Nokia Corp. (NOK) unveiled its first cell phone developed with China’s homegrown third-generation mobile technology Tuesday, saying it would aim to “democratize” the smart phone market by aiming to sell lower-priced handsets at higher volumes.

The phone and others like it in the company pipeline could help Nokia, which has struggled globally to keep pace with Apple Inc. (AAPL) in the fast-growing, higher-margin market for premium smart phones since Apple’s iPhone was released in 2007, to close some of the gap by capitalizing on its strength in developing markets. But its look–a slider-style with a mirror-like screen, isn’t much different than what consumers have seen before.

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Has Nokia (NOK) finally come up with a smart phone that can take on the Apple (AAPL) iPhone?

This morning, the company launched a new model called the N900 which is based on the company’s Linux-based Maemo 5 operating system. Not everyone is going to be convinced, but Davenport & Co. analyst F. Drake Johnstone is. Late this afternoon, he raised his rating on Nokia to Buy from Hold, setting a price target of $18.

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Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Nokia Corp. (NOK), once bitter rivals in the mobile market, formed an alliance to strengthen their positions at a time when other competitors have become far more troublesome.

The deal between the two companies will bring Microsoft’s Office programs and other software to Nokia phones. It is aimed squarely at the professional market that Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) targets so successfully with its BlackBerry line of smart phones.

For Microsoft, the deal is an attempt to increase the appeal of Office–a lucrative franchise that includes Word, Excel and other productivity programs–to a business audience that is being courted by competing products from rivals that range from Google Inc. (GOOG) to Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO). Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

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Nokia (NOK) Siemens Networks negotiated a shrewd $650 million agreement to buy the crown jewel of the bankrupt Nortel (NT) Networks–the shrinking, but highly profitable voice-only wireless technology called CDMA–together with an R&D group developing systems to upgrade carrier networks to ultra-broadband speeds.

After months of negotiations in Munich, Toronto, Dallas and New York, and a tense final day in the offices of the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, the companies signed a deal late Friday. The timing was somewhat unfortunate for Nortel. It believed it had to announce the deal quickly, along with its decision to wind down its business by selling off its assets and delisting its shares, to comply with the rules of the Toronto Stock Exchange but feared the announcement would be seen as if it were trying to bury the news.

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Charter Equity Research analyst Edward Snyder today lifted his rating on Broadcom (BRCM) to Buy from Market Perform. In his research note, Snyder said he expects to see an increase this fall in the company’s revenue from the wireless segment as volumes rise in shipments of EDGE system-on-a-chip components to Nokia (NOK) for its low-end phones.

Snyder says the part had been delayed by a “noise issue” that now appears to be corrected. Snyder says the total EDGE market could be in the $200 million to $250 million range; he says the low-cost portion targeted by Broadcom will be just a small fraction of the market, but that successful deployment of the EDGE SOC “would ensure Broadcom’s position in the top echelon of baseband providers.”

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Nokia (NOK) shares are headed sharply higher this morning after the company indicated the worst may be over for the mobile phone business.

For the first quarter, the company posted revenue of 9.276 billion euros, down 26.7 percent year over year, and 26.8 percent sequentially. Revenues from the device business were down 33.4 percent year over year, and 24.2 percent from Q4. The Nokia Siemens equipment business was down 12.1 percent versus a year ago, and 31.1 percent sequentially.

Profits in the quarter on a non-IFRS basis (the equivalent of non-GAAP) were 10 euro cents per share, versus 39 cents a year ago.

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Are things picking up at Nokia (NOK)?

Maybe… or at least, they seem to be getting worse at a decelerating rate.

RBC Capital’s Mark Sue this morning repeated his Outperform rating on the stock and lifted his price target to $16, from $12, asserting that the company’s operating margins in mobile device many have bottomed. He also contends the company will see some benefits in the first quarter from inventory restocking, lifting his unit forecast for the quarter to 90 million from 87 million. “It’s been the most volatile global handset quarter since we can remember, yet the shock to the system seems to be dissipating,” he writes. Sue still expects global units to be down 15 percent this year, but asserts that the rate of decline appears to be slowing.

Sue adds that “it’s bad out there, but not as bad as feared, implying the multiple [on NOK shares] may expand from trough levels.” He says the company is seeing “encouraging trends” in Asia, in particular in China and India, while Europe “seems to be stabilizing.”

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Dell (DELL) CEO Michael Dell has done little to dispel rumors that his company is working on a mobile computing device. In fact, he all but confirmed them while traveling in Japan on March 24 when he said: “It is true that we are exploring smaller-screen devices.” What form those devices will take remains a matter of heated debate. Talk is that Dell plans a smartphone that would compete with Research In Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry, Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, and the various devices running software from Microsoft (MSFT), Nokia (NOK), or the Google-backed (GOOG) Open Handset Alliance. Prototypes of a Dell-made smartphone are being circulated in the wild and, according to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, got a cool reception from mobile-phone carriers including AT&T (T) and Sprint Nextel (S).

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To the usual trappings that help many homeless people endure life on the streets–woolen blankets, shopping carts or cardboard box shelters–add the humble cellphone.

Today, it’s not unusual for the homeless to whip out Nokia (NOK) 6085 GoPhones (with optional Bluetooth and USB connectivity), stop at a public computer to check email or urge friends to read their blogs.

It’s another sign of a society in transition by way of technology, as businesses shed physical addresses for cyberspace and homeless people can establish an online presence and chase opportunities digitally.

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How bad is the market for cellphones? Really bad. Worse than really bad.

RBC Capital’s Mark Sue this morning cut his Q1 forecast for global handset unit demand to 230 million, from 248 million, which would mean a sequential drop of 25 percent. For the full year, Sue now expects handset units to drop 18 percent. “Despite some inventory clearing at carriers and distributors, magnified deterioration in developed markets and sharp declines in emerging markets means global handsets may contract more than dire predictions,” he writes in a research note.

Sue thinks that Nokia (NOK) “may feel the brunt of the weakness this quarter,” given that it will also likely lose some market share. He cut his unit forecast for Nokia for Q1 to 85 million units, down from 93 million; that would be off 25 percent from the 113 million the company reported in Q4.

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The cellphone is the world’s most ubiquitous computer. The four billion cellphones in use around the globe carry personal information, provide access to the Web and are being used more and more to navigate the real world. And as cellphones change how we live, computer scientists say, they are also changing how we think about information.

It has been 25 years since the desktop, with its files and folders, was introduced as a way to think about what went on inside a personal computer. The World Wide Web brought other ways of imagining the flow of data. With the dominance of the cellphone, a new metaphor is emerging for how we organize, find and use information. New in one sense, that is. It is also as ancient as humanity itself. That metaphor is the map.

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With nearly 2,000 “friends” on Facebook, I should be a regular visitor to the site. I am not. Instead, I prefer to use Facebook’s mobile application on my iPhone to send messages, update my status, upload photos taken on the go and sometime even scroll through the news feed to see what my friends are up to. The ad- and clutter-free interface has fewer distractions and makes using Facebook a breeze.

Apparently, I am one of 25 million Facebook mobile users and one of four million who access the service on a daily basis. That’s a sizable portion of Facebook’s 150 million (and growing) registered users, and with them lies Facebook’s future. With the rise of superphones such as Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, the BlackBerry Bold and Nokia’s (NOK) E71 and N96 devices, we are at the cusp of a new era in which the mobile and the wired Web converge. This convergence, when married to location-based services, would create a new real-time and highly contextual Internet experience.

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Microsoft (MSFT) executives have long spun visions of a world where computer users can seamlessly share information between a PC, the Web, and a cellphone. But the company has made little progress in making that vision a reality–at least until now.

On Feb. 16, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will take the stage at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to announce a major overhaul of the company’s mobile strategy. Some of the new initiatives are purely catch-up. Ballmer will unveil an online app store that lets users of Microsoft-powered phones download tools, games, and other apps–Apple (AAPL) opened its own app store in July, and Research In Motion (RIMM), Nokia (NOK), and others have announced plans for their own app stores. Ballmer will also announce a new service called My Phone that lets mobilephone users automatically sync photos, contacts, videos, and other files to a personalized Web site and then gain access to that content from a PC or any Web-connected device.

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Nokia (NOK) shares are sagging badly ahead of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report due Thursday morning.

Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha this morning cut his 2009 handset industry sell-in forecast to down 10 percent, from down six percent previously. Citing expectations of continued inventory reductions in the industry, he cut his 2009 EPS estimate to 74 euro cents, from 87 cents. For Q4, he now sees the industry selling 319 million units, flat sequentially, but up 10 percent year over year. He expects Nokia’s unit sales in the quarter to be 115 million units, down two percent sequentially and down 14 percent year over year. For the quarter, he sees Nokia posting revenue of 12.9 billion euros and profits of 25 euro cents a share, below the Street at 13 billion and 27 euro cents. Garcha also cut his estimates on Ericsson (ERIC), citing his reduced handset forecast.

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A few hours before the global launch of Nokia’s (NOK) latest high-end phone, the company gave a sneak peek at the gadget to a dozen bloggers and journalists gathered at its swank Midtown Manhattan concept store. With an elegant touchscreen that slid open to reveal a full keyboard, the device evoked lust in even the iPhone disciples present. So when can we get it in the U.S.? The company’s answer: “Globally, sometime in the first half of 2009.” The U.S. launch will come after that. No carrier has been announced. In other words, just about never.

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