How to buy or upgrade to Windows 8, or avoid it entirely

NEW YORK - On Friday, Microsoft Corp. released a new version of its Windows operating system, one designed to bring the desktop and laptop experience to tablet computers. There are several ways to get it — or avoid it.

Windows 8 represents the software company's effort to address the growing popularity of smartphones and tablet computers, namely the iPad.

The new software is a radical departure from previous versions of Windows. It may take people time to get used to the changes. The familiar start menu on the lower left corner is gone, and people will have to swipe the edges of the screen to access various settings. There will be a new screen filled with a colorful array of tiles, each leading to a different application, task or collection of files.

Windows 8 is designed especially for touch screens, though it will work with the mouse and keyboard shortcuts, too.

There are several versions of Windows 8:

_ Windows 8.

Like its predecessors, Windows 8 will run on computers with processing chips made by Intel Corp. or Advanced Micro Devices Inc. There's a basic version designed for consumers and a Pro version for more tech-savvy users and businesses. The Pro version has such features as encryption and group account management. Large companies with volume-licensing deals with Microsoft will want Windows 8 Enterprise, which has additional tools for information-technology staff to manage machines.

_ Windows RT.

For the first time, there's also a version running on lower-energy chips common in phones and tablets. That version will run on tablets and some devices that marry tablet and PC features. While tablets with Windows 8 can run standard Windows programs, the RT devices will be restricted to applications specifically designed for the system. Borrowing from Apple's playbook, Microsoft is allowing RT to get applications only from its online store, and apps must meet content and other guidelines.

_ Windows Phone 8.

While Windows 8 and RT came out Friday, the phone version won't be available until an unspecified date this fall. Microsoft has an event on it Monday and may announce more details then. Nokia Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. already have announced plans for new Windows phones.

You can get Windows RT and Windows Phone 8 only by buying devices with the software already installed, while Windows 8 can be purchased as an upgrade as well.

Here's how you can get — or avoid getting — Windows 8:

_ Buy a new machine:

Desktop, laptop and tablet computers with Windows 8 already installed went on sale Friday, starting at 12:01 a.m. local time around the world.

Windows chief Steven Sinofsky said there have been 1,000 PCs certified for Windows 8, with the cheapest costing about $300.

Several PC manufacturers including Samsung, Lenovo Group Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. have designed new Windows 8 machines. They include hybrids combining elements of laptops and tablets. There are also all-in-one models — desktops with a built-in screen.

Many of the devices are available now, though some models won't go on sale for another month or two.

Meanwhile, retailers such as Best Buy Co. have trained staff to explain and demonstrate the new system.

Microsoft also started selling its Surface tablet with Windows RT on Friday, but it's available only at its retail stores and website. A Windows 8 version will come out later.

_ Upgrade your machine:

Anyone who's purchased a Windows 7 PC (other than the Starter Edition) since June 2 can buy Windows 8 Pro for $14.99. The offer applies to Windows 7 PCs sold until Jan. 31, and the upgrade must be claimed by Feb. 28.

To claim the offer, register the machine athttps://windowsupgradeoffer.com. You'll get an email with a promo code, which you can use to get the Windows 8 upgrade online.

If you bought a Windows PC before June 2, you can upgrade for $39.99. You must already have Windows XP with Service Pack 3, Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Those who prefer to buy a DVD to upgrade will have to pay $69.99.

Before buying the upgrade, check to make sure your machine is strong enough to run Windows 8. Microsoft lists the system requirements here: http://windowsupgradeoffer.com/en-US/Home/ProgramInfo.

Not sure if you have what it takes? Microsoft has an upgrade tool that will stop you if you try to buy Windows 8 without the requirements. The tool will also warn you of software that might need updates to work on Windows 8. Go to http://Windows.com to get started.

If you're upgrading from Windows 7, the tool will let you keep settings, personal files and applications. You can migrate settings and files from Vista and files only from XP. You'll also have the option to start fresh and bring nothing to Windows 8.

_ Keep older versions of Windows:

Do nothing if you do not wish to upgrade to Windows 8.

Most machines now on sale will have the new version of Windows, though it's still possible to buy Windows 7 machines or upgrade to Windows 7. You may have to order online, and your choices may be restricted to gaming or business-oriented machines.

Microsoft hasn't said what the cutoff date for Windows 7 will be, but expect to be able to buy Windows 7 as an upgrade for another year or preinstalled on a new machine for two more years.

After Windows 7 came out in October 2009, for instance, retailers were still allowed to sell boxed versions of the predecessor, Vista, until October 2010. PC makers were able to sell Vista machines until October 2011.

Microsoft plans to continue providing technical support for Windows 7 until Jan. 14, 2020.

Is Nokia A Value Buy At $2.65?

AT&T (T) announced it is offering Nokia's (NOK) flagship phone, the Lumia 920, for $99 with a two year contract. In addition, AT&T isoffering the Lumia 820 for $49.99. When compared to its competitors,Apple's (AAPL) iPhone 5 costs $199 with the same two year contract and Samsung's (SSNLF) Galaxy Note II for $299. Even when you compare the price of previous iPhone models to the Lumia 920 (all with a two year contract) the iPhone 4S costs $99.99 and the iPhone 4$49.99 in some areas. That means that a Lumia 920 costs the same as an iPhone 4S and the Lumia 820 costs the same as the ancient iPhone 4. On top of this good news AT&T also announced that it will add a wireless charging pad for free for those who purchase a Lumia 920 early but be warned this is a limited time offer and AT&T most likely has a cap for the free charging pads.

The Lumia 920, with no contract commitment, costs $449.99, whereas the iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy Note II costs $649.99. With no commitment for a two year plan there are no carrier subsidies, and the$200 price difference is very promising for Nokia. In just its second generation Windows phone is was able to match, if not beat, the competition in both software and hardware while making it for roughly $200 less.

I personally love the strategy Nokia is moving forward with. The company is temporarily cutting profit margins in its Lumias in order to establish a larger customer base. Nokia has been shedding unprofitable sectors for over the last year and now with only small losses as a whole Nokia can push its profit margin of the new Lumias down to gain market share for the future. This can be done due to Nokia having over $3.5 billion of cash on hand. Both Nokia and Microsoft believe that the Lumia matches up with both of its competitors, the problem is proving it to the customer. Brand loyalty is always prevalent but in the U.S. it is in overdrive and customers need an obvious reason to switch operating systems. With a much lower price point many will be willing to give the Lumia 920 a shot and those on a tight budget that never even considered buying a newer smart phone and would opt out for older smart phones such as an iPhone 4 or older now have a new option with the Lumia 820 which costs less than $50. Assuming Nokia can gain a decent market share in the U.S., say around 4-5%, that will get its foot in the door and become relevant as an alternative to the other operating systems.

Many will argue Nokia's plan forward is fundamentally wrong when looking at the numbers in the coming quarterly reports due to the expected lower profit margins. But this strategy is one for the next decade, not the next 12 months. Another bonus of lower prices points is that in emerging countries customers look for cheap deals and hold onto phones for shorter durations than do U.S. customers. The proof of this is in the success of Nokia's Asha line. The Asha 305 costs less than $90 with no contract. Even if the Lumia line would not be able to gain market share in the U.S., which I believe it will, the emerging markets such as China and India are places were even Apple hasn't tried to expand into yet and with customers it is mainly about brand loyalty which is why Apple experiences so much success in the U.S. Nokia has been able to get its foot in the door before Apple with lower level smart phones in emerging markets and has already developed a brand loyalty around the world from when it was on top before the smart phone revolution. This can be seen even in Europe. In Italy the Lumia 920 sold out in days and other countries like Germany and France were no different. And this is what many experts are not mentioning, the huge success that Nokia will experience outside the U.S.. With that said it does take two to tango, especially in the U.S.

Many experts crucified Nokia for giving exclusive rights to AT&T for its flagship Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 but now it is clear what the plan was all along. In my view, AT&T still seems bitter from the ending of its exclusive deal it had with Apple for the first few generations of iPhones and the subsidies it is giving Nokia over Apple and Samsung is amazing. In addition, AT&T is trying to get back to the top and beat out rival Verizon (VZ). Nokia will balance low profits in the U.S. with higher profits in Europe and Asia.

It is obvious AT&T wants to establish itself over Verizon and may even be looking into a similar deal with Nokia that it had with Apple only a few years ago. This bodes well for Nokia, as the company appears to have finally found a partner that is willing to buy into its Windows 8 operating system and even choose them over other Windows 8 phones.

This deal should stir up the consumer base to at least look into the Lumia. While most will not receive the free charging pad because they were essentially unaware of the Lumia offering, the offer should create buzz in the media for the coming holiday season. I believe this was Nokia's plan all along and while it was not ideal to wait this long to put the Lumia into the market that was not the company's decision, it wasMicrosoft's (MSFT), and the company took a bad situation and turned it into a positive by giving away a free charging pad. With the offering of the charging pad being so close to the holiday season the buzz should still be around even though the offer will have expired by then. If the Lumia had been released closer to the release date of the iPhone 5 the free charging pad offer would've been forgotten by the holiday season.

Nokia also knew that Microsoft would sell its operating system to the public with its $1+ billion dollar marketing campaign but appeared to have trouble distinguishing itself from the likes of HTC due to its phone looking very similar to Nokia's Lumia. The key is will Nokia run with this advertising advantage Microsoft is giving it or sit on its hands and let fate play out? Many always thought Nokia was banking on Microsoft to sell its product but now it seems Nokia has been working behind the scenes very hard and its temporary exclusive partnership with AT&T should resolve the marketing problem. AT&T is banking its current growth on the Nokia Lumia line and will have commercials galore advertising it.

Every time we seem to doubt Nokia's strategy, a few weeks later the company amazes us with its commitment to a sound strategy. No one in Nokia seems worried, they are all calm and collected. Steven Elop should be praised for sticking to a strategy that even supporters criticized countless times. With strong sales in the Lumia 920 and 820 shorters should at least become worried and I believe we will see an ending to the shorts (Yahoo Finance Short Ratio). Nokia's current short ratio is 8.0. The short ratio is the number of shorts divided by the average trading volume. The reduction of shorts alone should propel Nokia into the $3 to $4 range in the next few months.

My advice is stay strong and stick with Nokia and AT&T because I can already tell you what the bears will say when Q4 numbers come out. They will say things like...Nokia did sell twice as many devices as we predicted, but its profit margin was so small that the company barely made any profit. While lower profits do matter, Nokia and AT&T are both in the stage of setting up a consumer base when there are already major powerhouses. This is completely on purpose: Nokia and AT&T are sacrificing short-term profit margins in order to get phones out.

Any market share Nokia can get from Apple and Samsung will likely be maintained. Windows 8 may be a completely new operating system, but consumers will quickly learn how connected all of the devices that run on Windows 8 are. Plus the Lumia has many unique features that may convince some to switch over such as wireless charging, Nokia maps, free music, a new screen display that works with gloves on, and its Pure View camera which beat out the iPhone 5 and Galaxy Note II in most comparisons. Additionally, phones are used like a temporary computer to do everything from checking on sports to reading articles, therefore phone integration into a connected ecosystem is crucial and there is no other connected system out there that can rival the one Microsoft has set up. It has a new line of laptops running on the Windows 8 software, the new Surface which blurs the line between computer and tablet, the new Lumia line, and Xbox. I personally believe it will be the Xbox that makes this new ecosystem work. Even Apple cannot offer a gaming platform as successful as the Xbox and that will make the difference, being able to connect your phone to Xbox.

To make things even better Microsoft sees this and is fully committed to expanding into the smart phone market. Without a smart phone in its arsenal it would be hard for Microsoft to convince consumers to pick its other new products such as the Surface. This is due to the interconnectivity all devices now have and Microsoft is creating an entirely new ecosystem that no one can match.

The exclusive deal with AT&T for the Lumia 920 and 820 is starting to make sense. AT&T and Nokia worked hard to make these phones dirt cheap and are willing to throw in a wireless charger to create buzz. Both sides needed to give a little to make this a success and they did just that. While the profit numbers at the end of Q4 may not be the best for either company, they will have a large volume of sales. I have always thought Nokia was a value buy, but not anymore. I believe it is beyond a value buy now. Nokia looks like it is in prime position to pick up a larger market share than most experts thought even a few months ago. Also do not forget AT&T in the future, I have a feeling it will make (or have already made) a similar deal with Nokia as it did originally with Apple. The company has put too much effort and subsidizing too much of the Lumia line for me to believe there is not more to this deal that will benefit both AT&T and Nokia in the future.

773 Million Reasons to Buy Facebook Now

You're already feeling another wave of dread at Facebook.

Tomorrow, another 773 million shares and 31 million restricted stock units become available for sale. CEO Mark Zuckerberg also has another 502 million shares that he can unload, but in a filing two months ago he explained that he has no intention of selling any shares for at least another 12 months.

When Facebook staggered its lockup expirations, it probably made a lot of sense. Instead of ripping off the bandage in one swift tug, the company would break it up into more manageable chunks. There are a lot of shares of Facebook out there, and the company didn't want everyone to crash the gate at the same time.

The drama doesn't end here. A smaller chunk of shares is freed up come December, and it won't be long before investors begin to wonder what Zuckerberg will do once next September rolls around.

Some will argue that this is why Facebook is untouchable as an investment. At any moment, everything can start to fall apart. You never know when itchy trigger fingers will sell shares. It's like a family reunion with layers of secrets waiting to come out at the most inopportune times.

I don't see it that way at all. All of this tension and dread make this a great buying opportunity.

In or out
Have Facebook insiders been selling? Some have. Director and venture capitalist Peter Thiel turned heads this summer by selling $400 million worth of his shares. No one is arguing that lockup expirations are entirely harmless. However, Facebook has held surprisingly steady since shedding half its value.

This isn't Zynga  or Groupon . Both of those stocks have been obliterated since going public late last year, and the vicious cycle of executive defections and cashing out on the way out has been brutal.

Facebook has lost a couple of free hires, but it's not as if the model is broken. Zynga and Groupon are posting sequential declines in their flagship businesses, but Facebook is still growing.

Some insiders, especially those that have a sizable chunk of their net worth tied to Facebook stock, may find this an appropriate time to take a little money off the table. That isn't what investors need to be worrying about, though. Today's shareholders need to ask themselves if Facebook will be more relevant and more valuable in the future than it is right now.

How can the answer not be positive?

Cheaper than you think
Facebook may not seem like a screaming bargain here. Fetching 31 times forward earnings isn't going to win over too many value hounds.

However, analysts do see revenue growing at a 35% clip this year and by another 28% come 2013. Oh, and these Wall Street pros are generally skeptical about Facebook's initiatives that could really kick growth into high gear, including its mobile monetization efforts and its inevitable foray into search.

Then we get to the naysayers. There were nearly 88 million shares sold short by the end of last month. That's a new record of bearishness.

Shorts have to place buy orders to cover their shorts, and that short squeeze should be a bigger force pushing Facebook's stock higher than the pockets of selling that will take place as lockup restrictions run out.

What could trigger a short squeeze?

Well, would you really want to be short Facebook after this quarter? Did you see how the world's leading social networking website was a hotbed for partisan posts and meme sharing? It may have irked you. It may have entertained you. It may even have defined you. It doesn't matter. You do realize that both sides -- on both the presidential and local election levels -- spent plenty to make sure that their candidates were heard as sponsored posts.

Do you also want to be betting against Facebook the day it announces that it will be rolling out an enhanced search platform to its more than a billion active users?

It's going to happen, and probably sooner rather than later. Zuckerberg admitted this summer that he already has a team working on search. We're not just talking about taking on global search leader Google here. We're talking about a company that's already stickier than Google attempting to raise the bar.

Facebook knows what your friends like, where they've been, and where they've eaten. If you're searching for new music, a place for your next weekend getaway, or a nice Vietnamese restaurant, wouldn't you rather tap into people you know than whoever the highest bidder on Google just happens to be?

Facebook will raise the bar when it comes to search. Facebook will have a strong fourth quarter to report come early next year. Facebook will have a short squeeze to push its stock higher.

Are you really going to let what a few longtime stakeholders do in the coming days get in the way of enjoying the pop?

Have fun kicking yourself later if you do.

The Best Way to Profit from Insider Buying

Many investors think that they can divine stock performance simply by tracking insider transactions. 

It makes sense: Executives and directors running a company have a much better view of what's going on in it than analysts covering their stock. So if they buy shares, then they believe their stock is undervalued, and if they sell shares, then it must be because they think their stock is too pricey or there are bad things in the company’s future, right? Wrong.

Because insider transactions have received more and more public attention over the last few years, insider buying is now often used by company officials as a public relations ploy. When the company is doing badly, company officers will buy stock to put on a happy face to investors. Further complicating the matter is the large amount of option compensation given corporate executives these days. A good amount of experience, research, and analytical skill is required to see through these false insider leads and to separate the true insider-created opportunities from the false ones.

But when used correctly, insider buying has forecasted large advances in industries like coal mining, real estate investment trusts, generic drugs and broadband equipment. Insider buying has also foreshadowed takeovers in specific companies in industries as diverse as power utilities, banking and wireless phone service.

There are many insider newsletters and services available to the public. Most simply list stocks in which there has been insider buying; a few add scant, superficial analysis. At Jack Adamo's Insiders Plus, we believe this approach is woefully inadequate. Jack Adamo has based his successful weekly Insiders Plus service around meticulously tracking and decoding insider buying. And it works.

A large majority of earnings reports from all sectors were bad, and while my firm's were generally better, some of them disappointed as well.
I won't sell a stock for having a bad quarter or because I don't like the market, but if I have specific reasons that give me pause aside from those, that may tip the balance. That is the case with Avon Products (NYSE:AVP).
I did not and do not expect a quick turnaround at Avon, and I expected the recent dividend cut. That's why it wasn't in the High Income Portfolio, despite its stated 6.8% yield. Those factors didn't influence this choice. I also still expect the company to come back, despite all its problems.
The new CEO, Sherilyn S. McCoy, certainly has credentials. She has a Master's Degree in chemical engineering from Princeton, an MBA from Rutgers, and previously handled the marketing for Johnson & Johnson's (NYSE:JNJ) skin care division.
That said, after this quarter, the company is dangerously close to blowing some loan covenants, and while I have no doubt they'll be granted waivers, given Avon's assets, I'd rather take our 6.6% loss and have the cash in this climate.
I wouldn't procrastinate on this. The stock is significantly below its high for the year, so we will probably see pretty heavy tax selling over the next month or so.
Moreover, with the overall earnings climate negative, there should be bargains aplenty sometime in December after a possible post-election rally subsides. We can probably deploy this money in a company with stronger, clearer prospects, while keeping an eye on Avon for possible reinvestment later.
Meanwhile, Companhia de Bebidas das Americas (NYSE:ABV) had spectacular earnings: up 48.2%, or 80 cents per share, versus 54 cents for the third quarter of 2011. Net sales rose 26.1% including acquisitions, and 15.1% just on an organic growth basis.
My enthusiasm is somewhat tempered by the fact that unit volume growth didn't match sales growth. That indicates that the latter was helped by price increases, which are not as sustainable as unit growth. Still, the company is performing well, and so is the stock.
We're starting to see an economic rebound on ABV's main turf in Brazil, and other parts of its domain have held up pretty well all through the recent sluggish period. We have a nice 9.3% gain since February to hold us through any rough patch we may face in the next few quarters, although I suspect it won't be as bad down there as it is up north.
Ambev (NYSE:BUD) is another stock I'm hoping to add to on any significant pullback.

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