* Chairman says aim is stable market share after 4G auction
* In talks with Brazil partner to start producing by Sept.
By Sérgio Spagnuolo
SAO PAULO, June 13 (Reuters) - Nokia Siemens Networks aims to supply more than a third of Brazil's nascent fourth-generation (4G) wireless network, the head of its Latin American board said on Wednesday.
As Brazilian regulator Anatel wrapped up its first auction of 4G licenses, the regional chairman of Nokia Siemens, Aluizio Byrro, said the company wants a piece of the new market that is in line with its more than 35 percent share of the 3G market.
"We don't want to let go of a single percentage point," Byrro said in an interview, citing the company's growing focus on Latin America, which contributes over 10 percent of revenue.
Byrro said Nokia Siemens is in talks with a local partner to start producing 4G equipment in Brazil by September to help wireless operators establish coverage in host cities for the 2014 Soccer World Cup.
New requirements that equipment be Brazilian-made also spurred the rush to manufacture locally, he said.
"We have been studying the possibility of producing in Brazil for some time and the conditions have improved quite a bit recently," Byrro said, saying the company was holding off a decision about setting up a local factory.
"The next big challenge is to also make Brazilian production competitive enough to export."
Nokia Siemens is a joint venture between Nokia and Siemens AG, formed to compete with dominant industry suppliers such as Ericsson, which has said it expects 4G networks to cover half the world by 2017.
But Nokia Siemens has struggled and announced a wave of staff cuts globally over the past year, including a 3,500-person layoff in Latin America following the end of a large services deal in the region. (Writing by Brad Haynes; editing by Andre Grenon)
Vodafone's CWW ambitions get heavyweight backing - The Guardian
The scales have tipped a little further in favour of those long suffering Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) shareholders who want to approve a Vodafone takeover offer when it is put to the vote on Monday.
Glass Lewis, a shareholder advisory firm with some big North American pension fund members, has come out in favour of Vodafone's low-ball £1bn cash offer. Roughly 10% of CWW investors are from across the pond and this is good news for Vodafone, which needs all the support it can get.
The deal requires acceptance from 75% of votes cast but the largest shareholder, an investment fund called Orbis, thinks CWW is being sold on the cheap. It has yet to give its blessing and stands a chance of blocking the takeover.
Vodafone already has the blessing of UK adviser Institutional Shareholder Services, popular with smaller investors, who control about 10% of the stock. The CWW board and four top six holders have declared their support too, accounting for over 18%. The odds are beginning to stack in favour of a deal, but that does not make it a good one for investors.
The 38p a share offer is 2% less than the company's average price over the past 12 months. Glass Lewis's own analysts note that one of Britain's biggest fibre networks is going for a song, well below the average paid for the 26 western European companies sold for over £1bn in the last year.
On the other hand, there have been profit warnings, a collapse in the shares and lots of bad news from Europe in recent months. Better to take the cash than back a halfhearted turnaround plan by a chief executive who was hired, many think, to sell the company. Gavin Darby worked at Vodafone before joining CWW late last year, and his strategy for an independent future looks more like a bargaining tool to squeeze more from the buyers than a recovery story shareholders are expected to buy into.
"We believe a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, in this case," Glass Lewis has written in a note to members.
Turnaround, Darby's board has pointed out, would require more capital with few returns in the medium to long term, at a time of economic uncertainty. Not so much a bird in the bush as a bird perched on a flying pig.
Nokia's 808 PureView widely regarded as best cameraphone - Economic Times
Having used the 808 PureView, we can verify that it takes better photos than the Apple iPhone 4S/Samsung Galaxy S III, widely regarded as the best cameraphones in the market today.
But we feel that the steep price and outdated Symbian operating system means that the 808 PureView will find few takers. Nokia should include PureView technology on Windows Phone to generate more interest.
SPECIFICATIONS
Display: 4-inch amoled
Processor: 1.3Ghz
OS: Symbian Belle
Weight: 169 grams
Storage: 16GB + microSD slot
Camera: 41MP rear, VGA front
Battery: 1400 mAh
Pros +
41MP camera sensor that provides 5MP images with far better detail than any other cameraphone using PureView technology 4-inch amoled capacitive touchscreen display with excellent viewing angles, good touch response and sunlight legibility Digital Dolby Plus audio enhancement provides theatre like 5.1 surround sound output over headphone for audio
Vodafone unveils signal-boosting umbrella for music festivals - Digital Spy
Nokia in talks with EQT to sell Vertu: sources - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia is in talks with private equity group EQT to sell its luxury handset subsidiary Vertu for around 200 million euros ($249 million), sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
One of the sources, who declined to be named because talks were still in progress, said a deal could come as early as this week but there was still a chance it could fall through due to the difficulty of carving the unit out of Nokia.
Vertu makes some of the world's most expensive mobile phones, often featuring crystal displays and sapphire keys. The phones can cost more than 200,000 pounds ($310,900) due to previous metal components, although they are not the most technologically advanced phones.
Permira, another private equity group, had previously been in talks to buy Vertu but did not make an offer, according to sources.
Nokia, once the world's leading mobile phone company but is now struggling with falling market share, has said it plans to sell "non-core assets".
($1 = 0.8028 euros) ($1 = 0.6432 British pounds)
(Additional reporting by Simon Meads; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
Vodafone unfurls booster brolly for mobes - The Register
Vodafone unfurls booster brolly for mobes
Music festival-goers gain antenna and solar charger in handy, eye-poking, form
Posted in Networks, 14th June 2012 04:19 GMT
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Vodafone UK will unfurl a “booster brolly” at summer music festivals, to give concert-goers a chance to charge their phones with solar panels and shout over the music thanks to a high-gain antenna.
Designed by Kenneth Tong of University College London, the umbrella has solar cells sewn into its canopy (the balck stripes on the image below) and extra aluminium struts that act as a high-gain antenna. Vodafone says the latter creates a “signal shower” that improves coverage for mobiles used beneath the umbrella.
Vodafone seems set to show off the brolly at music festivals it sponsors, but there's no word on mass production,price, or whether it hooks up to proprietary connectors such as that found on the iPhone.
While it's possible to imagine the brolly will prove popular with some, it also seems certain to earn opprobrium from festival-goers whose view of the stage is obscured by fellow music-lovers intent on talking rather than dancing. And if anyone puts on some serious moves, we fear for neighbouring revellers' eyeballs, or the future of the brolly itself. ®
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