Well, it appears that Nokia isn’t interested in letting the brand die after the company sold its mobile division to Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) for a sum of $7.2 billion, which many called undervalued. What was left of Nokia is now known as NSN and now that Microsoft is killing the Nokia name brand for phones and simply calling them Microsoft Lumia phones, Nokia still has the rights and ownership of the Nokia brand name. As such, they’ve decided to do something with it and have been hinting for some time that they might make a device.

The 7.9″ Nokia N1 harkens back to the days of when Nokia had phones like the Nokia N8 and Nokia N9 before their genius management decided to go to Windows Phone and then sell the whole division to Microsoft. Anyways, the N1 may be a sign of the brand’s rebirth but not a complete rebirth, because the reality is that this device is a bizarre lovechild as a result of Foxconn (TPE:2354) and Nokia’s relationship. According to The Verge, this device’s design, user interface and brand name are licensed to Foxconn who then manufactures the device and probably takes in all the profits as well. So, it isn’t quite clear if this is really a Nokia device or a Foxconn device or some weird amalgamation of the two. Either way, the end result is an Apple iPad looking device that features an Intel Moorefield Z3580 SoC and USB Type-C connector which should allow for some awesome functionality thanks to DisplayPort and MHL Alt Mode which could theoretically be available on this device.

Additionally, the Nokia N1 has the Z Launcher from Nokia which is Nokia’s own take on the Android OS launcher and will ship with Android 5.0 Lollipop in addition to having USB Type-C reversible USB connector capability.

Nokia N1 Z Launcher

The Nokia N1 itself sports a 2048×1536 resolution on the 7.9″ display, which makes it quite competitive with other tablets and has an 8 megapixel main camera as well as a 5 megapixel front-facing camera. The main camera is only capable of 1080P video, meaning that the resolution of the tablet’s display is greater than the camera’s capability. Perhaps higher-end versions of Nokia’s tablets will have higher resolution displays (on larger models) and with better cameras, even though I personally don’t care much for tablet photography or videography.

Nokia N1 Battery

The tablet also has 2GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage standard, which makes it a great value at $249, which is the expected sale price when the Nokia N1 goes for sale next year around the Chinese New Year time frame. One thing that some people also may have missed is that Nokia and Foxconn actually opted for a higher quality audio processor with the Wolfson DAC, specifically the Wolfson WM8958E, independent audio codec. It does, however, have a fairly small 18.5 Wh (5300 mAh) rechargeable LiPo battery (3.7 V) which means that you probably can’t expect much battery life out of this thing compared to an iPad, unless Intel, Nokia and Foxconn have managed to do some power management wizardry. Not to mention, this is the highest clocked processor from Intel’s 22nm family of mobile SoCs, so nobody really expects fantastic battery life.

It will also, amazingly enough, have dual band MIMO 802.11/a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi connectivity, which would make it one of the better connected tablets out there, even though AC should really be the standard on all mobile devices nowadays. Oh yeah, and in true Nokia spirit, the whole body is made of anodized aluminum (yes, like the iPad). Honestly, the similarities between this tablet and the iPad are striking, but there’s also no doubt that a lot of people would happily buy an iPad clone that runs Android. Especially if it really does end up selling for $249.

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Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) reported their earnings for their fiscal fourth quarter of 2014, calendar Q3 2014 as well as the whole fiscal year of 2014 which ends in the calendar third quarter of every year. Qualcomm reported profits of $1.89 billion on $6.69 billion in revenue which boils down to an EPS of $1.11. Qualcomm’s revenues were up 3% year over year and down 2% from the last quarter, which worries some investors. Additionally, Qualcomm’s profit was up 26% year over year, but down 15% from the previous quarter.

However, Qualcomm’s quarterly figures missed on both revenue and non-GAAP EPS based on analysts’ expectations. Analysts had a consensus prediction of $1.31 EPS, which Qualcomm missed by $0.05 and they had a revenue target of $7.03 billion, and Qualcomm missed on that as well by $330 million.

Qualcomm also reported their results for the whole fiscal 2014 year, which showed the company as reporting $26.49 billion in revenue and a non-GAAP EPS of $5.27 while shippin 861 million MSM chips globally, an absolutely crazy number of SoCs. And if you take into account that

The primary problems that Qualcomm has right now is that they have a very strong position in the mobile market and are the leading SoC and baseband vendor for almost all of the leading smartphone vendors. In many regions, this has made Qualcomm very profitable and helped them grow to the $26 billion a year company that they are. They also managed to generate $8 billion in profit over the course of the last year, which is up from $6.8 billion in the previous fiscal year, a pretty significant improvement by any measure.

However, Qualcomm’s situation in China appears to be worsening rather than improving. They have plenty of products and IP that Chinese OEMs wish to utilize in their products, but are having a hard time getting them to properly license those technologies and pay for/accurately report how many Qualcomm licensed devices they are shipping and for how much. Additionally, Qualcomm is being probed by the Chinese government for the very reason that they are not Chinese and they are very present in the Chinese market. This very likely has to do with the fact that many large western companies have been probed in China recently and is a mere political move by the Chinese government to get more foreign technological investment.

Qualcomm’s outlook for the fiscal year of 2015 is what really drove Qualcomm’s stock downward today on yesterday’s news, with the company expecting revenues of $26.8 billion to $28.8 billion and an EPS of $5.05 to $5.35 which is below the consensus estimates of $28.9B and $5.58. The stock fell a whopping 8.5% today in regular trading after losing 6% in after hours trading yesterday and continues to lose ground into after hours trading, slipping an additional 2%. At the time of publication, Qualcomm’s stock is at $69.19 which is significantly lower than the $77 it was trading at before earnings were announced yesterday. As we learned in the case of Samsung, and now Qualcomm, nobody is invincible.

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Qualcomm just announced their earnings for the fiscal third quarter of 2014 which includes the calendar second quarter of 2014, and their earnings were strong as ever. Qualcomm reported $2.24 billion in profit on $6.81 billion in revenues, this represents a 9 percent growth in revenue year over year as well as a 7 percent growth over the previous quarter. Profits also grew a whopping 42 percent year over year and 14 percent sequentially, squashing investors’ worries that Qualcomm’s caution last year about flatter revenues might affect profitability. Diluted EPS was $1.31, up 46 percent year over year and 15 percent sequentially. These earnings figures can most likely be attributed to Qualcomm’s absolute dominance of the high-end and mid-range Android market where their Snapdragon 801 chip won design wins in all of the most sought after and best selling phones.

In fact, the Snapdragon 801 alone is in the Samsung Galaxy S5, HTC One M8 and the LG G3, all three of which are considered to be the best Android phones on the market today. In addition to those devices, the Xiaomi Mi4 and the OnePlus One also feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 chip. If you take this into account, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 chip absolutely dominates the competition and this is certainly helping Qualcomm to continue to drive growth.

Qualcomm also stated that they would be narrowing their guidance for the fiscal fourth quarter as well as the full fiscal year of 2014. This does not necessarily translate to a reduction in their expected revenue and profitability, but it does mean that their high end comes down a bit and their low end goes up. And the truth is, they usually hit somewhere between the midpoint and the high-end, which may cause some concern for some investors constantly expecting huge growth. They have guided the fiscal fourth quarter’s revenues to be $6.5 billion to $7.4 billion, flat to up 14 percent year over year as well as non-GAAP EPS at $1.20 to $1.35 up 14 to 29 percent year over year, a pretty decent improvement if you ask me. However, for that same quarter Qualcomm also cautioned that they expect to see a reduction in licensing revenues “to reflect some near-term challenges in China.”

For the whole year, though, Qualcomm has reaffirmed their guidance midpoint for revenue and narrowed the figures to $26.3 billion to $27.2 billion from the previous guidance of $26.0 billion and $27.5 billion, a total narrowing of $300 million. They raised their non-GAAP EPS guidance by $0.14 at the midpoint to $5.21 to $5.36 per share indicating a 16-19 percent growth year over year as opposed to the previous guidance of $5.05 to $5.25. Even so, Qualcomm’s shares are down a steep 3.49 percent in after hours trading on today’s earnings news, even though I suspect that it will likely be erased over the course of the earnings call, which should begin shortly. What is slightly bizarre, though, is that investors are dumping Qualcomm’s shares even though Broadcom just announced an exit from the baseband modem business, making Qualcomm’s business even stronger. However, Nvidia appears to be picking up some steam with their Tegra K1 mobile chip and could actually become some sort of a competitor against Qualcomm, especially since they still have their own applications processors and modems, and not many others do. Mediatek  could be a factor in the licensing business challenges, but Qualcomm hasn’t said anything yet that directly addresses that and we’ll have to see if they do during the call.

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Held in the New York City-sized, yet younger than many of us, Shenzhen metropolis, the last weeks’ IDF provided quite a number of announcements which you can anyway read on the usual press release reprinting web sites. Here’s something that you might not find that easily, though…

During my walkabout IDF Shenzhen tours, I had a chat with one high end OEM who was twice evaluating a 2-in-1 very high end LTE enabled Haswell ultrabook & tablet combo device with a built-in full LTE capability and the integrated pop-up SIM card slot. After all, if having a local LTE SIM card, you are far more ‘truly mobile and connected’ than if depending on the WiFi hotspot or nearest cable Ethernet outlet.

But voila, there was the problem: the engineering honcho of the company, present there, said that the obstacle was that, for the current LTE, Qualcomm charges a royalty of a whopping 5% of the product sales price just for having the LTE in-built capability, irrespective of whose LTE hardware is used inside (as long as it licenses their IP). For a $500 high end phone, that may still make borderline sense, but for a $1,500 top of the line ultrabook/tablet? No way, Jose… so only 3G SIM was left in in some of their mainstream notebook models, while anything better will have to wait for ‘5G’ generation with a different set of licensing rules. In the meantime, the ‘dongles’ are also solution as, well, 5% of a dongle cost is far less to cover, isn’t it?

We spoke to Qualcomm on the topic and got confirmation via a document that they, “… license our entire portfolio to licensees for just less than 5% of the wholesale selling price of the device. For complete, end user subscriber devices that implement LTE standards but do not implement any 3G CDMA standards, we charge approximately 3.25% of the wholesale selling price of each device, subject to reciprocity and other standard terms and conditions.” This ultimately breaks down to anywhere between $50-$200 depending on the price of the laptop, which means a huge loss of margin for PC makers, many of whom are already operating on razor thin margins.

But the next question here starts to become, where’s Intel in all of this and has their past failure to deliver competitive solutions forced OEMs to be stuck with Qualcomm or licensing Qualcomm IP? Are companies really being forced to use single-mode LTE devices like Altair’s solutions which ultimately provide no backup connection where 4G LTE coverage isn’t available?

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