Nyquist Capital

Apple (AAPL) has come under fire for using sweatshop labor to assemble your precious iPod.
Seeking to avoid the PR disaster faced when Nike’s manufacturing facilities were profiled in the early 90’s, Apple launched an investigation and issued a preliminary report. Some excerpts are worth sharing in order to understand the scale of outsourced Chinese manufacturing.
Working […]

A final injunction has been handed down by the Texas court handling the Tivo-Echostar patent infringement case. Echostar will not only pay $89M in cash damages, but will also have to disable nearly all customer DVR’s in the field within 30 days.
In a press release, Echostar will now appeal at a federal level. They […]

The WSJ today has an exclusive look (free version of article here) at a report to be released by CableLabs that outlines the potential need for cablecos to undertake a massive infrastructure upgrade in order to stay competitive. Unfortunately, the report is not yet available to non CableLabs members, though we would sure like to […]

The WSJ discusses (free link) Googles (GOOG) push to mend fences with content owners and creators and strike advertising revenue sharing deals. Google is the undisputed efficiency and size leader of connecting on-line advertisers with on-line consumers, with the exception of Yahoo! in banner advertisement.
Akamai Technologies Inc. (AKAM) is the undisputed leader (80% share) of […]

Businessweek writes about T-mobile and a new service they are rolling out using UMA phones (dual GSM/WiFi). These new mobile phones make use of the WiFi network and broadband connection in a users home to make phone calls off the GSM or cellular network.
Contrary to popular opinion, the real threat to the baby bells residential […]

New Jersey recently passed a law allowing carriers to negotiate municpal video franchise agreements at the state level. This removes the uncertainty involved with multiple negotiations with multiple municipalities demanding multiple perks.
I witnessed the process first-hand by attending a local municpal hearing in MA for Verizon (VZ) FiOS TV service (see Blogging a FiOS TV […]

Robert Chapman is profiled today on page C1 of the WSJ. Chapman took a 7.3% stake in Vitesse Semiconductor (VTSS) with an average cost of $1.49 a share. He is currently holding a 40% loss.
In a regulatory filing, Mr. Chapman once derided a company’s 78-year-old chairman as a “helpless Mr. Magoo-like figure” and its chief […]

Centillium Communications (NASDAQ CTLM) has a troubled past and present but the market has mispriced even the most pessimistic scenarios at this point, short of accounting fraud. With proper investor activism this value could be extracted through consolidation, liquidation, or private turnaround scenarios.
We were negative on Centillium after Passave was acquired by PMC-Sierra (PMCS). Passave, […]

Here’s a snippet of a conversation I recently had with a private fund manager. We were discussing the decreasing role Wall St. firms play in providing unique investment insights to their clients.
Andrew: What does it mean for Wall St. as their middleman position is eroded? They no longer control the information flow, and the […]

The New York Times has a short article on the rapid demise of the CRT as a display technology. Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT’s, that big box I still call a TV) are headed the same way as the 8-track, pulse dialing, typewriter, and mechanical adding machine.
It feels like the bulk of technological evolution in the […]

Credit Suisse discusses Portalplayer (PLAY) today in their morning note.
Michael Masdea now sees Portalplayer as a potential supplier for the Microsoft Zune player, and specifically highlights the existing relationship Portalplayer has with Microsoft.
Current MSFT relationship is key. For many months now, PLAY has been working with Microsoft to develop the Preface technology for laptops. Microsoft […]

The slow motion disaster movie that is Applied Micro Circuits Corporation(AMCC) is still in theaters even though investors stopped buying tickets long ago.
AMCC announced this morning an all cash deal to buy Quake Technologies for $69M net. AMCC has managed to spend nearly $1BB in cash on a number of acquisitions, none of which have […]

There was an interesting column in the New York Times last week. The article outlines the different design approaches taken by Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO). It also provided quantitative values that reinforced a suspicion of mine.

Google holds a commanding lead in search queries with 45% share, compared with 30% for Yahoo! and 15% […]

Paul Kedrosky highlights one slide presented by Craig Mundie at Microsoft Analyst Day that compares the cumulative R&D investment of Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG), among others.

Two ways to look at this.

Google, Apple (AAPL), while highfliers, cannot have possibly built an insurmountable competitive advantage because of the relatively low investment they have made. Microsoft has […]

I am listening to the Vitesse Semiconductor (vtss) conference call.
Many people have asked me what I thought about owning Vitesse stock. My only answer was that “We didn’t own any”.
Today, on the Vitesse conference call, the details came out. Revenue recognition issues.
There is still something unseen, and related to Vitesse. I’ll publish details tomorrow.
Notes from […]

As many readers know, I am not a fan of market research companies, particularly when they try to forecast (see “Market Research Firms Shouldn’t Forecast“). Forrester Research aimed for headlines this week while marketing a new report “China Ahead Of US In Broadband Adoption“.

The report is utter nonsense and concludes broadband penetration in China is […]

Floyd Landis’s team Phonak has confirmed suspicions that he tested positive for Testosterone doping the day after Stage 17 into Morzine, where Landis regained 8 minutes in an epic show of guts, strength, and iron will. (Do I sound like a schlocky Olympic commentator yet?)

This upsets me a great deal. I like Landis - his […]

What was rampant speculation (including ours) is now official- AMD (AMD) is buying ATI Technologies (ATYT), a Canadian maker of graphics accelerator chipsets.

Graphics acceleration is no longer for gaming freaks; the new version of Microsoft Vista contains advanced visual features dubbed “Aero” that demand more functionality than the standard video frame buffer can provide.

More importantly, […]