Mark Bridge writes:

It’s Easter, but that’s not stopped the mobile phone industry from generating plenty of news stories.

Let’s start with partnerships. Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom - which already work together as Everything Everywhere in the UK – have now agreed to combine their procurement activities for customer equipment, network equipment, service platforms and IT infrastructure. Yes, even these two telecoms giants can save money with group buying!

The other big partnership news came from Nokia and Microsoft, who finally signed the agreement they announced in February. In addition Nokia released its quarterly results, which – by all accounts – were neither brilliant nor terrifying.

Talking of results, we also saw figures from Qualcomm, ZTE, Huawei, Sony Ericsson and Apple. All, as you’d expect, were accompanied by upbeat announcements.

An assortment of research told us things we could probably have guessed… with a surprise or two. Shipments of GPS-equipped phones are up, sales of NFC-equipped phones are increasing, most tablet sales are iPads – and smartphones are ever more reliant on WiFi to handle their data requirements.

Ofcom published figures showing the mobile networks that generated the most complaints – but this complaint story was soon eclipsed by news that Apple’s iPhones were tracking their users.

And finally, the ‘legal action of the week’ award goes to Apple and Samsung. Apple is taking legal action against Samsung, arguing that many Samsung products have copied Apple’s designs. Within a few days, Samsung responded with its own attack on Apple. It’s a bit like the schoolyard, isn’t it?

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