Shares of Microsoft (MSFT) have been under pressure this morning, and one thing appearing to contribute to downturn are rumors the company would step in to purchase Nokia (NOK) for $19 billion, according to remarks by Eldar Murtazin, a blogger widely credited with scooping Microsoft’s deal with Nokia earlier this year.

Murtazin’s blog appears not to have that claim today, but he is cited as stating such by Todd Haselton in a piece this morning on BoyGeniusReport.

A Nokia spokesperson, however, tells The Wall Street Journal’s Christopher Lawton a short while ago that, “These rumors are completely baseless.”

Murtazin has speculated as recently as May 16th that the two companies were talking about a deal.

Microsoft shares are down 54 cents, or 2%, at $24.47.  Nokia shares are down 34 cents, or almost 5%, at $6.68.

Well, at least one believer this morning is Brian White with Ticonderoga Securities, who follows Apple (AAPL) and has a Buy rating and a $612 price target on that stock.

“We believe reports from Boy Genius highlighting the potential for a Microsoft purchase of Nokia for $19 billion should provide Apple investors with even greater confidence that the company can continue to gain market share at the expense of legacy vendors in the mobile phone market,” writes White.

“In our view, Apple investors could not ask for a better deal, and we believe a transaction would only further Apple’s market share gains in the coming quarters.”

Sounds like White is choosing his words carefully, but it also sounds like he believes the rumor.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

In case you missed it, The Wall Street Journal had a couple pieces on the gadget wars this morning: A report by Stuart Weinberg says that Research in Motion (RIMM) is on track to sell half a million units of the PlayBook tablet computer in the quarter ending this month, a feat Weinberg calls, “A respectable entrance into the competitive tablet market.”

(I should note BoyGeniusReport’s Jonathan Geller on Friday wrote that the PlayBook’s sales have “fallen far short of expectations,” citing an anonymous source at “a major big box retailer.”)

Also in today’s Journal, Justin Scheck and Ben Worthen chronicle Dell’s (DELL) failed bid to offer consumer electronics, having “pulled the plug” on initiatives such as a music player and an online music store. “Apple-like success hasn’t followed” Dell’s purchase of Zing, a software maker that was supposed to kick-start Dell’s music efforts, the authors write.

The sidebar to that piece is an autopsy of the failure of Dell’s first tablet computer, the $500 “Streak” that was roundly panned when it appeared last year. Scheck and Worthen write that anonymous sources expect Dell may delay a 10-inch version of the Streak, expected this summer, until later in the year because of necessary bug fixes.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Shares of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) are down $1.85, or almost 5%, at $37.95, after The Wall Street Journal’s Ben Worthen reported that a letter circulated internally by CEO Leo Apotheker sent on May 4th informed top executives the company  “was in for ‘another tough quarter‘,” according to Worthen’s write-up, apparently referring to the fiscal Q3 that began this month.

Worthen writes that he has seen a copy of the letter. Worthen adds Apotheker said the company must “watch ever penny” and that “We have absolutely no room for profitless revenue or any discretionary expenditures.”

WSJ appears not to have posted Worthen’s piece yet on its main Web site. The story is currently available via Dow Jones Newswires.

Update: Worthen’s story is now posted on WSJ.com.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Not what Research in Motion (RIMM) needed, exactly: The Wall Street Journal’s Stuart Weinberg this morning reports that the company has recalled 1,000 PlayBook tablets “that were shipped with faulty operating systems” that prevented its performing basic setup.

Most of the affected devices are still in distribution, but some may have been sold and RIM should be contacted directly about any faulty devices.

RIM shares this morning are down 19 cents, or 0.4%, at $43.05 in early trading.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

After Yahoo’s (YHOO) shares dropped sharply yesterday following word that there was a restructuring of Chinese e-commerce venture Alibaba Group Ltd., in which Yahoo holds a stake, The Wall Street Journal’s Loretta Chao this morning reports that Alibaba executives are seeking to clarify the change.

Yahoo! Tuesday said that ownership of “Alipay,” a transactions unit of Alibaba, was switched to 100% ownership by a separate company owned by Alibaba’s CEO, Jack Ma.

Chao reports that Alibaba spokesman John Spelich said the change to Alipay ownership “was done last year in order to comply with rules issued by the People’s Bank of China called ‘administrative measures for the payment services provided by nonfinancial institutions’.”

Those rules require that “absolute controlling stakes of nonfinancial institutions must be domestically held,” Chao reports. Chao writes that it’s unclear if Yahoo!, and the other major investor in Alibaba, Japan’s Softbank, knew of the changeover of ownership last year. She notes that both investors are “in talks” with Alibaba about the matter.

Yahoo! shares today are up 32 cents, or 1.9%, at $17.52.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Or may he did and “patently ill-advised” and “grossly wrong” were compliments?

From The Gartman Letter:

“Finally, The Wall Street Journal yesterday had an article entitled “Hedges Clip Gas Producer’s Earnings,” wherein the journalist took Chesapeake Energy, Clayton Williams Energy, Devon Energy, Pioneer Natural Resources and a few other smaller cap energy companies to task for their losses they’d suffered on their hedging operations.

Several of these are clients of TGL, and most notably Chesapeake Energy, and we thought the tone of the article was patently ill-advised and grossly wrong. The article made it appear that the hedging operations of these energy companies were speculative in nature, and that they would have done better for their shareholders had they chosen not to hedge, which in almost all instances means having taken short positions in either the Brent, or WTI crude futures or perhaps in nat-gas futures. We suspect too that the article was prepared prior to the massive plunge in crude oil prices last week that suddenly turned these supposedly ill-conceived hedge programs into much more profitable once instead.

