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Just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in: Siemens shows a concept phone using the “big touchscreen” iPhone design meme to include a large solar panel in the device. Nice; but hasn’t Siemens given up making phones?
Continue reading "Ring! Ring! Hot News, 20th October 2008" »
In Today’s Issue: Crunch crunches Chinese corporate creativity; Nextel spinout shaky; Sprint execs “industry’s most overpaid”; WiMAX smartphone leaked; VZW starts charging for bulk SMS delivery; IfByPhone understands your call centre campaign; vendor-pays data is here; RIM’s AppStore for enterprises?; Comcast gets social TV; Vodafone buys more of Vodacom; IBM: still has money; Indian cellsites get fuel cells; MBNL-BT backhaul superdeal; xG shenanigans; yet another security nightmare at DTAG; GSMA without the GSM; mobile filmmaking to fight the Taliban. scary!
This week’s main theme was telcos calling off planned corporate action in the face of the financial crisis; Huawei, like so many other vendors, has been thinking of getting rid of its handsets business, a low-margin job better left to cheap Chinese ODMs…hold on, some of us remember when Huawei was a cheap Chinese ODM. But this week, the sale was put on indefnite hold for fear someone might bid one euro and get it.
Continue reading "Ring! Ring! Hot News, 13th October 2008" »
Two weeks ago we presented a very gloomy picture of the developing stress in the financial markets, and its likely implications (positive and otherwise) for telcos. Two weeks is an awfully long time in today’s markets, and while it hardly gives us pleasure to acknowledge that much of what we previously envisaged is now playing out before our eyes, it probably makes sense to revisit the topic.
In short, things have gotten much, much worse since our original post only two weeks ago. Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave in Afghanistan, you have probably noticed the fitful attempts in the US to pass an economic stabilization package, to the tune of $700bn, with a lot of enhanced corporate governance provisions and regulation attached. The independent investment banks once known as the “Bulge Bracket” no longer exist, and the stagnation of the credit markets is now resulting in a wave of nationalisations, quasi-nationalisations, and government-orchestrated private sector bailouts in Europe, as well as in the US. Business confidence in Europe is at its lowest ebb since the shock and awe of 9/11, and investor concern over the health of commercial banks, as reflected in a flight of capital into Treasuries, is at its greatest point since the Great Depression.
Continue reading "Credit Crunch - Silver Lining for Telcos? (Part 2)" »
