Nokia Said to Near Sale of Vertu Luxury-Phone Unit to EQT - Businessweek
Nokia Oyj (NOK1V) is nearing a deal to sell its Vertu luxury-phone unit to Swedish private-equity firm EQT Partners AB as it divests assets as part of a turnaround plan, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
The transaction values Vertu at about 200 million euros ($250 million), said one of the people, declining to be identified as the talks are private. A deal could be announced as early as this week, another person said. Church Crookham, England-based Vertu is known for its jewel-bedecked mobile phones that sell for an average price of more than 5,000 euros.
Nokia is selling assets as Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop seeks to revive a mobile-phone business that’s been devastated by competition from devices running software from Google Inc. (GOOG) (GOOG) and Apple Inc. (AAPL) (AAPL) The Espoo, Finland-based company is betting on a software partnership with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) (MSFT) to rebuild its cachet in the critical North American market, where it has struck deals with carriers AT&T Inc. (T) (T) and T-Mobile USA to sell its flagship Lumia smartphone.
“Vertu is a bet on a very specific, niche market, though it’s a niche that’s growing,” said Francisco Jeronimo, an analyst at researcher IDC in London. Its new owner will face the challenge of modernizing Vertu devices’ technology, which has until now been largely based on Nokia’s obsolete Symbian operating system, to compete with devices like Apple’s iPhone, he said.
Multilingual Hotline
Representatives at Nokia, EQT and Vertu declined to comment.
Vertu, started by Nokia’s then-chief designer Frank Nuovo in 1998, is the dominant player in the luxury-phone sector, with about 60 percent of the Western European market in 2010, according to IDC.
The unit has sought to stand apart from rival offerings like Research In Motion Inc. (RIMM) (RIMM)’s Porsche-branded BlackBerry devices with its “concierge” service, a 24-hour, multilingual hotline that assists clients with requests ranging from restaurant reservations to sourcing esoteric gifts.
Luxury phones have been a rare bright spot for Nokia, whose shares have declined almost 40 percent this year, the worst performance in the 27-company Stoxx 600 Technology Index (SX8P), which was up 0.8 percent. The shares rose 0.2 percent to 2.26 euros in Helsinki yesterday, valuing the former global handset leader at about 8.5 billion euros.
Vertu, which doesn’t disclose its earnings publicly, saw “high double-digit sales growth” in 2010 and 2011, driven largely by demand from emerging markets in Asia and the Middle East, President Perry Oosting said in September. The unit operates more than 80 retail stores in locales like Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive and Paris’s Rue Royale.
The Vertu deal would be Stockholm-based EQT’s second acquisition this month. The buyout firm yesterday announced the purchase of BSN Medical that values the German bandage supplier at 1.8 billion euros. EQT, which is partly owned by Sweden’s Wallenberg family, in October raised 4.75 billion euros from investors for a new buyout fund focused on Northern and Eastern Europe.
To contact the reporters on this story: Matthew Campbell in London at mcampbell39@bloomberg.net; Adam Ewing in Stockholm at aewing5@bloomberg.net; Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in London at achassany@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at kwong11@bloomberg.net; Jacqueline Simmons at jackiem@bloomberg.net
Nokia confirms PureView in Lumia devices - Know Your Mobile
Bringing the PureView to future Lumia and Windows phones was rumoured and hinted at, but was never fully confirmed by Nokia.
Well now it has, thanks to Nokia US President Chris Webber, who said, 'you can expect we'll be bringing PureView technologies to the Windows Phone platform in future Lumia devices'.
The PureView system debuted on the Nokia PureView 808 in February at Mobile World Congress 2012.
It may sound like it, but the PureView camera is not capable of taking 41-megapixel shots; it uses a system called oversampling, in which it combines data from seven neighbouring pixels and consolidates them into one pixel's worth.
Through this process, an image of about 5-megapixels is generated. The resulting image, though, is of far superior quality compared with a standard 5-megapixel camera.
In addition to still photos, the PureView will also provide users with full 1080p video capability.
The camera itself is quite large, about one centimetre in length, width and depth, making any phone that uses it rather bulky.
It is not clear when these devices will arrive, but we now know that they are coming and that Nokia is 'absolutely committed' to bringing the technology to the market.
Microsoft will be hosting a ‘sneak peek' on 20 June for the first unveiling of Windows Phone 8. The new Windows Phone is expected to have some camera improvements, but it is unsure whether the company will include the PureView.
Analysis: Apple's big enemy in smartphone wars: delay - msnbc.com
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc has spent nearly three years fighting its rivals in a global smartphone patent war. Now, setbacks in two key U.S. court cases are laying bare why a drawn-out battle could be bad news for the iPhone maker.
Last Thursday, Judge Richard Posner in Chicago federal court canceled Apple's long-awaited trial against Google Inc's Motorola Mobility division, which makes devices powered by the Internet search company's Android mobile operating system. The trial had been set to start this week.
Then in an order late on Monday, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, effectively dashed Apple's hopes of stopping the launch of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's new Galaxy S III smartphone, which also runs on Android. Koh had said Apple's push to get a court order blocking the June 21 launch would overload her calendar, given Apple's high-stakes trial over other Samsung devices set for July that she is overseeing.
The latest decisions don't doom Apple's courtroom efforts - the company can appeal Posner's ruling, while Koh's directive had nothing to do with the merits of the Samsung case about to go to trial, or the legal arguments for an injunction on the new Samsung smartphone. But delays in moving its cases through the courts is a blow to Apple's efforts to get quick and favorable rulings that it hopes would give it an edge in the marketplace for mobile devices.
