THE WRAP: Hutch's spinoff plan, and a record slump in PC sales

06 Mar 2009
00:00

This week Hutchison Telecom planned a separate listing for its Hong Kong business, and Ofcom promised BT a free hand in pricing its wholesale broadband.

Hutchison Telecom International's profit fell sharply after last year's $9 billion windfall result. It plans to spin off its Hong Kong assets in an estimated $250 million listing in May.

Ofcom said BT would be free to set wholesale prices on its new fiber broadband network.

Hong Kong businessman Joseph Lau revealed that he and a group of "friends" had bought a $200 million stake in PCCW, but were not subject to the SFC probe into vote-rigging.

Amazon began selling its Kindle e-reader through Apple's apps store.

Qualcomm said the first products based on Snapdragon would ship in the second half of the year. CDMA pioneer Irwin Jacobs stepped down as chairman of Qualcomm.

France Telecom blamed higher taxes and currency movements for a 35% fall in net profit. Nortel's Q4 loss more than doubled to $2.1 billion.

YouTube and Universal, the world's largest music label, are reported to be in advanced discussions over a premium music video site.

The PC industry is going through its worst slump ever, said Gartner. It predicts unit sales will fall 12% this year. Mobile phone shipments fell 4.6% in Q4.

Telstra offloaded IT services subsidiary Kaz to Fujitsu for $126 million. Telecom New Zealand was fined $22,000 for misleading customers about their pricing and billing practices.

Two Britons were convicted for an attempted $320 million heist - a world record - from the Sumitomo Mitsui Bank in London using keystroke loggers.

Classified information about the electronic systems on President Obama's helicopter was discovered on a computer in Iran. Obama chose Vivek Kundra, former CTO of Washington DC, as White House CIO.

An ITU study found Singapore and Hong Kong had Asia's lowest phone charges.

Intel contracted TSMC to make MID and other devices using its Atom chips. Taiwan began restructuring its chip sector.

Psion demanded $1.2 billion damages from Intel for allegedly using the netbook trademark without its permission.

US wireless operators face up to $4.8 billion in spectrum fees over the next decade.

A Facebook exec said the company's bid for microblogger Twitter failed because the parties could not agree on a valuation for Facebook.

RailCorp of New South Wales threatened legal action against the developer of an iPhone app train timetable.

And an Australian postdoc scientist created a Maxwell Smart-style shoephone.

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