Categories
Close
Menu
Menu
Close
Search
Search

Featured Articles

RSS
123

Opinion Articles

Opinion

Last week at The Fonecast: 11th November 2013

Mark

A $1 billion rescue and an £8 million tariff

Share:

Print

Rate article:

No rating
Rate this article:
No rating

Mark Bridge writes:

We started last week with a change of plan from BlackBerry. No, it’s not selling itself to Fairfax Financial. Instead it’s aiming to raise $1 billion from investors. Cynics might suggest there wasn’t enough interest for a takeover.

Another big name hitting the mainstream headlines was Twitter, which launched on the stock market. Not only was the initial share price higher than expected, the company’s value was up by over 70% by the end of the first day. That’s impressive, although it’s the longer-term picture that really counts.

Here in the UK, there was news about a new range of Android smartphones. Step forward Kazam, founded six months ago by a couple of chaps who’d previously worked at HTC. With the promise of a replacement screen if you damage your phone in the first year, it’s clear the company has a clear focus on customer service.

Also keen to help customers was EE, which revealed plans to bring LTE-Advanced to London and also started talking about a one million gigabyte 4G data bundle. According to EE, it would take one person 13 years of non-stop HD video streaming to burn their way through it. Yours for just £8 million.

However, not all the week’s news was good. Ofcom pointed its regulatory finger at Vodafone UK, noting that the network had fallen short of its 3G coverage target. Vodafone has promised to achieve 90% population coverage by the end of 2013, bring it into line with EE, O2 and Three.

And we saw two CEOs prepare for departure. As well as Thorsten Heins leaving BlackBerry when the new funding arrives, Acer CEO JT Wang is stepping down after poor financial results. There are some weighty names getting involved when they leave: former Sybase chief exec John Chen is taking over at BlackBerry, while Acer co-founders Stan Shih and George Huang are overseeing restructuring at Acer. Good luck to all.

On Monday mornings we summarise the past week’s mobile industry headlines in a newsletter that’s very much like this article. To receive it, simply register your email address at TheFonecast.com by clicking the link at the top right-hand corner of our home page.

Comments

Collapse Expand Comments (0)
You don't have permission to post comments.

Recent Podcasts

ExclusivePodcast - 28th February 2012

James Rosewell and Mark Bridge report from Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona. In today's programme they look back at Monday's big news, they talk about user experience and look forward to Tuesday's events.

ExclusivePodcast - 27th February 2012

James Rosewell and Mark Bridge report from Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona. In today's programme they discuss some of the pre-show news and also look forward to Monday's events.

ExclusivePodcast - 22nd February 2012

Barclays introduces person-to-person mobile money transfers to the UK, Ofcom gets the go-ahead to cut wholesale interconnection charges, a handful of new phones are announced ahead of Mobile World Congress... plus the rest of the week's big news.

ExclusivePodcast - 15th February 2012

This week's headlines include Google and Motorola getting the go-ahead for their acquisition deal, 4000 Nokia staff losing their jobs, satellite phones being hacked, a new upgrade scheme from Phones 4u... and much more.

ExclusivePodcast - 10th February 2012

Dave Golding from Cellebrite talks about the company's new diagnostic tool. It uses the Cellbrite Touch tablet device to identify and fix faults, which enables retailers to reduce the number of suspect handsets they send for repair.
RSS
First3738394042444546Last

Follow thefonecast.com

Archive Calendar

«May 2026»
MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
27282930123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
1234567

Archive