Keytone Ventures, a Chinese venture firm and DCM. The company launched its Papaya game platform last year to help developers spread their games through social means. Much like rivals — OpenFeint, Scoreloop and Ngmoco — PapayaMobile gets mobile users to spread games and make them more social via leaderboards, cross promotion, and multiplayer competition.

Shen said that the company has more than 350 developers using its tools, and those developers have more than 15 million users on Google’s Android mobile operating system. In China, Android’s growth over the next two years will be “staggering,” said Joe Zhou, managing partner of Keytone Ventures. PapayaMobile, based in Beijing, is in a good spot to compete in the market, he said.

DCM originally invested $4 million in PapayaMobile in 2010, so the company has now raised $22 million to date. Since launching in June, 2010, PapayaMobile’s user base has grown more than 375 percent. Shen and chief technology officer Qian Wenji founded PapayaMobile in 2008. The company said that some of the popular games in Papaya’s network are earning over $125,000 per month.

Tags: mobile games, social gaming, social mobile gaming platform

Companies: DeNA, Gree, Ngmoco, OpenFeint, PapayaMobile, Scoreloop

People: Si Shen

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

During a conference call with analysts this morning to discuss Q1 results, announced this morning, Verizon Communications (VZ) management remarked that the next version of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone will be a “world phone,” capable of working with other carriers’ networks.

Verizon CFO Fran Shammo, asked about the sluggishness of the company’s ARPU growth in Q1, when the iPhone was introduced — growth was just 2.2%, compared to 2.5% in Q4, remarked:

The fluctuation, I believe, will come when a new device from Apple is launched, whenever that may be, and that we will be, on the first time, on equal footing with our competitors on a new phone hitting the market, which will also be a global device.

The iPhone 4 that Verizon carries, based on the “CDMA” technology standard, does not have nearly as broad support by network operators throughout the world as does the “GSM” standard used in the AT&T model of the phone, which Apple sells in numerous countries throughout the world.

Apple COO Tim Cook said during Apple’s conference call last night that Apple had signed only two other carriers in the world to use the CDMA iPhone, SK Telecom in South Korea, and Saudia Arabia’s Saudi Telecom. Cook said Apple was considering other carriers to whom it might distribute the CDMA unit. But a world phone at Verizon, presumably using the 4G standard dubbed “Long Term Evolution,” would allow Verizon to sell a phone that can roam on networks in Europe and other parts of the world just as AT&T’s model does.

That would presumably be of special interest given that Vodafone (VOD) in Europe owns a stake in Verizon’s wireless business.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily