Wielding the knife becoming a popular pastime
I continue to be perturbed by headlines from the telecoms industry declaring staff cuts to reduce costs and improve profitability. Is there no other means to placate investors than to resort to such radical and life-disrupting means for people that have not necessarily failed in their jobs? Today’s workforce appears to have become a totally [...]
Apple eating humble pie? Hardly!
The headlines all concur, Nokia wins the patent battle with Apple, but the real facts around the settlement may never come fully to light. That’s because neither party had anything to gain by continuing expensive litigation. Any loss of face by Apple and bottom line gains by Nokia will likely be short lived. I’m afraid [...]
Remember Nokia?
I can remember the days when solid corporations could withstand economic up and downs for decades going from strength to strength. This was and era when shareholders considered ‘blue chips’ a solid long term investment – and they usually were. However, times have changed. Take the case of Nokia, for example. Top of the mobile [...]
Nokia vs Apple – Round 1 to Apple
You will no doubt recall that soon after it was apparent to Nokia that Apple’s wildly successful iPhone was going to impact its potential earnings it instigated legal proceedings against Apple for infringing no less than ten Nokia patents on mobile phone technology. That was in December 2009. “The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, [...]
Rumblings from La Rambla
This is Barcelona week and you are probably fed up to the teeth with press releases and news emanating from this Catalonian stronghold. The Insider has spent a lot of time talking to delegates, press people and exhibitionists (I think that’s the right term for the people working the stands, especially CBOSS), to get the [...]
Nokia escapes flames, now swimming to leaky life raft
The official Nokia blog says it is now official – Nokia is getting hitched to Microsoft! You have to love the joint announcement so soon after the so-called ‘leaked memo’ from Nokia CEO, and supposedly ex-Microsoft man, Stephen Elop. The rhetoric is pure Ballmer, though. “Today in London, our two companies announced plans for a broad strategic [...]
Knock-knock Nokia, anybody home?
Nokia has been hitting the headlines in the past week, but not always for the right reasons. Firstly, speculation in the NewYork Times about an enhanced alliance with Microsoft (the first was announced back in 2009 but little came of it except that the Microsoft executive involved is now Nokia’s CEO) surprisingly lifted its share price four [...]
‘Apple Pie’ or ‘Poisoned Apple’ – Nokia to take first bite
I don’t know if it’s politically correct to call Christmas and New Year the ‘silly season’ but after reviewing headline news from the telco industry over the holiday period it would be fair to say that the plum pudding probably had a little to much brandy in it. Maybe we should swap to ‘Apple pie’ [...]
World’s most useless app?
EyeCall, running on Nokia 3G handsets, would have to be up there as one of the most useless apps ever developed for a mobile device. Even the name has nothing to do with what it does. The application enables the user to silence an incoming call and send a auto-text response without even looking at [...]
Whither Nokia Now?
As Nokia opens its Ovi download store, the former darling of the handset industry and the once doyen of network infrastructure, seems to be trapped somewhere between a rock and a hard place. News that is has trimmed its workforce by another thousand and is cutting back investment in new content and services is sending [...]