Corporate and legal

Nokia may still dominate the overall cell phone market, but a steady slide in its smartphone market share could threaten the company's long-term standing.

On Thursday Nokia announced third-quarter earnings that, despite an unexpected loss of $832 million in its telecommunications equipment unit, beat expectations. The company managed to ship about 3 million more handsets than analysts had expected. But it also reported that its share in the growing smartphone market is on the decline, a sign that Nokia is losing ground to competitors, such as Apple and Research In Motion.

Nokia's cell phone shipments and revenue were not as good as they were in 2008. But no one expected them to be. Still, the third quarter of 2009 showed a glimmer of hope that the global recession might be subsiding and people may be returning to normal buying patterns in the mobile market.

Nokia's executives told investors that the company's overall global market share is expected to remain unchanged for the year at about 38 percent, good news considering aggressive attacks from competitors, such as Samsung and LG.

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia's CEO, said in a statement that the company sold more mobile phones in the third quarter than in the second quarter. And the company revised its expectations for the entire mobile phone market. Instead of seeing a total sales decline in 2009 of 10 percent, Nokia now sees a decline of only 7 percent compared to 2008.

Even though, Nokia appears to be holding its own in the overall handset business, it is losing ground in a very important segment of this market, which could hurt the company in the long run.… Read more

Updated 10:00am PST to revise Google percentage through online bookstores.

Nokia on Thursday reported a loss for its third quarter of 559 million euros ($832 million) compared with a profit of 1.09 billion euros in the same quarter of 2008.

The net loss for the period that ended September 30 was triggered by declining sales, which fell 20 percent to 9.18 billion euros from 12.2 billion euros the prior year's quarter. A write-down of the company's weak Nokia Siemens Networks unit also put a big drag on the bottom line.

Net sales for the third quarter came in at 9.8 billion euros, down 20 … Read more

It was only a matter of time, but the T-Mobile Sidekick issue has now spilled over to the courthouse.

A number of lawsuits have been filed, including two filed in federal court in Northern California on Wednesday that allege both negligence and false claims on the part of Microsoft and T-Mobile.

The suits come amid a massive outage of the service that powers the Sidekick, which has hampered data service since early this month and left many users without access to their calendars, address books, and other information. At one point, Microsoft and T-Mobile indicated that any data not yet … Read more

Intel and Advanced Micro Devices filed motions on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, seeking sanctions against each other. Both motions are related to the retention of information in the antitrust case filed by AMD in 2005.

Intel's motion asserts that AMD failed to adequately retain documents in the case it filed against Intel in 2005. "AMD misrepresented its efforts and tried to hide its failures from the court and Intel," according to an Intel statement Wednesday.

The chipmaker alleges that AMD's claims about document retention were exaggerated. "Ever since Intel disclosed … Read more

The electronics industry is still hurting, but better times could be here before you know it.

Research firm Gartner says it has spotted a recovery already percolating for the sectors including PCs and mobile phones, with a sustained recovery pattern likely to take shape in 2010. What's holding back the optimism for a faster rebound this year, according to Gartner, is continuing uncertainty about the economy as a whole and, more specifically, about the effectiveness of government stimulus plans, especially when the stimulus runs out.

Gartner's forecast on the electronics industry was compiled for a report called "… Read more

With the online ad business appearing to have collected itself at the bottom of the ravine, all eyes will be on Google's earnings report Thursday to see if it has figured out where the path back to the top starts.

Investors are feeling good about Google in the run-up to Thursday's third-quarter earnings conference call, sending the stock to a 52-week high on Tuesday at $527.46 before it settled back down to $526.11 at the close of trading. Five prominent financial analysts raised their expectations for Google's stock Monday amid a collective feeling that advertisers … Read more

During Intel's earnings conference call on Tuesday, CEO Paul Otellini talked about the growth of notebook PCs versus Netbooks, and Windows 7 adoption in business, among other topics.

Otellini was quick to trumpet the fact that its mainstream notebook business beat Netbook growth. "We saw the sequential unit growth rate of notebook processors and chipsets actually exceed the growth rate of Atom processors and chipsets," he said.

Later in the call, Otellini said: "While Atom and Netbooks are important growth drivers for us, our traditional notebook business remains one of the primary drivers of revenue growth … Read more

NEW YORK--Nokia, the world's largest maker of cell phones, is getting into the computer business with its new Booklet 3G, setting the stage for a new era of competition in the mobile device market.

At a press event here Tuesday, Nokia took the wraps off the anticipated Booklet 3G, a Windows 7 Netbook that will run exclusively on AT&T's 3G wireless network. At a subsidized price tag of $299, Nokia has managed to hit the sweet spot in the Netbook market with a high-end device at a bargain price point.

Not only will the new Netbook … Read more