Sprint-Nextel (S) this afternoon said it formally requested of the Federal Communications Commission that it block AT&T’s (T) proposed $39 billion takeover of Deutsche Telekom’s (DTEGY) T-Mobile U.S.A. unit, stating that “anti-competitive market control” would be the outcome of such a union, and that it’s the FCC’s job to protect consumers from such.

The actual “Petition to Deny” is here.

One of Sprint’s arguments is that AT&T claims it needs more spectrum, and so it needs T-Mobile’s licenses. But it is already the largest holder in the U.S. of licensed airwaves, and any congestion AT&T is suffering on its network is a result of failing to upgrade its facilities, not a lack of spectrum.

Sprint writes in the complaint’s opening paragraph,

The Commission faces a stark choice in this proceeding. It can reject AT&T’s bid to take over T-Mobile and extend the last two decades of robust competition in the wireless industry – competition that has promoted economic growth and advanced U.S. global leadership in mobile communications. Or the Commission can approve the takeover and let the wireless industry regress inexorably toward a 1980s-style duopoly.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

This is a busy week for chip and computer watchers, with the mammoth Computex trade show going on in Taiwan. For Qualcomm (QCOM) fans, it’s double the excitement with the company’s “Uplinq” conference in San Diego, taking place tomorrow and Thursday.

The events prompted some reflections from the bulls on the stock this morning:

Vijay Rakesh, Sterne Agee: Reiterates a Buy rating and a $62 price target, noting that the company is starting to make inroads in winning business for its “Snapdragon” line of processors in devices using the “3.0″ version of Google’s (GOOG) “Android” software, dubbed “Honeycomb,” which is all about tablets. Qualcomm announced some design wins with Taiwan’s Asustek, and also will have its chips in the HTC “Flyer” tablet.  To date, most Honeycomb devices have relied upon Nvidia’s (NVDA) “Tegra” chip. Rakesh expects the bulk of tablets based on Snapdragon to “ramp” next month and that there will be “tailwinds” for Qualcomm in calendar Q3 of this year.

Mark McKechnie, ThinkEquity: Reiterates a Buy rating and a $75 price target. McKechnie observes that Wednesday’s event will feature presentations from Nokia‘s (NOK) CEO Stephen Elop and HTC’s CEO Peter Chou. “We expect Qualcomm to reiterate its optimistic view of smart phones and tablets and the continued treadmill of faster data-rates from HSPA+ to 4G LTE,” writes McKechnie. He’s also hoping to get some confirmation that the company will win more baseband chip business with Apple‘s (AAPL) iPhone — it currenly has just the CDMA iPhone unit that’s at Verizon Communications (VZ).

Qualcomm shares this afternoon are up $1.01, or 1.8%, at $58.36.

Previously: Nvidia: Auriga Resumes At Buy, $24 Target, May 31st, 2011.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

HUGE. NEWS. Next year, our annual retreat to the desert won’t be one, but TWO WEEKENDS of fake hippies, music, and parties as Coachella 2012 will be held over two consecutive weekends: Weekend 1 scheduled for April 13-15, 2012, and Weekend 2 scheduled for April 20-22, 2012.

Why, you ask? From the official Coachella website: Read the full story

via guestofaguest.com: Now that summer has officially arrived you’re going to have plenty of days of fun in the sun. But you can’t forget to guard your skin from harmful rays no matter how much you want that golden glow, so here’s a mini guide to protecting yourself against the sun in style this summer. MORE>>

Article courtesy of %source%

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

And you thought LinkedIn (LNKD) was fantastically overpriced?

The Financial Times’s April Dembosky yesterday wrote that Facebook investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel thinks LinkedIn’s underwriters, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and JP Morgan drastically underpriced the company’s IPO two weeks ago, which seems plainly evident given the stock price today is at $85.80, 91% above the $45 IPO price the banks set.

That means LinkedIn left a lot of money on the table for the rich clients of the banks to scoop up in the after-market.

Thiel predicts Facebook, and others, when and if they go public, will drive a much harder bargain to prevent the Street from such terrible under-valuation of their shares.

