Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair this morning offers some hopeful, encouraging thoughts on both Nokia (NOK) and Research in Motion (RIMM) as the two pursue overhauls of their smartphone repertoire.

In the case of Nokia, Blair writes that his “checks” (he doesn’t specify, though I have a call in to his office to clarify) suggest that the company may introduce its first smartphones running Microsoft’s (MSFT) software sooner than expected. Blair thinks Nokia will host a “Nokia World” conference, which it does annually, sooner than usual. I’m not quite sure what he means, because he mentions a date of mid-October as being “earlier than usual,” when in fact Nokia World 2010 was in September of last year, in London.

In any event, Blair writes that the company’s “ahead of schedule in terms of development,” and he thinks the show could be used to debut Microsoft-powered handsets.

As for the big picture, “While we continue to feel the next three to four quarters will reflect the company’s transition away from the Symbian OS and show a marked drop in quarterly units for Nokia, we remain positive on the longer-term outlook for Nokia given the Microsoft partnership,” writes Blair. “It is our view that Nokia Window’s smartphones will become the fourth major player in the smartphone space, following [Google (GOOG)] Android, Apple’s (AAPL) iOS and RIM’s Blackberry OS.”

As for RIM, Blair was at the company’s “BlackBerry World” event in Orland, Florida this week and came away impressed with the “9900” version of the BlackBerry Bold that was introduced.

The device has a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm (QCOM) Snapdragon chip that is incredibly fast. The price of this chip is likely 2x that of Marvell’s however and is likely to create gross margin concerns. We moved through every application in our test and there was no lag, no hourglass icon telling us to wait, it was speedy in every way. Leaving Marvell [Technology Group] (MRVL) behind is good news for users. The company’s use of the term “liquid graphics” is legitimate. The transition between apps and opening apps and just generally navigating around the device is smooth in an iPhone-like manner.

Nokia shares today are down 9 cents, or 1%, at $8.52. RIM shares are up 71 cents, or 1.5%, at $48.08.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Gleacher & Co. analyst Brian Marshall this morning resumed coverage of Research in Motion (RIMM) with a Buy rating and an $80 price target, writing that despite long-term concerns about the company’s BlackBerry “ecosystem” and its brand erosion in the U.S., such worries are priced into the stock at this point, but some upside is not.

In particular, Marshall sees RIM benefitting from the phase-out of the Symbian operating system at Nokia (NOK), as the phone maker moves to using Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Phone 7. RIM could take over about 10% of what would have been Symbian sales, adding 2 million to 4 million units to his fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2013 estimates, for the years ending in February.

Marshall’s 2011 estimate is more or less in line with the Street: He sees $20 billion in revenue this fiscal year that ended last month, which is just slightly above the Street at $19.94, and $6.33 in EPS, in line with the Street.

For next year, however, February of 2012, Marshall sees about a billion dollars more than the Street in revenue, at $24.8 billion, versus consensus $23.87 billion. Marshll is modeling EPS of $7.10, versus the Street at $6.75.

Marshall also thinks RIM can maintain gross profit margin in the 35% to 40% range by owning the platform, as opposed to phone makers dependent on Google’s (GOOG) “Android” software.

RIM shares this morning are up 90 cents, or 1.5%, at $61.75.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Analysts are increasingly speculating Nokia must drop its MeeGo and Symbian operating systems from its phones and adopt either Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 or Google’s Android; Research In Motion’s BlackBerry could benefit from Nokia’s travails.

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

Dow Jones Newswires is reporting that Nokia (NOK) has decided not to introduce its X7 smartphone into the U.S. apparently for lack of support on the part of the carrier, according to anonymous “sources familiar.”
The X7 is an 8-megapixel device based on the Symbian operating system, that apparently featured four [...]

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Nokia (NOK) didn’t infringe Apple (AAPL) patents, staff at the International Trade Commission said in a pre-hearing statement, the Wall Street Journal reports. The recommendation goes to the ITC judge hearing Apple’s infringement claim against Nokia. Apple has been seeking to ban imports of Nokia devices that use the Symbian [...]

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Nokia (NOK) early today said its N8 smart phone has started shipping, with market availability to vary by country and operator. The company said the phone should be broadly available in coming weeks.
The N8 is the first phone based on the new Symbian 3 operating system software.
NOK in today’s regular [...]

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Nokia announced today that it will acquire the San Francisco, Calif.-based mobile analytics firm Motally for an undisclosed sum. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2010.

Motally specializes in analytics for both mobiles websites and apps on the iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, and Android. With the acquisition, Motally’s service will be adapted for mobile platforms that Nokia uses like Symbian, Meego, Qt, and Java.

Its analytics allows both mobile web developers and app makers to get a better sense of how users interact with their mobile offerings. In March, the company enabled a feature called 2-Way Communication for its iPhone app analytics that allowed developers to make Motally-specific settings changes without resubmitting apps for approval. The feature also works for both BlackBerry and Android app analytics.

Former VentureBeat writer Paul Boutin explains the feature:

Previously, if an app built with Motally’s software toolkit transmitted data to its maker from an iPhone, Motally’s API would respond with a simple message saying, “OK, got it.” With 2-Way Communication — can we just call it 2WC? — the app’s maker can send marching orders back to the app that tell it to change Motally-specific settings for tracking and debugging the app.

Earlier this year, it launched an API for uploading and downloading large data sets for analysis. The company brought on former Nielsen VP John Forese as its CEO in March.

Motally was founded in 2008 and currently has eight employees. The company was one of twenty that was featured at our MobileBeat 2010 conference.

Tags: Analytics, Android, iPhone, meego, Symbian

Companies: Motally, nokia

People: John Forese

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » Deals & More

Juniper Networks (JNPR) this afternoon said it has agreed to buy SMobile Systems, a Columbus, Ohio-based provider of smart phone and tablet security software for the enterprise, for about $70 million in cash.
The company says SMobile has products to protect devices based on the Andoird, Apple iOS, Symbian, BlackBerry and [...]

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If there’s one thing the world really needs, it would be another mobile phone operating system.
I mean really, all you have to choose from now is iOS 4, Android, WebOS, Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, MeeGo and a few others that have almost no traction. Not enough choices, right?
Well, [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

Right now, the smart phone landscape seems completely cluttered with software platforms: IPhone OS, Android, Windows, Symbian, Maemo, BlackBerry OS, WebOS and a number of others. But that’s not likely to be the case forever. Some of the players will end up being exposed as pretenders.
Ashok Kumar, an analyst with [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily