Nokia's handset market share back at 35 Pct: survey

The world's biggest mobile phone maker Nokia is back at 35 percent global market share after a sharp dip in 2004, a survey said on Tuesday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (28 February) that it took the cell phone behemoth from Finland almost two years to recover the ground it lost in 2004 after it failed to introduce popular folding models, and it can take its 40 percent target seriously again, market research group Gartner said.

According to Reuters, the Gartner report showed that Nokia's market share with sales to consumers is higher than the 34.2 percent market share based on already published shipments to distributors, which means more Nokia phones found their way to end users than handsets from other vendors.

Competition is relentless and other top five vendors such as Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG Electronics all gained share in the fourth quarter. Only Samsung slipped slightly, reports Reuters.

Reuters reports Gartner as saying that Nokia, with 35 percent market share in the fourth quarter, is almost twice as big as No.2 Motorola with 17.8 percent global market share in the quarter. In eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa its position is even stronger with three times more market share than its nearest rival, Gartner said.

According to the report, most of the sales growth last year came from emerging markets, where low priced phones and low service charges fueled demand. There are over 2.2 billion mobile phone subscribers now.

{mospagebreaktitle=AOL suits seek US$18M from `phishing' rings}AOL suits seek US$18M from `phishing' rings

America Online is taking advantage of a first-of-its-kind anti-''phishing'' law in the US state of Virginia to sue three international groups that allegedly stole information from unsuspecting AOL users by sending e-mail that appeared to be legitimate messages from the company.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (28 February) that AOL's three lawsuits, filed Monday in federal court, seek US$18 million for the unit of Time Warner.

The suits allege that the 30 phishers, who have not yet been identified by name, violated the 2005 Virginia anti-phishing act, which covers AOL because it is based in the state. The suits also cite federal computer fraud law and the Lanham Act, which protects trademarks.

According to AP., the phishers cited in the suits are accused of sending tens of thousands of e-mails and setting up Web sites that purportedly were from AOL customer service.

{mospagebreaktitle=Sony sets date for rollout of next-generation DVDs}Sony sets date for rollout of next-generation DVDs

Sony Pictures has said it aims to deliver its new Blu-ray DVD format to US stores on 23 May to coincide with the entry of compatible disc players, a new step in an industry war for control of home movie viewing.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (28 February) that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and MGM Home Entertainment will first release eight Blu-ray titles, followed by another eight in mid-June. The first movie titles include ``50 First Dates,'' ``The Fifth Element,'' ``Hitch'' and ``House of Flying Daggers.''

According to Reuters, Blu-ray is locked in a multibillion-dollar standards war against a rival DVD format known as HD DVD. The technology companies supporting HD DVD, championed by Toshiba, plan to start rolling out movie titles and disc players in March.

Each side hopes to reignite a sagging US$24 billion home video market with new players and discs that offer greater capacity and interactive features.

{mospagebreaktitle=Sony Ericsson Cybershot brand on photo phones}Sony Ericsson Cybershot brand on photo phones

Sony Ericsson unveiled six new mobile phones on Tuesday and said that two of them have cameras good enough to carry Sony's Cyber-shot digital camera brand.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (28 February) that it is the second brand transfer by Japanese consumer electronics parent Sony to its mobile phone joint venture with Sweden's Ericsson. A year ago Sony Ericsson, the world's number five handset maker, adopted the Walkman brand for its music phones.

Sony was the world's second-biggest producer of digital cameras in 2004, according to market research IDC, and it uses the Cyber-shot brand to market its products.

The Reuters report says that the K800 and K790 mobile phones feature a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, an image stabiliser, a flash which is brighter than usual for mobile phones and a sensor that can snap nine full resolution images within a second. The technology, including software to improve picture quality, comes from Sony.

Two variants, says Reuters -- a model for 3G mobile networks and one for older 2G networks -- will be available in the second quarter at prices above 300 euros (US$355.4) each before operator subsidies.

{mospagebreaktitle=Qualcomm CEO comments on Nokia's CDMA push}Qualcomm CEO comments on Nokia's CDMA push

Wireless technology firm Qualcomm will adopt a wait-and-see approach on whether the mobile phone joint venture between Nokia and Sanyo Electric will be a boon for the company's CDMA chips and technology, its Chief Executive Paul Jacobs has said.

Reuters says in a New York Times report that Nokia and Sanyo Electric announced plans earlier this month to form a joint venture to develop and make mobile phones for the CDMA standard, dominant in the United States and popular in parts of Latin America and Asia, including Japan, India and China.

Industry analysts said at the time that the big winner of the venture was Qualcomm, which would benefit from increased shipments of CDMA phones and potential chip sales. Qualcomm holds most of the patents to the technology.

According to Reuters, on the day the joint venture was announced, the stock rose 3.6 percent, its second-biggest one day rise this year.

Qualcomm's VCEO., speaking in New York at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit, was more reticent about whether this was a positive development for his company.

Nokia, the world's largest handset maker, is No. 3 in the CDMA market and has struggled for years as it tried to avoid using CDMA chips by Qualcomm, says Reuters.

Reuters reports that Nokia has lost market share particularly in the United States as it struggled to keep up with the pace of chip designs from competitors. It focused on lower-end phones even though the CDMA market tends to cater to mid- to high-end users, the report says.

{mospagebreaktitle=Blackberry case still not resolved}Blackberry case still not resolved

Hopes for a quick settlement between Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) and NTP appeared slim this week as the two sparred publicly, despite pressure from a court last week to end the standoff that has threatened to shut down RIM's US BlackBerry service.

Reuters reports in The New York Times that last Friday, US District Judge James Spencer stopped short of ordering the shutdown of millions of RIM's BlackBerry e-mail devices, but also said there was no escaping that RIM had been found to be infringing on NTP's patents.

Spencer said he would issue a decision on an injunction ``as soon as reasonably possible'' but didn't say when.

Analysts said on Monday they believed Spencer had made it clear that he would rather see the case settled than be forced to issue a decision.

But, according to Reuters, hopes for a speedy settlement between NTP, a US-based patent-holding company, and Ontario-based RIM appeared unlikely on Monday.

Reuters reports that, in a statement, NTP said it had offered, and still offers, RIM a license that protects its customers, carriers and partners. ``Our position on this issue is unambiguous and steadfast,'' it said.

RIM dismissed the comments, saying the proposal failed to offer the protection it claimed.

{mospagebreaktitle=Microsoft to appeal South Korean anti-trust ruling}Microsoft to appeal South Korean anti-trust ruling

Microsoft is to appeal a ruling by the Korea Fair Trade Commission that it infringed anti-trust rules. In December, the competition regulator fined Microsoft around £15m and ordered the firm to unbundle its instant messaging and media player software from Windows.

The Register reports (28 February) that the watchdog has now released a written report, backing up its preliminary finding that Microsoft acted in breach of competition rules by tying its media service and media player to the Windows server and PC operating systems.

Microsoft is required to unbundle its Media Service from the Windows server operating system and to offer two versions of the Windows PC operating system.

According to The Register, one of these will be entirely stripped of the media player and instant messaging software, while the other will contain a Media Player Centre and Messenger Centre, linking to web pages that allow competing products to be downloaded.

Microsoft has denied the breach.

{mospagebreaktitle=Yahoo! link confirmed in second Chinese dissident case}Yahoo! link confirmed in second Chinese dissident case

Court papers about cyberdissident Li Zhi confirm that Yahoo! collaborated with the Chinese authorities, according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. Yahoo! and local competitor Sina both provided evidence that allowed the Chinese to imprison Li, according to as report in The Register (28 February).

The Register reports that Li, a 35-year-old ex-civil servant from Dazhou in south west China, was given an eight-year jail sentence in December 2003 for "inciting subversion" over comments criticising official corruption posted on online discussion groups. He was also accused of mixing with the banned China Democracy Party online.

"The Li Zhi verdict shows that all internet sector companies are pulled in to help when the police investigate a political dissident," Reporters Without Borders said.

"It is unacceptable that US firms should turn themselves into auxiliaries of a government that systematically tramples on the rights of Internet-users to freedom of expression," The Register quotes RWB as saying.

The Register reports that the group said that the verdict showed that Yahoo! Hong Kong and Sina Beijing had supplied information confirming that Li Zhi had set up an email account using their services.

{mospagebreaktitle=Plan for fees on e-mail spurs protest}Plan for fees on e-mail spurs protest

In the US., a group of nonprofit and public interest groups is beginning a campaign today to protest plans by America Online and Yahoo, which each offer e-mail services, to charge high-volume senders of e-mail fees to guarantee preferred delivery of their messages.

The New York Times reports (28 February) that AOL and Yahoo are working with Goodmail, a Silicon Valley company, which plans to charge between a quarter-cent and a cent for each message. The two internet companies will get the bulk of the fees that Goodmail collects.

Richard Gingras, chief executive of Goodmail, said the company planned to offer unspecified discounts to nonprofit senders of e-mail. AOL will start using the Goodmail system within a month. Yahoo will begin testing the service several months later and will charge fees only to deliver messages related to purchases or financial transactions.

According to the newspaper, the campaign is being organised by MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group that uses its list of three million e-mail addresses to influence public opinion and raise money, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an internet civil liberties group. They have enlisted about 50 other supporters including the Gun Owners of America, the Democratic National Committee and the National Humane Society.

{mospagebreaktitle=Sony, NEC Start up optical disk venture soon}Sony, NEC Start up optical disk venture soon

Japanese electronics makers Sony and NEC have this week they have finalised a plan to set up a joint venture for optical disk drives, aiming to better weather intense price competition. The two companies will transfer their optical drive businesses to a new entity, Sony NEC Optiarc, which will start operations on 3 April. The deal was first announced last November.

Reuters reports in The New York Times that the venture will control some 20 percent of the global market, second only to Hitachi-LG Data Storage, a venture between Japan's Hitachi and South Korea's LG Electronics, an NEC spokesman had said.

The report says that Sony will hold a 55 percent stake in the venture, which will design and make DVD and CD drives for personal computers and other products. The new company will have annual sales of about 220 billion yen (US$1.88 billion), NEC said.