In a note to investors Friday morning, RBC Capital Markets Managing Director Mike Abramsky lowered his target on shares of RIM stock from $45 to $35 with a Sector Perform rating. Following yesterday’s bloodbath, shares of RIM stock plummeted by as much as 19% after-hours on concerns surrounding RIM’s second-quarter and full-year outlook. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company slashed its full-year EPS outlook from $7.50 to between $5 and $6.50, and it said second-quarter earnings could be as low as $0.75 per share. Abramsky remains cautiously optimistic, however. “Disappointing Q1 results validates prior execution concerns amidst competitive pressures,” he writes. “Although it’s possible RIM fails to turn itself around, that outcome may be premature, we believe, given sustained positives.” The analyst notes 16% year-over-year growth, 68 million total subscribers, service growth and enterprise leadership among the yesterday’s bright spots, and says RIM’s strategy with QNX, TAT-built user interfaces and Android app support “remains sound.” He adds that the impact of BlackBerry 7 devices this fall and then QNX-based handsets, which are expected in the first quarter of 2012, could make RIM an “attractive acquisition candidate.”

Following a rating review initiated on January 28th, Moody’s on Thursday lowered Nokia’s senior debt rating from A2 to A3 and cut its short-term debt ratings from Prime-1 to Prime-2 with a negative outlook. Moody’s cites Nokia’s weakened position in the cell phone market and uncertainty surrounding the company’s upcoming transition to Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform as the reasoning behind the downgrades. “The rating downgrade primarily reflects Nokia’s weakened market position in its core business, mobile devices, which has reduced the company’s margins and funds from operations,” said Moody’s SVP and lead Nokia analyst Wolfgang Draack in a note. “In Moody’s view, the main reasons for this trend are: (i) an inflexible smartphone operating system; (ii) slow time-to-market for new models; (iii) more attractive innovation by smartphone competitors; and (iv) accelerating price competition for low-end phones.” The move follows Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade Nokia’s credit rating last month, when it said it expects Nokia’s market share to continue to slide through this year and in 2012.

On Wednesday Microsoft confirmed with enthusiast blog LoopinSight that it will launch Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 next week. The update will reportedly include performance enhancements, as well as security and stability fixes, but it will also include major changes for Outlook for Mac. After applying the software patch, users will be able to sync their Outlook calendars, tasks, notes, and contacts with Apple’s Sync Services, and it includes support for CalDAV calendars. The update will also add a new redirect and resend buttons. iPhone and iPod touch devices will also stay in sync, Pat Fox, Microsoft’s senior director of product management told The Loop. Service Pack 1 does come with one caveat, though: users will not be able to use Sync Services to sync with the MobileMe calendar beginning on May 5th.

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Xobni for Gmail Arrives in Private Beta; Xobni for Android and iPhone Moving to Beta Soon

Now busy users can connect Xobni Contacts across Outlook, webmail, and mobile platforms for a seamless contact management solution

San Francisco, CA (Vocus/PRWEB) March 18, 2011

Xobni, the relationship management service that creates rich contact profiles to help you manage all your business and personal relationships in email and mobile, today announced a private beta for its highly-anticipated product for Gmail and Google Apps – Xobni for Gmail. The product is free and helps users find and easily manage contacts. Xobni will move its Android and iPhone apps into beta for users to test within 90 days. People interested in testing any of these new products can request access to the beta versions on Xobni’s website.

Xobni for Gmail (beta) is a browser plugin for Chrome and Firefox that shows up as a sidebar in Gmail and helps users search and manage their relationships effortlessly. It creates rich profiles for anyone you’ve ever emailed in Gmail, similar to what users have come to expect in the Outlook product. These profiles include name, picture, job title, company, and full social network details. Xobni is also introducing some new functionality never before seen in Xobni products, including relationship history, predictive autosuggest that suggests other related contacts based on other people in the “to” line, and multimedia module to view social updates and insights from people in your network (example: even if you don’t follow a frequently emailed contact on Twitter, their latest tweets might appear in this module).

“Initially, Xobni focused on providing a search and contact add-in for Outlook. Today we’re much more,” said Jeff Bonforte, Xobni CEO. “Our users have been telling us they needed Xobni for all their many inboxes and devices. We wanted to be there too, so we built a cloud infrastructure that unifies your contacts, enhances them with third party content, and makes them accessible from multiple touch points.”

For customers with multiple inboxes and devices, there is now a cloud-based service called Xobni Pro that connects your contacts across multiple platforms, creating one pain-free, automatic, and comprehensive contact list. Currently, users of Xobni for Outlook, BlackBerry and Gmail will find all of their contacts and inbox insights available to them, no matter which device or inbox they are using. In addition to this new cross-platform portability, Xobni Pro users have access to advanced features for email junkies – like the ability to export all contacts to the native Outlook and BlackBerry address books, and benefit from daily Spam Rescue, which rescues and alerts you of messages that were incorrectly filtered into the junk mail folder.

Xobni for Gmail, Android and iPhone will ultimately be available in both free and Pro versions.

All products will start in private beta with increased access over time. Users who would like to help test can request access to beta versions here: Xobni for Gmail and Google Apps, Xobni for Android and Xobni for iPhone.

About Xobni
Xobni (“inbox” spelled backwards) is a San Francisco-based relationship management service that enhances productivity in the workplace. The Xobni service creates robust profiles by combining individual email/phone/text exchanges with social media content (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) to give users a complete 360-degree view of all their contacts and personal networks. These profiles are connected and made available across various devices and platforms, including Outlook, Gmail, BlackBerry, and soon Android and iPhone. Xobni offers a free product suite across all platforms, and has been downloaded over 6 million times. Xobni’s new full-featured premium product — Xobni Pro — connects these profiles in the cloud across Outlook, webmail and mobile platforms to provide a seamless and comprehensive contact management solution. Xobni is funded by Khosla Ventures, RRE Ventures, Cisco Systems, BlackBerry Partners Fund, First Round Capital and others. For more information, visit xobni.com (for English) or xobni.de (for German) or xobni.com/fr (for French).

Motorola Mobility on Wednesday reported its fourth quarter and full year 2010 earnings. It also gave grim but anticipated guidance for the first quarter of 2011 as Verizon Wireless, the company’s top carrier partner, prepares to launch the iPhone 4. Motorola’s revenues were up 21% year-over-year to $3.4 billion and net revenues from the company’s Mobile Devices division grew 33% year-over-year to $2.4 billion. Smartphone shipments were well under Wall Street’s consensus, however, coming in at 4.9 million units. Some analysts’ expectations were as high as 5.6 million units. Shipments totalled 13.7 million smartphones for the full year, and the company shipped 37.3 million feature phones and smartphones combined in 2010. Motorola forecasts a loss of between $26 and $62 million in the first quarter of 2011, which amounts to $0.09 and $0.21 per share in the red. Analysts had projected a profit of $0.01 per share in the quarter. Hit the break for Motorola’s full press release.

Motorola Mobility Announces Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2010 Financial Results

Fourth Quarter Financial Highlights

Jan. 26, 2011

• Revenues of $3.4 billion, up 21 percent from fourth quarter 2009
• GAAP earnings of .27 per share; non-GAAP earnings of .37 per share

• Mobile Devices net revenues of $2.4 billion, up 33 percent from fourth quarter 2009; shipped 4.9 million smartphones; GAAP operating earnings of $72 million; non-GAAP operating earnings of $56 million
• Home net revenues of $1.0 billion; GAAP operating earnings of $54 million; non-GAAP operating earnings of $90 million
• Operating cash flow generation of $225 million

LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. – Jan. 26, 2011 – Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MMI) today reported net revenues of $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, up 21 percent from the fourth quarter of 2009. The GAAP earnings in the fourth quarter of 2010 were $80 million, or .27 per share, compared to a loss of $204 million, or .69 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2009. On a non-GAAP basis, earnings in the fourth quarter of 2010 were $108 million, or .37 per share, compared to a loss of $70 million, or .24 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2009.

For the full year, 2010 net revenues were $11.5 billion, up 4 percent compared to 2009. For the full year, the GAAP loss was reduced to .29 per share from a loss of $4.56 per share in 2009. On a non-GAAP basis, the loss was reduced to .28 per share from a loss of $2.95 per share in 2009.

Details on non-GAAP adjustments and the use of non-GAAP measures are included later in this press release and in the financial tables.

The Company generated positive operating cash flow of $225 million and $606 million in the quarter and full year, respectively. As planned, subsequent to the end of the quarter, the Company received $3.2 billion in cash related to its separation from Motorola, Inc.

“The improvement in our financial results last year, including profitability in the fourth quarter, is indicative of the progress we have made in delivering innovative smartphones and improving the Mobile Devices business,” said Sanjay Jha, chairman and chief executive officer of Motorola Mobility. “Our Home business performed well and remains a premier provider of digital set-tops and end-to-end video solutions. With the global opportunities ahead, along with our diversified portfolio, our brand, and our people, we are well positioned to grow, and further improve our financial results in 2011.”

Operating Results

Mobile Devices segment net revenues in the fourth quarter were $2.4 billion, up 33 percent compared with the year-ago quarter. GAAP operating earnings were $72 million compared to an operating loss of $166 million in the year-ago quarter. Non-GAAP operating earnings were $56 million compared to an operating loss of $117 million in the year-ago quarter. For the full year 2010, net revenues were $7.8 billion, an increase of 9 percent compared to 2009. The 2010 GAAP operating loss was reduced to $76 million from an operating loss of $1.2 billion in 2009. The 2010 non-GAAP operating loss was reduced to $198 million from an operating loss of $923 million in 2009.

The Company shipped 4.9 million and 13.7 million smartphones in the quarter and full year, respectively, compared to 2.0 million in the fourth quarter and full year 2009. The Company shipped total handsets (including smartphones) of 11.3 million and 37.3 million in the quarter and full year 2010, respectively.

Mobile Devices highlights:

• Launched seven new smartphones in the fourth quarter, including the DROID PRO, DROID 2 Global, Motorola DEFY™, and Motorola BRAVO™, bringing our total smartphone launches for the year to 23.
• In the first quarter 2011, announced three new smartphones and the Company’s first tablet which are garnering numerous accolades. Products include:

o Motorola ATRIX™ 4G, winner of CNET’s Best Smartphone at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) award, featuring a dual-core processor, qHD pentile display and Motorola Mobility’s proprietary webtop application that powers an ecosystem of accessories, enabling users to have an enhanced and more interactive computer-like experience with their device.

o Named “Best of Show” at CES 2011, Motorola XOOM™ is the first device to incorporate Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Google’s powerful new operating system developed specifically for tablets; XOOM features a dual-core processor and high-definition 10.1 inch widescreen display.

o DROID™ BIONIC features a sleek design, and delivers the fastest mobile Internet experience with 4G LTE speeds that are up to 10 times faster than current 3G speeds.

o Motorola CLIQ 2™ with MOTOBLUR™, the follow-up to Motorola Mobility’s first smartphone, features a 3.7-inch touch-screen display, a 1GHz processor and a new slide-out QWERTY keypad.

• Acquired Zecter, Inc., a leading start-up with synchronization and streaming technologies for on-demand digital media consumption.

Home segment net revenues in the fourth quarter were $1.0 billion, up 1 percent compared with the year-ago quarter. GAAP operating earnings were $54 million, compared to an operating loss of $30 million in the year-ago quarter. Non-GAAP operating earnings increased to $90 million from $71 million in the year-ago quarter. For the full year 2010, net revenues were $3.6 billion, compared to $3.9 billion in 2009. GAAP operating earnings increased to $152 million from $11 million in 2009. The 2010 non-GAAP operating earnings increased to $272 million from $197 million in 2009.

Home highlights:

• Increased shipments of DVR set-tops reflecting consumer desire for personalized viewing experiences.
• Acquired 4Home, a leading provider of managed home solutions, to expand our cloud-based Motorola Medios service management software portfolio.
• Launched RX48 CMTS module, the industry’s highest-density upstream DOCSIS solution.
• Launched a next-generation IP set-top for the EMEA market, extending our leadership position in IPTV.

First-Quarter 2011 Outlook

The Company’s outlook for the first quarter of 2011 is the following:

• Consolidated operating earnings in a range around breakeven
• Non-operating costs of approximately $10 million
• Income tax provision of approximately $25 million
• Net loss of $26 million to $62 million
• Net loss per share of .09 to .21
• Basic shares outstanding of approximately 294 million shares
• Excludes charges associated with items of the variety typically highlighted by the Company in its quarterly earnings results, stock-based compensation expense and intangible assets amortization expense

Consolidated GAAP Results

A comparison of results from operations is as follows:

	Fourth Quarter			Full Year
(In millions, except per share amounts)	2010	2009		2010	2009
Net revenues	$3,425	$2,823		$11,460	$11,050
Gross margin	915	706		2,965	2,153
Operating earnings (loss)	126	(196)		76	(1,211)
Earnings (loss) before income taxes	110	(215)		(4)	(1,335)
Net earnings (loss) attributable to Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc.	$80	($204)		($86)	($1,342)
Basic earnings (loss) per common share*	.27	(.69)		(.29)	($4.56)
Basic weighted average common shares outstanding*	294.3	294.3		294.3	294.3

Non-GAAP Adjustments (Highlighted Items, Stock-based Compensation Expense and Intangible Assets Amortization Expense)

The table below includes highlighted items, stock-based compensation expense and intangible assets amortization expense for the fourth quarter of 2010.

	EPS Impact
GAAP Earnings per Common Share*	.27
Highlighted Items:
Reorganization of business charges	0.06
Joint venture wind-down costs	0.03
IP settlement	(0.19)
Total Highlighted Items	(0.10)
Stock-based compensation expense	0.14
Intangible assets amortization expense	0.05
Stock-based Compensation Expense and
Intangible Assets Amortization Expense	0.19
Total Non-GAAP Adjustments **	0.10
Non-GAAP Earnings per Common Share *	.37

Microsoft announced Tuesday that its updated OS X productivity suite, Office for Mac 2011, is now available. Office for Mac consists of Microsoft’s class-leading productivity applications including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint. For the first time, the suite also includes Microsoft Outlook, which replaces the less popular Entourage email client. Mac users have been waiting for Microsoft to replace Entourage with Outlook for years now, and this switch alone is likely worth the price of admission. And as far as pricing is concerned, Office for Mac 2011 breaks down as follows:

• Microsoft Office for Home and Student 2011 (single license): $109.99 – $149.99
• Microsoft Office for Mac Home and Business (single license): $174.99 – $279.99

As is often the case, third-party retailers such as Amazon.com currently offer the best pricing on Microsoft’s new Office for Mac 2011 suite.

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Just a quick note here… Google has announced that its calendar desktop syncing conduit for Outlook — Calendar Sync — is now compatible with Microsoft Outlook 2010. The blog writes that Outlook 2010 support has been one of the team’s top feature requests. Currently, only the 32-bit version of Outlook 2010 is supported, but keep your eyes on the Gmail Blog for updates. We’ve got the announcement after the break.

Google Calendar Sync now supports Outlook 2010

Making sure that your calendar is available to you whenever and wherever you need it is important. That’s why Google Calendar works with a number of desktop applications and mobile devices including iCal, iPhone and iPad, Blackberry, Android, Nokia/Symbian, and Windows Mobile phones. Google Calendar Sync for Outlook is also available, but one thing was missing — until now.

Google Calendar Sync now supports Outlook 2010 — our top feature request. Outlook 2010 comes in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, and currently only 32-bit is supported. To start syncing your calendar with Outlook 2010, download Google Calendar Sync version 0.9.3.6. Once you install it, a Settings window will appear. Enter your account’s email address and password, choose your sync optionand sync frequency, and you’re done! (Note: If you’re already using Google Calendar Sync, you’ll still need to download and install this new version in order to be able to sync with Outlook 2010. If you need help, take a look at our getting started guide.)

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Microsoft has posted a one and a half minute video teaser of Microsoft Office 2011 up on YouTube. The video lets you know that Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook all come with the Ribbon interface, and that Office and Messenger have been completely redesigned. If you are interested in a very high level overview of the new software hit the jump, the video is waiting for you.

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Oh man, this is definitely not something we wanted to hear: Microsoft has announced on its blog that Office for Mac 2011 will only ship as a 32-bit version. Citing a need for enhanced compatibility between the Office for Windows and Office for Mac over high-power performance, Microsoft said that it would not have been possible for its team to create a 64-bit version of Office 2011″because Apple’s frameworks require us to complete the move to Cocoa before we can build a 64-bit version.” Office 2011 is not 100% Cocoa. Microsoft is downplaying the lack of 64-bit support by stating that “most users with typical or even larger-than-average document content will not notice a difference in performance” and that the only area “64-bit can make a difference is for people working with huge amounts of data.” You know, like the professionals who are champing at the bit for Office 2011 and its inclusion of Outlook.

[Via ZDNet]

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Over the past few days we’ve been playing around the latest beta release of Microsoft Office for Mac 2011. Many of the changes made are hard to appreciate without actually seeing the application suite in use, and for that reason alone we have assembled a massive gallery of screenshots. On the other hand, images can be meaningless without a bit of an explanation so we’ve put down a brief summary of our initial thoughts. You can check them all out after the jump.

Across the board, each application has had its UI completely overhauled as Microsoft has made the wise decision to redo the entire layout of the application suite. Instead of the awful configuration found in Office for Mac 2008, 2011 draws from both Office 2007 and Office 2010 for Windows. In fact, it did such a good job that we can’t think of a reason why someone who is used to one OS wouldn’t be able to jump into the other and get work done in Office. One of the main reasons for this is Ribbons. Microsoft has finally conceded that people don’t like using the attractive but horribly implemented Toolbox found in previous versions of Office for Mac. Yes, the option to use the Toolbox is still there, but it’s no longer nearly impossible to get away without using it. One nice thing we will say about the Toolbox is that if you’re heavily into incorporating multimedia into your documents, the Toolbox is now fully integrated with iPhoto, iTunes, Photo Booth and Garage Band. It works phenomenally well. Speaking of things working, Excel finally has working support for macros. We can’t even tell you how happy this makes nerds like us. But back to Ribbons. They just make life so much easier. Basically every option you could ever want to use is attractively presented to you through the ribbons. What this does is allow you to save yourself an awful lot of time navigating the menu bar, hence why Microsoft calls the Ribbon a “Fluent User Interface”.

Sadly there is a pretty big weak link in Office 2011: Outlook. It seems that Microsoft simply sacrificed brains for beauty. Don’t get us wrong. It’s definitely the best and most powerful email client we’ve ever used on OS X, but after using it for 10 minutes we honestly gave up on it. Why? Because it simply requires more work to get simple tasks done than on the Windows version. It sucks to say it, but given the choice between using the new Outlook for Mac and virtualizing Outlook for Windows, we’d go with the latter any day. We’ve got more that 50 screenshots lined up for your eyes to feast upon, so check them out, ok?

Click on over to our Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 gallery!

We’ve just scored some of the first shots of Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac, and while they are said to be very early, you can clearly see the progress that has been made in the transition to native Cocoa applications. Outlook for Mac looks absolutely delicious, and we can’t wait to actually get our hands on it. Also included in the shots are the 2011 versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Hit the gallery for all the goodies!

Click on over to our Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac gallery!

Thanks, Thomas C.!

It’s all part of the natural progression; social networks developed to bring all our friends and family together into one place, and now we turn to new tools to bring all of our social networks into a single portal or hub application. The hub application, in this instance, is Microsoft Outlook and the new tool is the LinkedIn connector which brings your LinkedIn contacts into your favorite productivity application. The new LinkedIn Connector piggybacks upon the Outlook Social Connector and will display the profile picture and recent activity from any LinkedIn contact that you email. We can only hope that the next stop is MySpace — what corporate Exchange-lovin’ individuals wouldn’t want that?

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Forget the fact that we’re in the second half of 2009 and Microsoft is still releasing new versions of software with “2008″ in the name because the day countless Mac users have been waiting for is finally here: say goodbye to Entourage and hello to Outlook. Soon, anyway. That’s right ladies and gents, Outlook for Mac will ship with the next generation of the Office suite, hopefully some time in early 2010. Entourage, you will not be missed. Actually, Entourage isn’t going away completely just yet — a “Web Services Edition” is available immediately, free for current Office 2008 users, and it will continue to be supported indefinitely. The interim version of Entourage will also be included in the newly announced Business Edition of Office 08, which will be available for pre-order starting August 18th and will launch on September 15th. Pricing will run $399.95 for a new copy of Business Edition, $239.95 for a Business Edition upgrade.

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As Microsoft gets ready to kick off its Worldwide Partners Conference 2009, the web is buzzing with an onslaught of premature Office 2010 info that came raining down from a variety of places — not the least of which was the accidental early launch of the company’s Office 2010 microsite. Of course details have been surfacing steadily for quite a while now, but there’s no info like official info. The most noteworthy topic of interest surrounding this latest iteration of Office of course, is the introduction of Microsoft’s free web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. These cloud-based versions of Microsoft’s popular applications are positioned to be quite disruptive for the likes of Google Docs, Zoho and the rest of the SaaS productivity contenders. While companies like Google have a massive head start in the web-based productivity market, none have come anywhere close to approaching Microsoft’s reach in the space. Its reach, of course, is something Microsoft will certainly use to its advantage. But enough of that — hit the read link for all the Office 2010 video goodness you can handle.

[Via TC]

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In the current economic crisis it’s pretty easy to turn to the default financial climate, decreasing retailer inventories and “weak consumer demand” when things aren’t going great. Well, it’s certainly easier than talking about your lackluster product line, aging designs and your penchant for rehashing old models in favor of variation and innovation. But we digress. Sony Ericsson revealed today that Q1 will most definitely not be the quarter it turns things around and slows its current sales tumble. In fact, it’s looking at a loss in the neighborhood of €340-€390 million ($459 million-$526 million). Still number four in terms of global market share for the time being, the company expects to sell only 14 million handsets between January and March of this year — down from 24.2 million in Q4 2008. That’s no typo; the company expects to sell 10 million fewer handsets in Q1 2009 than it did in the previous quarter. While that figure is horrifying, it certainly goes a great length in explaining why Ericsson might want out of the JV.

[Via Reuters]

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