Hedging is given a bad name by articles such as his. WE suspect that many of the hedges were put into place when the companies in question borrowed large sums of money to undertake oil exploration programs. With costs high but with prices higher still, wise management acted to sell production for months or years forward, thus protecting the borrowing programs from going from ones that are profitable when begun to ones that might become massively un-profitable when half way through if crude oil prices fell. As the CFO of Pioneer Natural Resources said, defending his company’s decision to hedge, “The hedging program in place allowed Pioneer to plan for drilling activity and make sure we can achieve our cash flow goals.”

That is precisely what good, sharp businessmen and women are supposed to do: play for business activities that allow them to achieve their cash flow and earning’s goals. To do otherwise is rank speculation and that is not the business they are supposed to be in. They are in the business of finding and distributing energy. If their shareholders wished management to speculate upon the direction of crude oil prices, would it not have been cheaper to shutter in all drilling activities, fire all employees, cancel all drilling rig leases, lease a quote machine or two and begin a program of organized gambling. Then, we supposed, the Wall Street Journal would have been satisfied.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

This is the other shoe dropping.

Following a revelation earlier this week by programmers that Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone maintains a database on the device of the locations an individual has traveled with the phone, The Wall Street Journal’s Julia Angwin and Jennifer Valentino-Devries write today that both Google’s (GOOG) and Apple’s operating systems are transmitting some location data back to the companies.

“According to new research by security analyst Samy Kamkar, an HTC Android phone collected its location every few seconds and transmitted the data to Google at least several times an hour,” the authors write.

(Kamkar, a convicted computer felon, maintains a Web site here. The Journal used a consultant to test Kamkar’s research, and apparently he verified the findings about the Android OS.)

As for Apple, the authors cite a letter the company sent last year to representatives Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Joe Barton, Republican from Texas, saying it, “‘intermittently’ collects location data, including GPS coordinates, of many iPhone users and nearby Wi-Fi networks and transmits that data to itself every 12 hours.”

As the authors note, there are some specific limitations. For example, Apple’s data on locations transmitted back to its data centers is not tied to a phone’s unique identification code. Google’s process, Kamkar’s work suggests, includes data gathering and transmittal that is tied to the phone and that proceeds even when the phone’s apps are not explicitly requesting network location.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

The Wall Street Journal’s Roger Cheng and Stuart Weinberg this morning report Research in Motion (RIMM) has yet to convince Verizon Communications (VZ) to carry its “PlayBook” tablet computer, despite having previously indicated Verizon would be among the retailers.

The authors quote a Verizon spokesperson as saying, “We’re still evaluating the PlayBook and haven’t made a decision on whether we’re going to distribute it.” RIM was not available for comment, they write.

The article follows news that AT&T (T) refused to allow activation of the “bridge” software feature that allows the PlayBook to fuse with a BlackBerry for wide-area network access and to use contact and calendar data on the BlackBerry.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Today was the day Research in Motion’s (RIMM) PlayBook tablet computer went on sale, though it was a bit of an under-the-radar affair, to judge from the product placement at some retail outlets I visited in New York.

The good news: some stores seem to be moving units, judging from feedback I got.

I visited a couple of Best Buy stores and a couple of Staples stores in midtown Manhattan, hardly a representative sampling, I know. But what I observed was interesting. Product placement was disappointing in all four cases.

At Best Buy, there was no display, and no signs that I saw. The PlayBook was held by an employee behind the counter, and one had to request to see it. Fortunately, the PlayBook in both stores I went to was running on WiFi and so one was able to test out the Web browsing, etc. Needless to say, with signs and displays and end-caps for everything electronic under the sun, this hush-hush approach was not the best use of Best Buy floor space for RIM. Hopefully, things will get better.

At one of the stores, I was told that the PlayBook was sold out, unless I had pre-ordered. Asked how many units had been sold, the clerk told me, “We had a lot of them.”

Staples had a bit of the opposite problem: their store windows are dressed up with big signs screaming “tablets are here.”  Which is not the best way to get the PlayBook above the fray. In one store I visited, the PlayBook had no network connection, which not only meant it was not much fun to play with, but it also conveyed the impression that some apps were slow or generally unresponsive. I have a feeling that was a result of the device searching for the network connection, not a result of the sluggishness of the device itself.

In other Staples store in midtown, the PlayBook was in the middle of an OS update, downloading code. Thus, there was no using the machine. Perhaps in the middle of the afternoon is not the best time for Staples staff to be updating the machine.

All in all, much to be improved with the PlayBook’s in-store experience. I should point out that it’s not clear what immediate impact this kind of soft debut will have. The Wall Street Journal’s Satish Sarangaranjan and Melissa Korn this afternoon write that RIM said online pre-orders have been “firm.”

Still, the PlayBook has some nices aspects to it, such as a smoothly functioning user interface. It deserved a better coming-out-party, I think.

RIM shares ended the day down $1.61, or 3%, at $53.22.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritszche this morning reiterates a Market Perform rating on shares of Research in Motion (RIMM), writing that the a report yesterday by The Wall Street Journal’s Caroline Van Hasselt and Shereen Elgazzar that The United Araba Emirates will clamp down on BlackBerry service is pretty much already reflected in RIM’s stock price.

Van Hesselt and Elgazzar wrote yesterday that RIM confirmed it had been informed by the U.A.E. that the emirate plans to force individuals and for companies with fewer than 20 subscribers to use a less secure version of the BlackBerry service, the BlackBerry Individual Solutions (BIS), rather than BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES).

The move is perceived as an attempt to limit protest in the Middle East, which has been aided by Internet and cellular communications.

“While this is a negative headline for the shares, we note that there is no formal press release from RIMM on this issue and this story had been speculated last week. As a result, we would argue much of this news is already reflect in the stock’s current valuation.”

RIM shares this morning are up $1.14, or 2%, at $54.54.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily