Gary Dvorchak's Look at 2010's Smartphone Wars

Gary Dvorchak did an excellent 2010 Year in Review piece on  TheStreet.com this morning.  That’s not a typo, he’s got the same type of imagination that I have and has put it to use in order to formulate a list of events that could take place in the coming year…

My favorite bit was his handicapping of the coming of the Smartphone Wars…

From TheStreet.com:

Smartphone wars. Research In Motion(RIMM) became the subject of an intense bidding war, which resulted in the sale of the smartphone leader to former “dumbphone” leader Nokia(NOK). Nokia borrowed a stunning $40 billion to complete the transaction, exploiting the dollar’s weakness against its home currency, the euro, to outbid Microsoft(MSFT), which attempted to utilize only its cash hoard. The deal is expected to vault Nokia back into a leadership position in the mobile phone business, as the battleground is now set between Apple’s(AAPL) iPhone and Nokia’s BlackBerry. Industry analysts initially panned Microsoft’s “consolation prize,” its acquisition of the assets of Palm (PALM) out of bankruptcy, but are now intrigued since Microsoft successfully completed its tender offer for all outstanding shares of Clearwire (CLWR).

Meanwhile, Motorola (MOT) merged with Garmin (GRMN) as they continued to roll out their strategy of hardware differentiation underneath the Android OS. Stock analysts are still questioning Motorola’s surprise tender offer for the shares of Iridium (IRDM).

Obviously this is speculative stuff, but the smartphone game does have way too many players.  2010 could be the year of final victory through attrition/consolidation.

The whole piece requires a subscription to RealMoney Silver.  Go check it out if you can:

2010: The Year in Review (TheStreet.com)