Tuesday musings on Motorola, Sun, and Apple

[Sun's JavaFX phone to be announced today]

Well, it's Tuesday, the traditional announcement day for most of the high-tech world. Three things struck me today as I looked through the headlines this morning:

• Motorola dodged a bullet by rejecting Carl Icahn. At the end of the day, shareholders in Motorola decided that no matter how much they disliked Motorola's current business performance, they disliked the idea of Carl Icahn as a board member more. That said, the virtual beatings of CEO Ed Zander will continue until morale and business improves.


• Sun seems to have stolen a page from the iPhone design book. Touch-screen phones appear to be all the rage nowadays, and Sun will announce its own today at its Java One conference. I admit there are only so many ways to arrange touch icons on a screen so that you can actually hit them accurately, but this picture certainly screams, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." I suppose Apple had better get used to it -- rumor has it that the ever-rumored-and-denied Google phone has similar characteristics.


• Apple's deferred iPhone revenue tees up possible dividends.. The last paragraph of a Macinstein article about Apple stock split possibilities got me thinking. Apple's decision to accrue revenue from iPhone sales over 24 months says to me that it would like more ways to smooth out its annual earnings curve. But that more consistent revenue stream also would make it easier for the company to pay dividends to shareholders. Such a move could increase Apple's holdings among both institutional and individual investors. I don't see this happening at this week's Apple annual meeting, but if iPhone sales exceed expectations as we've predicted, this could be an extra added sweetener to shareholders at next year's.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, Java, Macinstein, Motorola, Carl Icahn, Sun