Commercial WiFi specialist Wicoms and VoIP service Skype have launched a new WiFi proposition called Free Skype WiFi. It enables businesses in the UK and Ireland to offer free Skype-branded public WiFi to their customers.

Businesses can choose a number of deals with pricing from £9.99+VAT per month plus a one-off £49+VAT for the router, although there’s a free one-month trial during October.

It's a good week for Yahoo! as it appoints Marissa Mayer - previously Google employee number 20 - to the role of CEO. However, things aren't as cheery at Research In Motion, which has been ordered to pay over $147 million in a patent case.

Meanwhile O2 UK is recovering from a network problem that left around a third of its customers disconnected for almost a day.

Independent payment service provider Sage Pay Europe has announced a partnership with mCommerce provider The MoBank Group that’ll let Sage Pay’s merchants offer mobile payments.

The new service will use MoPowered, Mobank’s secure Software-as-a-Service mCommerce solution.

Mark Bridge writes:

BlackBerry and bad news seem inextricably linked at the moment. RIM’s CEO admits he’s “not satisfied” with recent company performance and warns of challenging times ahead... and then the company is hit by a $147 million dollar damages order for patent infringement.

Mind you, Research In Motion wasn’t the only mobile company bringing disappointment into the mainstream news last week.

Vodafone Ireland and Three Ireland have agreed to set up a 50/50 joint venture company to share their physical network and site infrastructure across the country.

The deal, which has been rumoured for a few weeks, will see the two companies sharing around 2000 sites. As a result, Vodafone and Three will be able to reduce purchasing costs and potentially increase network coverage.