Granted, there’s a complaint here — no one likes to leave money on the table — but who’s to say the shares are worth what they trade for today — about 20 times this year’s likely revenue?

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

• Inland Empire’s newly built state of the art $105-million Riverside Hillcrest High School can’t afford to hire staff or operate due to state budget cuts, will sit unused. [LATimes]
• Even more bad news for our sorry baseball franchise as two fires break out in Dodger Stadium over the holiday weekend. Starting to think the Dodgers may be cursed… [KTLA]
• Sean Kingston stabilized but still in critical condition after crashing a jet ski into a Miami Beach bridge Sunday. [HuffPo]
• In a scenario that pretty much captures the essence of the original guidette, Snooki crashes into a police car acting as an escort for her “Jersey Shore” crew while filming season 4 in Italy. [PE]
• Jeff Conaway, famous for Kenickie role in Grease and later for his struggle with substance abuse as documented on “Celebrity Rehab”, dies at age 60. [TMZ]

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According to Absolute Return, despite not cracking the Top 5 places for hedge fund hiring (NYC, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Stamford/Greenwich/Westport), “hiring patterns indicate that Minnesota is the new up-and-comer hedge fund state, with a fistful of firms actively luring strong senior talent.” [AR]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Apple (AAPL) shares are getting a substantial lift here this morning from the announcement a little while ago that CEO Steve Jobs will help unveil “next generation software” during the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference on June 6th in San Francisco, starting at 10 am, Pacific.

The stock is up $5.94, or 1.8%, at $343.35.

The event will feature discussion of “Lion,” the next version of OS X, which was previewed already; iOS 5, the next version of the iPhone and iPad and iPod Touch operating system; and also “iCloud,” Apple’s “upcoming cloud services offering,” a rather direct and frank admission by the company of what has been speculated upon for some time, namely, that Apple will host more capabilities in data centers rather than having them be simply a desktop affair.

Clearly, though, the notice of Jobs’s in-person appearance is doing the heavy lifting on the shares this morning. It can’t hurt that smartphone competitor Nokia (NOK) is down almost 15% this morning after cutting its Q2 and year view on smartphone weakness.

Update: Apple shares continued to build on the momentum throughout the session, ending the day up $9.93, or 3%, at $347.34.

Helps to see this morning’s rise in the context of the last two weeks:

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

The Washington Post’s Michael Rosenwald this morning pens an interesting piece about how the federal government, under CIO Vivek Kundra, is letting more and more government workers choose their own gadgets of choice, rather than impose on them use of government-specified devices.

Although a number of anecdotes come up in the piece about Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and iPad, and Google’s (GOOG) Gmail, the article is titled, somewhat more pointedly, “Federal government loosens its grip on the BlackBerry,” meaning, of course, the traditional use of Research in Motion (RIMM) messaging devices.

In part, it’s simply the “consumerization of IT,” as many have identified, and as Kundra maintains, but it’s also RIM’s failure to win third-party developers with a “flexible” software platform, Rosenwald writes.

Rosenwald cites several instances of switchover:

At [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms], there are about 50 iPads or iPhones in use, and the number could increase to 100 soon. At the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the 1,000 BlackBerrys used last year have dropped to about 700 as workers picked other smartphones. The State Department is testing iPads. Congress now allows iPads and iPhones on the House floor. And the Department of Veterans Affairs is getting ready to allow its clinicians to choose an iPad or iPhone instead of a BlackBerry.

Update: In a note to clients today, Mike Abramsky with RBC Capital Markets, who maintains a Sector Perform rating on RIMM and a $53.45 price target, argues that RIMM will hold onto some clients who prize security above all. Reflecting on the Wash Po article, he writes,

While these developments offer headline risk to valuation and may continue to pressure RIM’s share in the US, BlackBerries are unlikely to lose favor with higher-risk users, as security remains a high priority following recent high profile security breaches and privacy concerns (Lockheed Martin’s secure VPN network was recently hacked, which could slow Android/Apple deployment in regulated industries like banks and the government. The U.S. Senate recently focused on mobile privacy concerns; House oversight committee chair Darrell Issa raised concerns White House employees could circumvent federal record-keeping laws by using iPhone and iPads.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily