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Nokia Oyj never better equipped to make a deal with Alcatel-Lucent

National Post Tech Desk - Tue, 04/14/2015 - 04:21

As Nokia Oyj reemerges as a contender in the telecommunications industry, it’s never been in a better position to acquire Alcatel-Lucent SA.

Nokia has transformed itself from a fumbling mobile-phone maker into a slimmer company focused on wireless networking. The stock has tripled in two years amid the comeback. Now, it’s in talks over a takeover of Alcatel-Lucent.

Nokia’s stock was almost 40 per cent more valuable than Alcatel-Lucent’s before Tuesday, when the companies said they’re in advanced negotiations about a combination. That makes a cash-and-stock bid feasible and accretive to earnings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. And its coffers are growing: The Finnish company sold its devices unit to Microsoft Corp. last year for about $7.5 billion, and it’s said to be exploring a sale of the $2 billion maps business next.

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Still, Nokia will need to make a persuasive offer for its $13 billion French rival. They’ve held talks in the past that didn’t go anywhere.

“Nokia thinks it’s worth X, and Alcatel thinks it’s worth Y,” Mike Walkley, an analyst for Canaccord Genuity Group Inc., said in a phone interview. “Nokia has a strong balance sheet, but they’re going to stick to their guns. It’s going to come down to, do they close the gap on the valuation?”

Mobile Customers

Alcatel-Lucent’s wireless assets would give Nokia networks that serve some 1.3 billion mobile subscribers in China and contracts with the two biggest U.S. carriers — Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. But Alcatel-Lucent’s core networking-equipment segment, which includes its IP routing business, would expand Nokia’s portfolio at a time when efficiently transferring the booming amount of data from services such as Netflix is crucial.

Together, Verizon and AT&T account for 25 per cent of Alcatel-Lucent’s revenue, whereas Nokia’s top customers are in Asia and Europe — China Mobile Ltd., SoftBank Corp. and Telefonica SA, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Combined Company

The combined entity would become the biggest maker of wireless-network equipment, overtaking Sweden’s Ericsson AB and Huawei Technologies Co. of China, according to researcher IDC.

Nokia shares closed on Monday in Europe with a 36 per cent valuation premium to Alcatel-Lucent, based on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. That gives it plenty of firepower to make a cash-and-stock bid.

If Nokia were to pay a hypothetical 30 per cent premium, with half in cash and half in stock, the deal would increase next year’s earnings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

On Tuesday, Alcatel jumped as much as 18 per cent in Paris, while Nokia slid as much as 8.3 per cent on the Helsinki exchange.
Bloomberg.com

Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to land a rocket on a floating, unmanned barge

National Post Tech Desk - Mon, 04/13/2015 - 15:51

Elon Musk plans to revolutionize space travel by landing a used rocket – plummeting to Earth – on a floating, unmanned barge. While this may appear to be a practice of the absurd, it’s another step to changing space travel, and even putting humans on Mars, according to space experts.

Although he’s still playing with electric cars, and giant battery factories in Nevada, Musk is never far from his first love, space. The launch of the reusable rocket marks yet another attempt at innovation by the South-African-born Canadian entrepreneur.

SpaceX plans to launch the Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with a Dragon capsule containing 2015 kg of supplies for those aboard the International Space Station (ISS), but it’s the falling rocket that experts will be watching.

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If all goes as scheduled, the hope is to land the 21-metre-tall Falcon flat against the 91-metre-wide barge while the ship sways in the water. It’s a task that requires a high degree of accuracy, like hitting a multimillion-dollar bulls-eye.

(The launch, originally slated for Monday, was delayed due to thunderstorms, so postponed till Tuesday later afternoon.)

If the landing is successful, it has the chance to transform the pace travel economy.

“It would, over time . . . be the holy grail of what we’ve been looking for which is a way to reduce the cost of launch,” said Marc Boucher, senior editor and CEO of space media company SpaceRef.

Reducing the costs of launches – the Falcon rocket itself reportedly costs $60 million – is one of the main goals of space companies everywhere.

Depending on the mission, Boucher said that past rockets fire for maybe 10 minutes before they are decoupled from the capsule and fall to Earth, never to be used again. Musk, who is the CEO and founder of SpaceX, has equated the single-use of the rocket with flying a 747 once to London and then throwing it away.

If successful, the reusable rocket could potentially save millions in space travel. The rocket fuel costs around $200,000 each launch, peanuts compared to the dozens of millions rockets cost.

“Elon Musk has said at one point that probably we’re talking 10 or 20 or 30 more times we can use [the rockets],” Boucher said.

Jurek Sasiadek, a professor of aerospace engineering at Carleton University, is similarly hopeful.

“The economy is catching up to the desire of the missions we want to do,” said Sasiadek, saying that with reduced costs, the ability to do more in space will follow.

“This is important step, not in the sense of technology development, but in the sense of the economics catching up. Without [the cost being lowered missions like going to Mars] won’t be possible. [The rocket is] not so spectacular . . . but [it’s] much more important.”

This isn’t the first of SpaceX’s attempts to change space travel, nor event the most daring. There are plans to build a private spaceport – the first of its kind – to launch ships, ending a reliance on using NASA and government launch ports.

Besides the rocket, aboard the payload going to the ISS are a few Canadian contributions, including data processors developed by Canadian CALM Technologies for use in osteoporosis research aboard the ISS, the JCAP adapter plate that will allow the station’s crew to transfer parts between the interior and exterior developed by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates of Canadarm2 fame, and 600,000 tomato seeds to be used for educational purposes in classrooms across Canada when they return to Earth.

This is not the first time SpaceX has attempted to land its rocket. They attempted it once before in January but it was unsuccessful.

They will fix it, sooner or later,” Sasiadek said, “even if they don’t do it right this time, they will do it next time.”

Financial Post
sKarmazyn@nationalpost.com

Number of TV cable cord-cutters growing faster than expected

National Post Tech Desk - Mon, 04/13/2015 - 15:48

More Canadians are ditching their traditional TV subscriptions in 2014 than ever before, according to a new report.

There were 95,000 fewer television subscribers in 2014, a stark 12-month decrease in the number of people in Canada who paid to watch TV the old-fashioned way – versus the 13,000 net dip in 2013. The losses are anticipated to widen to 97,000 in 2015, the comprehensive report published Monday by the Convergence Consulting Group states.

“We weren’t projecting that we would see such a big decline this year. It caught us a bit off guard,” said Brahm Eiley, a principle at the Toronto-based firm who authored the report. “We’ve seen more people in the last few years either decide to get rid of television or people deciding to never get television at all.”

From 2007 to 2011, cable subscriptions grew annually by an average 220,000. The industry could count on new households to purchase TV subscriptions in past years, says Eiley, but it’s not the priority it once was.

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He attributes the net decline seen in 2014 to a combination of the so-called “cord-cutting and cord-nevers.”

According to data compiled by Convergence Consulting, cable and satellite providers are taking the brunt of this year’s loss, a trend Eiley expects will continue in 2015 as more Canadians opt to consume content through online-streaming platforms such as Netflix or even from illegal downloads.

Given these new usage patterns, revenue from residential broadband services in Canada unsurprisingly grew to $6.2 billion, up 8 per cent, as the Internet reached an estimated additional 408,000 homes in 2014.

Despite all the rage of Netflix and the like, people who do not have a TV subscription with a cable, satellite or telecommunications company account for just one-fifth – 21.6 per cent, or 3.09 million homes – of all Canadian households. While this figure has risen since 2012 and is expected to jump to 3.3 million homes in 2015, much of the population still watches the game or their favourite show on a TV screen.

“The vast majority of households still have a linear TV subscription,” Eiley added. “We can either talk about the dog’s body or its tail. That 21.6 per cent is still the tail. It’s growing, and it’s growing faster than it’s ever grown before, but the majority are still TV subscribers.”

Financial Post
cpellegrini@nationalpost.com

Canadian TV producers fear funding fallout from pick-and-pay

National Post Tech Desk - Mon, 04/13/2015 - 15:48

In a speech before Ottawa’s Canadian Club in March to announce a huge change to the way Canadians pay for television, the chairman of Canada’s broadcast regulator asked why our networks can’t be more like AMC, the U.S. cable and satellite channel.

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications head Jean-Pierre Blais named AMC, best known as the home of Mad Men and Breaking Bad, as an example of one network that has found success by investing in quality over quantity. He noted such critically acclaimed niche hits have ushered in a cable TV renaissance, with feature film directors and big name actors suddenly interested in making shows. Had it not been for Mad Men’s trail-blazing effect, the millions of people who watched the season premieres of HBO’s Game of Thrones and Silicon Valley on Sunday might have been stuck with blander fare with a broader appeal in the vein of CBS’s Two and a Half Men.

“Some may balk at the suggestion that Canadian programming can reach the same heights as shows created in other major global markets. Not me. I know it can succeed,” Blais said. “They can, provided the climate under which they produce their works changes and becomes less rigid.”

But in that same speech, Blais announced the dismantling of the system that made Mad Men and shows like it profitable — bundled cable and the affiliate fees that come with it. In a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter looking back on Mad Men’s early days as it enters its final episodes, AMC’s former head of programming and production said the network was looking for a show that would make a splash so cable companies wouldn’t dare leave the channel out of bundles, ensuring steady affiliate fee revenue for AMC.

Blais blamed red tape and resistance to change for the dearth of Canadian hits, but people who work in the business say the real challenge is getting funding for big-budget, ambitious projects. And by requiring cable companies to let consumers pick and pay for the channels they want, dropping protection for genre-based specialty channels and reducing Canadian content requirements, the CRTC just made getting funded even harder.

“Even if it’s a brilliant idea, it will be very difficult to get that project off the ground,” said Janis Lundman, executive producer at Montreal’s Back Alley Film Productions Ltd. “I don’t think [the CRTC] quite understands how projects are financed.”

In the U.S., networks commonly finance between 80 and 100 per cent of a production, which is how shows like HBO’s US$6 million-an-episode Game of Thrones get made, Lundman said. In Canada, it’s more like 20 to 40 per cent, with producers left to pay for the remainder through tax credits or international financing.

Lundman said the CRTC’s pilot program to relax Canadian content certification requirements for big-budget shows hasn’t been enough to convince the big networks to invest. She said she’s already heard stories of dropped projects and tightening budgets.

In response to the funding squeeze, Back Alley Film is one of many Canadian production companies making distribution partnerships outside the country. That means the content has to appeal to an international audience.

“I’m looking more and more outside of Canada, looking more toward the U.S., pitching U.S.-only shows, looking toward Europe and England, doing co-productions,” Lundman said. “The Canadian-only projects we were doing previously are very difficult to do now.”

Lundman said the growing prestige of big-budget TV is making it hard to compete for international dollars as well. Productions with big names attached — such as Mike Judge of Beavis and Butt-head and Office Space fame who created HBO’s Silicon Valley, or True Detective star Matthew McConaughey — are much more likely to get funded, she said.

John Barrack, strategic counsel and partner with Don Carmody Television, said the level of vertical integration in Canadian TV will affect how things play out. He predicted independent companies such as Blue Ant Media Inc., which owns specialty channels like Cottage Life and Smithsonian Channel Canada, will be more likely to invest in Mad Men-like big-budget saviour programs to keep their channels alive.

Meanwhile, the big cable companies can just shut unprofitable channels down and target spending elsewhere. Spokesmen for both Blue Ant Media and Bell Media, which owns Canada’s most-watched specialty channels, said they’re still developing their strategies about where to target program funding in a post-pick-and-pay world.

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In general, however, Barrack was optimistic about the future of Canadian TV under the new regulations. Some specialty channels won’t survive, but the Web gives producers an opportunity to deliver programs to specialized audiences in a different way, he said.

“We know if we make a great show, it’s going to find a home,” Barrack said. “We’re in a situation where there are niche communities. It’s the whole basis of specialty television, but it’s also, if you think about it, how the web works.”
But Arnie Gelbart, founder and chief executive of the film production company Galafilm Inc., said telling producers to put their content online doesn’t solve the problem of how to fund the productions in the first place. Online video providers such as Netflix Inc. generally fund their own content, he said.

“To do fewer big-budget shows and have more hits, that isn’t the nature of the industry. There isn’t enough money in Canada to do that no matter what they do,” Gelbart said. “I’ll see if I can survive in this world or not. That’s what I’ve done for 25 years and I’ll try again.”

Financial Post
cbrownell@nationalpost.com
Twitter.com/clabrow

Cap issues may limit Rogers Communications Inc, BCE Inc in Tuesday’s spectrum auction

National Post Tech Desk - Mon, 04/13/2015 - 15:19

Ottawa will hold another spectrum auction beginning on Tuesday, the final one before this fall’s federal election, but a cap on how much of the 2500 MHz frequency band of airwaves a licensee can possess will restrict two of the country’s largest telecommunications companies.

A strict spectrum aggregation limit of 40 MHz will be in place for five years from the date any of these 20-year licences are issued in 58 of the 61 areas where airwaves are available for auction, excluding Northern Canada. Since BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. have existing licences in each of the three main regions, how much each carrier can now acquire is limited.

The two heavyweights have already exceeded the holdings cap in 13 contested service areas in and around Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, representing a string of densely populated regions where heavy data usage and urban landscapes are increasingly putting a strain on wireless networks. Other qualified bidders including incumbent Telus Corp. and regional service providers Bragg Communications Inc. and MTS Inc. have no licences in the band that would constrain their bids against the 40 MHz cap.

With two fewer deep-pocketed bidders vying for these licences, the federal government can expect to generate less revenue than what it would if they were taking part. But like recent auctions, Ottawa appears to be willing to sacrifice its own financial gain if its policies can boost competition in the wireless market.

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In October 2013, BCE and Rogers were considered “severely limited in their ability to participate in the auction,” according to confidential briefing notes prepared by Industry Canada officials for Minister James Moore, which were obtained by the Financial Post through a Freedom of Information request.

But during the past 18 months, BCE and Rogers’ 2500 MHz spectrum holdings have both decreased either through transfers to another commercial carrier or by returning licences back to Ottawa, offering both companies some wiggle room in this auction to acquire rights to other blocks of spectrum in many areas outside the big cities should they choose to do so.

Last summer, Industry Canada approved a transfer of 47 licences in the 2500 MHz band from BCE to Xplornet Broadband Inc., which was later given permission to reassign those licences to a new entity called Xplornet Communications Inc., a rural service provider headquartered in Woodstock, N.B. According to Industry Canada’s 2500 MHz holdings table last updated in January, Xplornet has 46 licenses in this band.
By contrast, Rogers returned some of its licences to Industry Canada. They won’t be up for grabs in this latest auction.

Rogers spokesperson Patricia Trott said in an email that “applications to transfer/return licences are confidential.” Bell spokesperson Jacqueline Michelis declined to comment. Industry Canada rules strictly prevent qualified bidders from discussing their strategy ahead of a spectrum auction.

“Bell and Rogers are constrained, but I’m sure they’ll be bidding where they can,” said Gregory Taylor, principal investigator at the Canadian Spectrum Policy Research based out of Toronto’s Ryerson University. “These licences are for 20 years so it makes real economic sense to participate now while this is all in a state of flux. I would think most of the major carriers would be trying to stock up as much as they can even though, yes, they are limited by the spectrum cap.”

Like its decision to set aside blocks of spectrum specifically for new entrants in March’s AWS-3 auction, Ottawa hopes its licensing limits will “effectively reserve spectrum for a fourth provider in each region,” the 2013 briefing notes explain. Another confidential document to Moore date-stamped in December 2013 says the set-up will “encourage the participation of smaller, fixed Internet providers such as Xplornet, SSi [Micro Ltd.] and others,” both of which qualified to bid in this auction.

Taylor expects Telus, which spent $1.5 billion to acquire AWS-3 licenses in the auction held last month, “to be very geographical in its strategy,” adding that he predicts the Vancouver-based carrier will focus on “the areas where its short of spectrum.” He added that “a company to watch in this auction will be Xplornet,” which stayed on the sidelines last month. He expects Xplornet will “be more interested in larger blocks outside the city” to bulk up its capacity and service in rural Canada.

Financial Post
cpellegrini@nationalpost.com

Can Toronto-based InterAxon’s brain-sensing headband Muse help people relax?

National Post Tech Desk - Mon, 04/13/2015 - 14:52

Toronto-based InterAxon’s brain-sensing headband, Muse, sounds like a device pulled straight from a Sci-Fi movie – but it isn’t.

The company’s recently released futuristic $300 headband is equipped with sensors able to measure and track brain activity with the help of a mobile companion application, appropriately called Calm, making Muse seem similar to a high-tech Fitbit activity bracelet, but for your brain.

The device tracks the electroencephalography (EEG) activity going on in your skull, a process that typically requires multiple sensors attached to your head as well as thousands of dollars of equipment. There’s even a third-party-developed app for the Muse, called Muse Monitor, that’s able to give users raw EEG readouts of their brain activity, but you need a neuroscientist’s help to understand the data the app churns out. However, the fact that InterAxon has been able to pack traditional EEG technology into a small, at least comparably affordable device, is an impressive achievement.

“We’ve been working with EEG technology for a long time. Ariel Garten (founder and CEO) and Chris Aimone (co-founder and chief technical officer), have been working with it since about 2003: Art installations and giant concerts with multiple people controlling things – and Ariel was excited about this and sort of saw there was something magical about the technology. That’s when she got Chris and I together to take it [the technology] out of the lab and into the world,” said Trevor Coleman, one of Muse’s co-founders.

Coleman explained InterAxon’s journey towards releasing the retail, consumer version of Muse late last year (which is available at Best Buy for $300), was a long process, and that the company worked on many other projects prior to Muse.

Patrick O'Rourke/National PostThe Muse headband sits on the user's head similar to a pair of behind-the-ear headphones.

“When we started we were making really awesome, experimental stuff. We made things like a levitating chair: The coolest and funnest stuff we could think of. Then we started looking for people who might be interested in having us do projects for them,” Coleman said.

InterAxon worked on a project with 5 Gum that had people racing to chew gum as quickly as possible in order to make on-screen fruits explode, he said. They also created a prototype in-flight entertainment centre for the Ontario AeroSpace council. But the company’s biggest project was during the Vancouver Olympics, when InterAxon developed technology that controlled the lights of the CN Tower, Niagara Falls and the Parliament building, all with brain sensing technology.

“While we were doing all these projects we were either using clinical systems (which cost about $6,000 a unit and require fibre-optic cables and weird goop) or we were using the first generation of a similar consumer product, [devices from other companies that were predecessors to the Muse], that had low signal-quality and weren’t well-made. We realized we could make something better, especially if we wanted this technology to succeed and change people’s lives in the way we saw possible,” said Coleman.

InterAxon launched in 2007 and initial funding for Muse was achieved via popular crowd-funding platform Indiegogo, where the company raised almost $300,000 from eager backers, although the startup has also received $7.2 million in funding just prior to the release of Muse in May 2014.

The company also received $500,000 in seed financing from New York-based FF Venture Capital in 2012, and settled on $6-million Series A financing in August 2013, lead by Hong Kong-based Horizon Ventures, with additional funding from OMERS Ventures, A-Grade (Ashton Kutcher’s investment company), and Felicis. Rumours also circulated early last year that Google was seeking to acquire InterAxon, although Garten later told the Financial Post she has plans to build her company into a $500 million enterprise over the course of five years, dispelling the industry speculation.

Patrick O'Rourke/National PostDespite its hefty price tag, Muse feels flimsy.

Unlike other stress-relieving activities such as yoga, meditation or even playing sports, Muse gives the user quantifiable results, indicating how long they remain relaxed, neutral and active during a session. These results are tracked by Muse every time the device is used in an effort to give the user an indication of their progress.

According to Coleman, one of the significant issues Muse has had to navigate is the rampant science fiction surrounding brainwave-reading technology, and the unrealistic expectations this has created for the EEG and InterAxon.

“People have seen a lot of science fiction around the technology. They’ve seen people moving things with their mind, machines that are able to read thoughts and pictures in other people’s heads – the expectations of EEG are separate from what the real power of the technology is. We were looking for an application that very clearly showed off the real power of how the technology can be used to help people,” said Coleman.

The Muse headband looks very similar to most over-the-ear sports headphones, except the device’s band needs to be placed on the wearer’s forehead, ensuring each of Muse’s sensors maintain a solid and continuous connection with the user’s brain. Configuring the device can be tedious at times, especially for those with long hair, but once Muse achieves a solid connection, the meditation experience unfolds smoothly.

After being paired and synced to a smartphone, a calm, soothing female voice relays instructions on how to use the app (these instructions can be turned off, but are useful for first time users). A colour-coded screen appears, and as each sensor makes a consistent connection, a cone shape is filled with a corresponding colour. Once completed Muse asks the wearer to think of specific things such as fruit, famous places and cities, in order to configure its settings properly. This process needs to be completed each time Muse is used.

Patrick O'Rourke/National PostInterAxon's Muse wants to help people learn to relax.

Next, the real Calm session begins. A beach landscape appears on the smartphone’s screen and the user is asked to close their eyes and count their breaths. Muse also provides user’s real-time feedback via audio cues as the session continues. When the wearer’s mind is active, they hear loud wind and crashing waves. When they remain calm, clearing their mind of activity and stress, the wind and waves disappear. And if you’re particularly relaxed during a session, you’ll hear birds chirping. Session times range between three and 20 minutes, depending on how long the user wants to meditate. In an effort to gameify the experience the wearer is also rewarded with points and the ability to unlock new features depending on how well they perform during each session.

Despite Muse offering an interesting and unique experience, and also being relatively easy to use, it’s unclear if Muse’s meditation techniques give the wearer long-term benefits beyond a brief moment of relaxation and clarity during a hectic week. However, Coleman claims that beyond relaxation, Muse has the potential to help solve other medical issues.

“Studies have shown 10 one-hour sessions with a neuro-feedback based EEG system can be as effective as Ritalin in terms of treating ADD, with those effects persisting for six months. With a headband like the Muse, it’s totally possible to deliver a drug-free treatment for ADD. That’s the kind of thing that we’re really excited about looking at and working in as we go forward,” said Coleman.

“Right now we’re partnered with over 50 different research institutions. We’re looking at everything from attention deficit disorder, to obesity and all kinds of different studies. We’re developing these classifiers – the systems that are able to identify something about how you’re feeling, or how your body is from your brain signals. Developing those classifiers is difficult and takes a very long time. So what we’re doing is working with as many labs as we can to try to understand how they can create that next-generation of things for us. There’s so much this technology can do,” said Coleman.

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In terms of other future potential applications for Muse, Coleman discussed how the device could be used in video games, giving the example of Muse detecting when the user is holding their breath, and how this physical interaction could make an in-game gun’s on-screen aiming reticule become more steady.

Perhaps the biggest barrier for Muse is its $300 price tag, especially considering its current limited functionality. However, InterAxon does have plans to add more features to its brain-sensing headband in the future.

Qualcomm Inc should spin off chip business, activist investor Jana urges

National Post Tech Desk - Mon, 04/13/2015 - 09:56

Qualcomm Inc. should consider spinning off its chipset business as part of a strategic review of options to boost shareholder value, activist investor Barry Rosenstein said.

Separating the unit, which makes chips for mobile phones, could make it a takeover target, Rosenstein said Monday at 13D Monitor’s Active-Passive Investor Summit in New York. Rosenstein’s Jana Partners, which has invested more than US$2 billion in Qualcomm, has held talks with the company’s management, he said.

In a letter to Jana’s investors, the fund called on Qualcomm to weigh other options such as speeding up share buybacks and reorganizing its board, including by “introducing new directors with an owner orientation and a focus on operational performance including cost management.”

Qualcomm rose 3.6 per cent to US$71.63 a share as of 9:31 a.m. in New York on Monday. The company has a market value of about US$118 billion.
‘Constructive Dialogue’

“We’ve been engaged in very constructive dialogue for the last couple of months,” Rosenstein said. “We had very friendly and I think worthwhile discussions with the company.”

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The majority of the company’s revenue comes from selling chips used in smartphones such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone, yet most of Qualcomm’s profit is generated by the fees it collects from smartphone makers that license its technology.

“Qualcomm welcomes input from our investors and has a track record of active engagement with stockholders,” the company said in a statement Monday. “The board and management team will continue to consider actions that are in the best interests of all stockholders.”

Founded by Rosenstein in 2001, Jana has grown to oversee more than US$11 billion. While most of the hedge fund’s investments aren’t activist — where it amasses an equity stake to try and cajole executives and directors to make changes to boost shareholder returns — it’s those campaigns that often attract the most attention. The firm has targeted companies including PetSmart Inc., Walgreen Co., Hertz Global Holdings Inc., Apache Corp., Oil States International Inc. and URS Corp.

Jana last month sold a 20 per cent stake in the hedge fund firm to a private-equity fund Dyal Capital Partners, which is run by Neuberger Berman Group. The money will be reinvested in New York-based Jana’s funds.

Bloomberg.com

Apple Inc may have had nearly 1 million Apple Watch pre-orders in the U.S. in a single day

National Post Tech Desk - Mon, 04/13/2015 - 07:43

Apple Inc is likely to quickly ramp production of the Apple Watch after strong pre-orders outstripped limited supply in the first weekend following its launch, some Wall Street analysts said.

According to shopping data firm Slice Intelligence, Apple booked nearly 1 million pre-orders for the Apple Watch in the United States on Friday.

Apple is widely expected to disclose weekend pre-order numbers sometime on Monday.

The Apple Watch, which allows users to check email, listen to music and make phone calls when paired with an iPhone, goes on sale officially on April 24.

“Based on our observations and media reports, launch day supply was largely sold out within the first 10 to 30 minutes depending on model,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said in a client note.

Munster, who expects Apple to sell 2.3 million watches in the April-June quarter, expects Apple to ramp production between mid-May and June.

BofA Merrill Lynch expects Apple to ship 4 million smartwatches in the quarter.

The Apple Watch is Chief Executive Tim Cook’s first new major product launch and the company’s first foray into the personal luxury-goods market.

The company will sell the gadgets in Apple stores and online as well as in trendy fashion boutiques in Paris, London and Tokyo as part of a strategy to position the wearable computer as a must-have accessory.

Despite mixed reviews, which praised the watch’s styling but criticized its less-than-spectacular battery life and slow-loading apps, people flocked to Apple’s stores to get a close-up look.

“We think the Apple Watch will be highly disruptive to the traditional fashion watch market,” Pacific Crest analysts said.

The analysts said their checks showed that Apple appeared to be ordering components for the watch that would allow it to build well over 20 million watches this year.

“While this represents just over 5 per cent of the company’s iPhone user base, it would be nearly half of the total (more than) US$200 watch market,” they said.

The brokerage expects Apple to likely have about 5 million Apple Watches available for delivery by April 24.

Analysts widely expect the Apple Watch to outsell similar watches offered by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Sony Corp and LG Electronics, which have attracted lukewarm interest from consumers.

© Thomson Reuters 2015

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