Apple has waged the international patent war since 2010, part of its attempt to limit growth of Android, which last year established its dominance as the world's best-selling mobile operating platform. Apple's opponents, meanwhile, say the iPhone maker is trying to use patents to avoid competing solely in the market.
A clear victory in one of the U.S. legal cases could strengthen Apple's hand in negotiating cross-licensing deals outside court, where companies agree to let each other use their patented technologies.
"The stalemate is much more of a victory for the accused infringers than it is for Apple," said Brian Love, a professor at Stanford Law School who studies patent litigation.
Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet reiterated a previous statement, saying the blatant copying of its devices was wrong. Google spokesman Jim Prosser said the rise of patent litigation is due to too many vague software patents, and that Google's success makes it an attractive target. A Samsung representative declined to comment.
Apple is not the only smartphone combatant that has faced setbacks in litigation over its technology. Last month, Oracle Corp came up empty in a trial against Google, a case where Oracle's damages estimates ranged up to $6 billion.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco rejected Oracle's copyright claims on parts of the Java programming language. The enterprise software company said it would appeal.
LAND GRAB
Apple is in a pitched battle with its competitors over who can develop the most innovative smartphone features. In an attempt to help keep Android at bay, the company announced new features for its voice-activated Siri software at its annual developer's conference on Monday.
The company's first lawsuit in its global patent fight was against smaller competitor HTC Corp in a Delaware federal court in March 2010. Apple also filed an action against HTC before a U.S. trade panel, which has forced delays in sales of some HTC smartphones.
Michael Yoshikami, chief executive of Destination Wealth Management, says HTC stock has suffered due to adverse court rulings. But for a larger player like Apple, the patent battle is important but not for its share price. Rather, it is used for a short-term edge in the land grab for smartphone and tablet sales, said Yoshikami, whose fund holds Apple shares.
In a move that was widely seen as a preemptive strike against an imminent Apple lawsuit, Motorola sued Apple in October 2010 in Chicago, and Apple filed its own claims against Motorola the same month. That case landed before Posner, who issued a series of pre-trial rulings that eliminated nearly all of Motorola's patent claims against Apple from the prospective trial, while maintaining more of Apple's claims against Motorola.
That meant Apple had more to gain in the trial, which was set to start on Monday. But in an order last week, Posner scrapped the trial after finding that neither side could prove damages. Apple had sought an injunction barring the sale of Motorola products, but Posner said that would be "contrary to the public interest."
Nick Rodelli, a lawyer and adviser to institutional investors for CFRA Research in Maryland, rated Posner's decision an "incremental negative" for Apple. However, Rodelli doesn't think it will stand up on appeal, saying in part that Posner improperly denied Apple a hearing on its right to an injunction.
Yet Stanford's Professor Love said that Posner's ruling, and the delay it causes in Apple getting the case to trial even if it wins an appeal, will reduce Apple's leverage during any potential licensing talks.
In the Samsung lawsuit, filed last year in California, the iPhone maker says Samsung "slavishly" copied the iPhone and iPad. Samsung denies the claims and countersued.
The trial centers around Apple's claims against multiple Samsung phones, as well as a Galaxy tablet. But those products are not the most pressing worry for Apple at the moment: Samsung's Galaxy S III phone is set to launch in the U.S. on June 21, and Apple fears blockbuster sales.
But courts don't move as quickly as new technology. At a court hearing last week, Apple attorney Josh Krevitt complained that Samsung is able to release new phones before the legal system has time to address their patent violations.
"Samsung is always one step ahead, launching another product and another product," Krevitt said.
Koh last week said Apple could ask for a temporary restraining order against the Galaxy S III phone, but that would likely delay the trial over a Galaxy tablet and other smartphones. In her order on Monday, the judge said Apple would have to request a new hearing date if it wanted to stop sales of the Galaxy S III phone. That likely would not take place before the phone's scheduled launch. Apple has not said what its next move will be.
Court-ordered mediation between the CEOs of Apple and Samsung did not produce a settlement in the wide-ranging litigation. Barring a last minute agreement, the trial is slated for July 30.
Apple cannot afford to get bogged down in its global legal campaign against Android, said Paul Berghoff, a Chicago-based patent attorney with McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff who is not involved in the litigation.
"If Apple's goal still is the Steve Jobs holy war, then the status quo is not in their benefit," Berghoff said.
(Reporting By Dan Levine; Editing by Martha Graybow, Amy Stevens and Phil Berlowitz)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
Droid RAZR Maxx beats iPhone as number one on Verizon - Phones Review
Although the iPhone 4S might be the top smartphone over in the good old US of A, when it comes to the USA’s largest carrier Verizon, it appears that the iPhone 4S doesn’t claim the top slot on the BIG Red network, as apparently the word is the top selling smartphone on Verizon is actually the Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx.
According to the guys over at Phandroid, by way of Barrons, an analyst has said that although the iPhone is overall the best selling device across North American carriers, their checks have highlighted initial signs that Apple’s momentum is under pressure especially with Verizon, due to the carrier aggressively marketing their competing 4G devices.
Obviously the iPhone 4S doesn’t sport 4G LTE capability, and as such it appears that with Verizon anyway, the iPhone looks to be falling behind somewhat. Having said that, of course the iPhone 5 might possibly offer 4G LTE connectivity one the new iPhone hits, which could rapidly change things around.
Apparently the analyst said that since the iPhone launch in North America they believe that this is the first quarter where the iOS smartphone was not the top seller at a North American mobile operator. The iPhone continues to be the top handset on AT&T and Sprint, but the Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx was the top selling handset on Verizon.
So according to checks, the Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx was the top selling smartphone on Version, followed by the iPhone and in third place was the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
iPhone 5 Spotted in WWDC 2012 Keynote? - TrustedReviews
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