A day of mixed fortunes #WVA2012

It was a day of mixed fortunes for Alcatel-Lucent as shares fell sharply on reports of a wider operating loss but there was brighter news in the evening as UK & Ireland CEO, Lucy Dimes, lifted two trophies at the prestigous World Vendor Awards.

First up came Best Content Solution for their Digital Media Store, to be followed up by one of the highlights of the evening, CEO of the Year for Ben Verwaayen. Ben unfortunately couldn't make it to the dinner (something to do with first quarter results - see above!) but did send an acceptance video which you can watch. You can also read an interview with Ben Verwaayen conducted by ETNODigital on Total Telecom.

Joining Alcatel-Lucent at the World vendor Awards were a raft of other excited winners, including both the biggest in the industry (ZTE, Ericsson, Syniverse etc) and some less well known names such as fonYou, ADTRAN, and Momac. You can discover all the winners by downloading the Magazine of the Night.

Finally, speaking of awards, don't forget that entries are now open for the 2012 World Communication Awards, including the new category of Best Place to Work

Who will be the winner? #WVA2012

60 companies will gather for tomorrows World Vendor Awards at Jumeirah Carlton Tower. Good luck to everyone on the shortlist!

If you are Tweeting from the event or about the event, use #WVA2012

Thanks for our sponsors: Ipanema Technologies and ZTE.

Espoo sandwich

Industry observers and are still digesting the Espoo sandwich that was Nokia's Q1 results, which had us speculating in this week's Friday Review about the future of its infrastructure business, Nokia Siemens Networks.

It was interesting to note during my research the number of other players that were once all-singing, all-dancing network equipment providers and device makers that subsequently sliced, diced, and spun-off various parts of their business.

Before becoming Alcatel-Lucent in 2006, Alcatel had a handset division that it spun off into a joint venture with Hong Kong's TCL Communication in 2004.

NSN's joint venture partner, Munich-based Siemens, sold its phone arm to its partner BenQ in 2005.

More recently, Motorola split into two distinct units, Motorola Mobility for the handset business and Motorola Solutions for the networks and TV business. It sold its wireless network arm to Nokia Siemens in July 2010 for $1.2 billion.

Bringing things bang up to date we have Ericsson, which of course completed the sale of its half of Sony Ericsson to Sony earlier this year.

I'm sure there are plenty more examples out there; the question is, will we see Nokia put more distance between its loss-making handset business and its loss-making networks business?

Fishing for Chips

It's a nice problem to have, more demand for your products than you can make, at least that's what you'd think, but as Total Telecom reported yesterday that may not be how Qualcomm is feeling.

CEO Paul Jacobs said yesterday "Chasing supply is our biggest issue," and the stock market responded with shares sliding by 3.5% in afterhours trading.

This hit on the stock market could be exasperated if other chip makers can muscle into the sector, and who would bet against Intel after the XOLO X900 launched in India, powered by an Intel chip.

The conflict between stock market and telecom company performance is one of the discussion areas for the Total Telecom Finance Summit in October. Find out more at www.totaltele.com/financesummit

Oldies and goodies: #mpayments #data

Two stories reported by the BBC struck a cord with me, making me realise that there's no such thing as a new idea and that perhaps technology can't cure all.

First up the admirable attempt from Barclaycard to drive adoption contactless payments by providing customers with a second 'credit card' that they can stick onto the back of their mobile phone. The logic I can see, and it may well enable them to demonstrate to device manufacturers a need to include a payment chip in future handsets, but it makes me wonder who else might adopt such a strategy? Will the iPhone 5 feature stick on Apps?

Never the less, there might be plenty of people from the publishing fraternity delighted to see the revival of the 'cover mount' - even if it is a battery cover...

The second story was the serious issue of Internet monitoring and use of personal data, addressed by none other than Sir Tim Berners-Lee. In an interview with the Beeb he said "It's worth going online and making sure you talk to your MP, talk to your friends and make sure they're aware of this concern and, if necessary, get out there in the streets, waving banners."

Get out on the streets waving banners, how terribly 1990. I suppose at least the protests will be organised through Facebook and Blackberry Messenger and reported through Twitter and Instagram...

So as the wheel turns, it's time to dig out your LP's, search out your Betamax, and start playing Snake on your (black and white) mobile.

39 Reasons to Read April Total Telecom+

The latest issue of Total Telecom+ is out, providing insightful analysis for the global communications industry.


In this issue you will find issues including: 
+ Spectrum policy: Harmony in the band; 
+ European regulation: Roam rule; 
+ Content strategies: TV anywhere

As well as Mary Lennighans leader, TV Times, Timeline, and Prime Numbers.

Oh, and if you haven't counted 39 reasons yet to read this issue, then that's the great companies featured in this issue - 39 of them in the main articles!

Total Telecom+ is a fully digital publication, available for free on Android or iOS device, as a simple PDF, or as a digital page turner.

COMPANIES IN THIS ISSUE:

Alcatel-Lucent; Amazon; Analysys Mason; Apple; BSkyB; BT Vision; Check Point; Chunghwa Telecom; Cisco; Deutsche Telekom; Ericsson; Facebook; Fortinet; Gartner; Globecomm; Greenwich Consulting; GSM Association; IBM; iDate; Informa; Juniper Networks; Lovefilm; Netflix; Orange; Ovum; QuickPlay; Shazam; Strategy Analytics; Syniverse; TDG; Telekom Austria; TeliaSonera; Tellabs; T-Mobile USA; Twitter; Virgin Media; Vodafone Group; Zeebox; ZTE

Accompanying this issue: Tellabs Insight 

Driving Mobile Backhaul in Latin America

Stock response: hitting the buffers

Embattled device produced HTC has a new CFO - we reported this on Total Telecom yesterday - but our headline didn't shout at me in quite the same was as that of Business Insider.

"HTC Is Getting Clobbered After Its CFO Unexpectedly Leaves The Company" was the title followed up by a quote from Tom Tang, a vice president at Masterlink Investment Advisory in Taipei "When a company changes its CFO, it often indicates that the company's operations or financials have reached a bottleneck."

This resonated with me as it's one of the themes that will be addressed at the forthcoming Total Telecom Finance Summit in October (tweet with #TTFS12). If this interests you, why not speak to us about how you can get involved or Save the Date to attend: 10 & 11 October, London

www.totaltele.com/financesummit


[Image: ©Fredgoldstein Stock Free Images]

On this day: #news from the archives

Plundering the archives of Total Telecom is a fascinating experience, seeing how issues have moved on (or not), how companies have thrived (or not), and how technologies have developed (or not). And as Total Telecom online has been providing news for the telecom industry since 1997, there's quite a lot to plunder...

So for no particular reason, other than interest, I looked at stories making the headlines on Total Telecom, on or around the 1st April one, five, ten and fifteen years ago.

ONE YEAR AGO: 1 APRIL 2011
AT&T establishes terms of $20bn loan from JP Morgan

Time Warner Cable removes channels from iPad app

London Tube mobile phone plan dropped

FIVE YEARS AGO: 2 APRIL 2007
Blyk business model in question as launch looms

AT&T in talks to become majority Telecom Italia shareholder

TEN YEARS AGO: 1 APRIL 2002
Japanese 3G market heats up as KDDI joins in

NTL calls Chapter 11 report 'speculation'

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: 1 APRIL 1997
Loral to Join Alcatel in Skybridge Alliance

Arianespace to Launch Eutelsat W3