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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2010
Telecom
news
In other news of Cisco Systems, the company has initiated
✆
✆
a programme to prepare potential customers before they
commit to building a cloud computing system. Reporting
on eweek.com (30
th
June), Chris Preimesberger observed
that, as Cisco reinvents itself partly as a cloud-computing
infrastructure provider, it needs to add a set of services
to wrap around all the hardware and software it wants to
sell. That is what the company has done, launching a set
of what it calls cloud enablement services to go with its
growing data centre solutions portfolio. Cisco is providing
a menu of cloud system components, including products of
its own and from such partners as EMC, NetApp, VMware,
Microsoft and BMC.
On 25
✆
✆
th
June the directors of Russia’s No 1 mobile
operator MTS and of its Comstar fixed line unit
recommended a merger between the two. MTS, which
currently holds a 62% stake in Comstar, has offered
to buy another 9% from minority shareholders in a
$1 billion-plus transaction intended to cut costs and offer
more services. The deal, which would create the largest
integrated telecommunications provider in Russia and the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), is expected
to be completed by the middle of next year.
Canada’s industry minister Tony Clement confirmed
✆
✆
that Ottawa plans to move ahead on reforms of the rules
governing foreign direct investment in the country’s
telecommunications industry. Speaking 7
th
June at a
telecom conference in Toronto, Mr Clement said the
government expected shortly to release a consultation
document outlining options for such liberalisation.
As reported in the
Wall Street Journal
, the minister said
the options would centre around large incumbents and
access to foreign direct investment, while considering as
well various ways of meeting the capital needs of smaller
companies. Representatives of the Canadian telecom
industry were to be allowed a brief period for comment on
the projected reforms.
Cell phone makers in Japan are regrouping to meet the
✆
✆
challenge of the popular Apple iPhone at home and to
compete with the likes of Nokia and Samsung overseas.
In the second Japanese cell phone merger within a month,
Fujitsu and Toshiba said on 17
th
June that they will merge
their handset operations. Fujitsu is to own a majority
stake in the venture, slated to launch in October. The new
company would be Japan’s second-biggest mobile phone
maker, after Sharp. NEC
,
Casio
Computer and Hitachi
merged their phone units earlier in June.
In “the most successful product launch in Apple’s
✆
✆
history,” according its chief executive Steve Jobs, Apple
Inc said that it sold 1.7 million iPhone 4 phones through
26
th
June, three days after store sales of the devices began.
The company did not say whether the figure included
pre-orders placed on the company’s website and in stores
before the phone’s official 24
th
June store launch. AT&T Inc
is the exclusive US provider for the iPhone.
Microsoft (Redmond, Washington) scrapped its Kin mobile
✆
✆
phone just weeks after its May debut. According to the
Wall Street Journal
(30
th
June), insiders said that the phone,
which was marketed to young people, failed to attract
significant demand.