Originally Posted by s219:
That is true. If you just go on facts and do no extrapolation, it naturally leads to the pessimistic view in this case. I can't even pump much thinking into it, as it just leads farther away from what we know / don't know. So if I was a cautious investor, or in my case a cautious developer trying to gauge the platform, I am sort of left with the facts as they are, and that leads to the pessimistic view.
An NDA is generally intended to protect intellectual property, proprietary information, or stuff that hasn't been patented but needs to be exchanged between partners, so I don't think that enters into sales info specifically. They may have other contracts in place that govern this. But I keep coming back to the idea that if they had something good to announce, they would have. That's practically a tenet of publicly traded companies pushing new products.
Now the funny thing is, sales of 500-600K Pres is good news in some circles. Why wouldn't they want to tout this? Even if it wasn't blockbuster sales, they could spin it favorably.
So I feel like I'm left with a lack of aggressively-spun good news, and lowered guidance going forward.
Well, I believe that people are NOT considering all the facts at hand, just the ONE missing, i.e. exact Pre sales. The first facts we have are what Palm sold in the prior two quarters. In Q3 2009, they sold 480,000 Palm OS phones, in Q4 2009 they sold 353,000 Palm OS and and some in-channel Pres estimated between 70,000-130,000, so call it in between at 100,000 leaving only 253,000 OS phones. That's a quarter over quarter drop of almost 50% for old OS phones!!! Now since they did say they are still seeing big declines in the sales of their old OS phones, one can assume that they sold even LESS than 253,000 OS phones in Q1 2010.
The only extrapolation needed at this point is what is the current rate of decline in the old OS line. It isn't hard to get to GS's estimate of 670,000 if old OS declines were still maintaining a roughly 50% decline. Moreover, if you add back in the 100,000 Pres sold in the previous quarter to GS's Q1 figure you'd have total Pre sales of 770,000.
Other facts to consider include Nokia's recent Q2 2009 sales as they represent more legacy mid-range products. Nokia saw a 27% decline in sales year over year and only a modest 6% increase quarter over quarter and that's with world-wide sales. Palm just posted a 135% increase quarter over quarter.
However, I also agree that even if sales were in the more modest area of over half a million that would still be excellent for a brand new OS without any established recognition like Apple or Blackberry and they'd want to tout it. The fact that they haven't leads me right back to the NDA, of which you are incorrect in assuming it only covers stuff like IP, proprietary or patent information.
Being a developer that is probably the type of NDA you've encountered, but they are far more broad than that. From Wikipedia:
Originally Posted by :
A non-disclosure agreement (NDA), also known as a confidentiality agreement, confidential disclosure agreement (CDA), proprietary information agreement (PIA), or secrecy agreement, is a legal contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties wish to share with one another for certain purposes, but wish to restrict access to by third parties. It is a contract through which the parties agree not to disclose information covered by the agreement. An NDA creates a confidential relationship between the parties to protect any type of confidential and proprietary information or trade secrets. As such, an NDA protects non-public business information.
Some common issues addressed in an NDA include:[4]
• outlining the parties to the agreement;
• the definition of what is confidential, i.e. the information to be held confidential. Modern NDAs will typically include a laundry-list of types of items which are covered, including unpublished patent applications, know-how, schema, financial information, verbal representations, customer lists, vendor lists, business practices/strategies, etc;
I further offer you this for consideration as a basis for the existence of this type of NDA between carriers and cell phone makers:
Originally Posted by :
Is Motorola Getting Cranky at Verizon Over Android?
...When Motorola announced the Cliq last week, many observers thought they would announce two Android phones. The two phones were supposed to be the T-Mobile Cliq and a long-awaited Motorola Android phone for Verizon Wireless, which pretty much everyone in the industry knows is coming.
But the Verizon phone never showed, and Verizon isn't talking about it.
...Jha's agreement with Verizon - assuming there is one - has gagged him; he can't talk about his Verizon deal. So he's left saying his company is "fairly hopeful we will begin to engage with all the U.S. operators." What he's probably thinking, meanwhile, is, "where the heck is our Verizon phone?"
Is Motorola Getting Cranky at Verizon Over Android? - News and Analysis by PC Magazine