BlackBerry co-founder Lazaridis dumps 3.5 million shares

BlackBerry co-founder Mike Lazaridis had so much faith in the company he helped rise to greatness — which, coincidentally, is also the company he helped destroy — that he considered a bid to purchase the struggling vendor earlier this year. Now, however, Lazaridis might finally be losing some faith. Following BlackBerry's fiscal third-quarter earnings report that saw the company post a massive $4.4 billion loss, interim CEO John Chen managed to convince investors that BlackBerry is on the verge of a rebound. As a result, the company's share price has soared more than 25% over the past few days. Lazaridis may be unsure of BlackBerry's prospects or he may have just been looking for some quick cash, but a regulatory filing dug up by The Associated Press reveals that he offloaded 3.5 million shares of BlackBerry stock between Monday and Tuesday. The massive sale puts his remaining stake in the company at just below 5%, down from 5.7% before he made the sale.

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Posted in 2013 at 02:00PM, December 25

Samsung’s marketing Death Star spent $14 billion this year

Why are Samsung's smartphones so dominant in the market when companies such as HTC, Nokia and LG have all released smartphones in the last year that are just as good if not better? A big reason is Samsung's enormous marketing budget that drills images of Galaxy smartphones into consumers' heads while crowding out its rivals' devices. According to Reuters , Samsung's marketing Death Star has spent an estimated $14 billion in 2014, an amount that's greater than the entire gross domestic product of Iceland. If Reuters' estimate is right, it means that Samsung has more than tripled the roughly $4 billion it spent on marketing in 2012 and that it has spent more than quadruple what Microsoft and Apple together spent on marketing last year.

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Posted in 2013 at 02:00PM, November 28

Picture of metal Galaxy S5 frame purportedly leaks

Get excited, Samsung fans — there's hope that the next generation of your favorite phone may not be made from cheap-feeling plastic after all! Nowhereelse.fr has posted a new set of leaked pictures that it claims are of the metal frame of Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S5 flagship smartphone. Although it's entirely possible that the device will feature a metal frame that's surrounded by Samsung's trademark plastic casing, Nowhereelse.fr's source seems to suggest that at least one future Samsung phone will have an aluminum build like the iPhone 5s and the HTC One. The leaked picture of the purported Galaxy S5 frame also suggests that the new device will have a slightly larger display than the Galaxy S4's 5-inch display. One of Nowhereelse.fr's pictures of the frame follows below.



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Posted in 2013 at 02:00PM, November 22

REVIEW -- Nokia Lumia 1520 review: Nokia's first phablet is full of surprises

Nokia, as we know it, is going away. The company itself will remain, of course. It might even be consistently profitable some day. But the face of Nokia that most consumers are familiar with will be a thing of the past. Nokia will soon sell off its devices and services business to Microsoft for about $5 billion as part of a $7.2 billion deal. But in the meantime, the company has a product pipeline to clear and the new Lumia 1520 is certainly one of the more interesting devices Nokia will be launching before the big changing of the guard. The 1520 marks Nokia's first foray into the increasingly popular phablet category and if not for Apple, Nokia would be the last major smartphone vendor to enter the space. But is the company's new 1520 just a bigger Lumia phone, or is it also a better Lumia phone that continues moving in the right direction and picks up where the Lumia 1020 left off?



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Posted in 2013 at 02:00PM, November 18