I do not expect an IPO in 2020. WeWork has gone from a $47 juggernaut sweeping all before it to a company that so desperate for cash that it will have to layoff a large portion of its workforce to stay afloat. Any IPO in 2020 will require an immediate route to profitability and I suspect a valuation of less...
Google flips the kill switch on the workaround. Huawei’s imperfect, but viable, backdoor to add Google Services to its devices has been killed off by Google which virtually guarantees that market share in smartphones outside of China is going to 0%. In order to sell a smartphone outside of China either the iOS ecosystem or the Google ecosystem needs to...
The companies are the problem, not the IPO process. The way to fix the IPO system is to stop bringing immature, overpriced and badly governed companies to the public market. In the wake of a series of very disappointing and high-profile IPO’s, the silicon valley financial community seems to have assumed that it is the IPO process that is the...
The muddy situation resolves in Huawei’s favour. Its business as normal between Huawei and Arm meaning that Huawei’s silicon roadmap for its in-house modems and processors from HiSilicon will be unaffected for now. Arm raised doubts about Huawei’s long-term roadmap using Arm processors in May when it made a statement that it would comply with the restrictions set by the...
Quantum computing earns a place on the far horizon. Digging beneath Google’s characteristically effusive claims reveals a solid advance that significantly increases quantum computing’s claim to be the successor of the silicon-based systems in use today. Google is laying claim to “quantum supremacy” which is considered to be the watershed moment when a quantum computer can outperform the most advanced...
Amazon is winning through ubiquity. Amazon certainly gets the prize for launching the most products at the same time, but with many of them clearly being wild shots in the dark, it remains to be seen how much traction they actually get. The ones who should be concerned here are the likes of Bose, Google, Sonos, Ouraring etc. whose products...
Another pawn is thrust into the fray. DJI is becoming another pawn in the long and drawn-out stand-off between the USA and China meaning that the merits of the USA’s move to ban it are irrelevant and where only a trade deal will restore its sales. It looks like the USA is about to put DJI on a similar blacklist...
Two flagships not-market ready. Huawei Mate 30. Huawei pulled out all the stops except the one that really mattered and launched would be argued to be the best looking and best-performing smartphone of 2019. Apple could take some lessons from Huawei in terms of design as the Mate 30 Pro makes the iPhone 11 look like an engineering project and...
RFM teams up with Alastair Newton of Alavan Independent to provide subscribers with an in-depth political and technical assessment of the current trade/technology war between China and the USA. This rivalry is going to last. This is because even with a trade deal in place, the USA and China are going to fiercely compete for global technology leadership. This is...
Richard is founder, owner of research company, Radio Free Mobile. He has 16 years of experience working in sell side equity research. During his 11 year tenure at Nomura Securities, he focused on the equity coverage of the Global Technology sector.
Microsoft Surface – Hedged bets
Durable folding screens would take Surface to a new level. Microsoft has launched two brand new form factors (and use cases) but I think it is not releasing them until next year just in case flexible screens can reach a level of acceptable durability. Apart from incremental updates to its iconic and successful surface line of products, Microsoft launched an...