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All Posts by Chris Umiastowski

Stock Talk: Google's Q4 2014 results a reminder of long-term goals

9 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 30 Jan 2015 2:12 pm
Google and Android
Short-term hits to the wallet may ultimately be good for the company The mother ship behind Android (that'd be Google) reported its Q4 earnings on Thursday, and while there isn't a lot of Android-specific news to consider form the report (we did get small nuggets on the Nexus 6, Google Play usage and and Chromecast use), I know many of you are interested in Google as a whole, or even Google as...

Centrallo review: This may be the only list-making app you'll ever need

23 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 3 Dec 2014 1:35 pm
Centrallo
Centrallo is a new productivity app, and if you spend any time making to-do lists I think it will quickly win you over as a fan. While it is designed for making lists, it does a whole lot more as I'll explain. I've been a beta user for the last month, and Centrallo has just come out of public beta today. It's rock solid and you can start enjoying it for free on Android or iOS today.

What Samsung's earnings weakness means to Google

150 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 9 Oct 2014 7:48 pm
Samsung
On Tuesday this week Samsung dropped a bit of a bomb on Wall Street. Instead of profiting to the tune of $5.2 billion for the quarter, which is what analysts were expecting, Samsung said it would only pull in $3.8 billion. While it's easy to throw out the sarcastic "Poor Samsung" comments, this is a huge miss. Earnings will come in 60 percent lower than the year-ago quarter. Analysts were not...

Ten years of Google awesomeness as a publicly traded company

34 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 19 Aug 2014 1:24 pm
Google stock
Mountain View has been a prime example of the long-term play Google went public 10 years ago today. I remember it well because, at the time, I was working as an equity analyst covering the technology hardware sector on Bay Street in Toronto. When IPOs happen, the investment bankers typically are the ones who set the offer price. Google used a Dutch auction, which was controversial and meant...

Google's latest acquisitions push forward in mobile chat and video advertising

7 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 7 Aug 2014 5:53 pm
Android
Earlier this week Google confirmed two small acquisitions — Directr and Emu. Both of them should help push the company's mobile and advertising agenda forward. Let's start with Directr, a movie-making app that is being absorbed into YouTube. If you take a look at the company's website you'll see a nice video walkthrough that shows the awesomeness of this app. Video is super important in...

Stock Talk: Google earnings show there's still plenty of room for growth

26 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 18 Jul 2014 9:41 am
Google
But if there's one company it needs to look out for, it's Facebook Google on Thursday reported its second-quarter results for fiscal year 2014. We already posted a brief summary of the numbers, and now it's time to dive a bit deeper. Let's the the disclaimers out of the way: I'm a Google shareholder and have been for many years. I'm optimistic on the company's outlook and while I will continue...

Google's Nest is officially in competition with Apple HomeKit

30 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 24 Jun 2014 11:52 am
Nest
Not that this is any sort of surprise, but Google has finally announced a developer program for the Nest division. The timing couldn't be much better since I just finished writing about why I'm looking forward to the primary mobile players, Apple and Google, integrating "Internet of Things" hooks into their respective operating systems. "Works with Nest" is a set of APIs that manufacturers of...

The business logic behind building an Amazon phone

17 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 7 May 2014 3:03 pm
Amazon
An Amazon phone might make more sense than you think Over the last month or so there have been enough informative leaks to say, almost with certainty, that Amazon will be releasing a phone. I say "almost" to leave the door open to a change in plans, however small that chance may be. I recently learned that Amazon has hired several former BlackBerry designers. It sounds like they've brought...

Wall Street may not like the quarterly results, but Google is still powering ahead

7 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 17 Apr 2014 12:53 pm
Google
The struggle between short-term thinking and long-term investing continues Yesterday after the market close, Google reported its Q1 results for 2014 which Derek Kessler nicely summarized already. While its clear that Google is growing the top line in a very healthy manner (19 percent year over year growth), Wall Street was disappointed and the stock is trading lower today. In my usual form, I’...

Stock Talk: Relax, Google's stock split isn't a big deal

17 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 3 Apr 2014 10:53 pm
Google
A gentle reminder that stock splits basically don’t matter and, no, Google hasn’t robbed you of voting rights. On Thursday morning Google started trading post-split, as explained in this post from Derek earlier in the day. I’m a Google shareholder, and instead of having shares worth over $1,100 each I have twice as many shares trading at half that price. I think it’s important for people to...

Stock Talk: How APPL, BBRY, GOOG and MSFT have fared over a year

31 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 15 Mar 2014 6:59 am
Stocks
Two giants, one surprise and a still-struggling BlackBerry While today doesn’t mark any particularly important day on the calendar as far as mobile technology goes, I thought it would be useful to pull up a one year chart of the stocks that make up the most relevant names to Mobile Nations. From largest market value to smallest, these are Apple, Google, Microsoft and BlackBerry. Here’s the...

Attacking from the bottom: why Nokia's Android-powered phones make sense

72 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 24 Feb 2014 6:04 pm
Attacking from the bottom: why Nokia's Android-powered phones make sense
Today, at the start of Mobile World Congress, Nokia made it official. They are building Android-powered phones. I’m not going to rehash all of the data or walk you through the basics of the phone since that’s already been covered in-depth quite well today. While some at Microsoft may be embarrassed by what Nokia is doing, I can see how it’s a smart move that will help.

Analyzing HTC's latest financial result

52 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 10 Feb 2014 7:39 pm
HTC
Despite weak performance, the balance sheet looks pretty good HTC shareholders absorbed some pain today as the stock dropped almost 4% on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The drop followed the company’s release of its Q4 results for 2013 along with a discussion of expected Q1 and 2014 results. The main reason for the stock’s decline today is probably the Q1 outlook. Revenue guidance is between NT$...

Stock Talk: Google keeps steamrolling ahead with strong Q4 results

23 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 31 Jan 2014 1:37 pm
Google
Google's growth continues to impress as it wraps up its 2013 earnings For those of us whose idea of fun includes reading financial reports from tech companies, Google posted its fourth-quarter 2013 results on Thursday. And because Google generates the vast majority of its revenue by selling advertising, it should come as no surprise to you that discussion of Android was not a focus of the call...

Stock Talk: Motorola was just a drop in the bucket for Google

84 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 30 Jan 2014 3:27 pm
Motorola
Yesterday Google surprised us all with its announced plans to sell what’s left of Motorola to Lenovo for $2.9 billion. Since others have already done a great job of explaining how Google didn’t actually lose that much on the entire deal, I won’t rehash the math. Instead I’d like to focus on what I think of this whole situation. When Google first bought Motorola, it seemed pretty clear that...

Stock Talk: Google's purchase of Nest is a long-term play, never mind the short-term jokes

31 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 16 Jan 2014 5:21 pm
Nest
This wasn't a $3.2 billion impulse purchase, by any means Now that all the silly jokes about watching ads on your thermostat are over (they weren’t really funny to begin with), let’s have another conversation about Google’s acquisition of Nest Labs. (For another, see Phil's "Let Nest be Nest" piece from earlier this week.")  As a quick reminder, for a cool $3.2 billion Google has bought a...

Pondering the ever-bright future for Chrome OS

170 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 27 Dec 2013 3:52 pm
Google
A look at Amazon's holiday winners may mark the beginning of a major shift for Microsoft and Windows Over the last year I’ve been paying close attention to the growing number of laptop vendors selling Google powered Chromebooks. We’ve got a Samsung Chromebook in my house, which otherwise is a mixture of Mac, Android, iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry.  I think it’s going to take many years to happen...

Slowly but surely, Chromebooks are finding their niche

64 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 27 Nov 2013 3:29 pm
Chromebooks
The Chromebook is turning into the success that some thought Netbooks would achieve Remember a few years ago when tablets hadn’t yet come onto the scene, and all the tech pundits were talking about massive growth in the Netbook market? These mostly Windows-powered computers were more portable and less expensive than traditional laptops, so there were lots of predictions for huge growth in...

Stock Talk: Android and Google+ driving profitable growth

74 Comments
Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 15 Nov 2013 9:49 am
Chris Umiastowski
I can’t help but notice that Google+ is gaining momentum, and Android is a big part of the cause. My own use of Google+ is up since switching to Android about a month ago, but it’s also clear that the network is growing globally. Late last month at a special event to announce new features, Google disclosed that Google+ has seen 58 percent growth in its user base, from 190 million in May to a...

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