Sony Ericsson to be Sony Soon!!

Ya! that's in news i.e. the Sony Ericsson is gonna be Sony in some days as Sony has planned to Ericsson's share in the company.

Sony today announced that it will buyout Ericsson’s 50 percent stakes for USD 1.47 billion in Sony Ericsson to completely hold the the control of mobile handset manufacturing unit.

Sony Ericsson will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony and company has plans integrate it’s handsets/smartphones into Sony’s broad range of consumer electronics products including PCs, Laptops, TVs and Tablets.

Based out of Tokyo and Stockholm respectively, Sony and Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson announced the deal in a press release to end a partnership that was tabled back in 2001.

“Ten years ago when we formed the joint venture, thereby combining Sony’s consumer products knowledge with Ericsson’s telecommunication technology expertise, it was a perfect match to drive the development of feature phones.Today we take an equally logical step as Sony acquires our stake in Sony Ericsson and makes it a part of its broad range of consumer devices. We will now enhance our focus on enabling connectivity for all devices, using our R&D and industry leading patent portfolio to realize a truly connected world.”

Ericsson President Hans Vestberg said in a release,

Sony Ericsson, the sixth largest mobile phone maker, has lately struggled to retain it’s market share in a competitive and innovative handset industry. Sony intended to take the lead in the partnership to compete with the rivals in getting back the user share.

Unlike Sony, Ericsson is more tending towards wireless network and infrastructure business and hence Sony made this a case to buy back all the shares in Sony Ericsson.

Sony Ericsson is headquartered in London and had 7,500 employees as of December 2010. Company has R&D sites in Beijing, Lund, Silicon Valley and Tokyo. Company has 11 percent market share in Android and 80 percent of it’s sales are Android based smartphones.

Mukesh Ambani plans to roll out 4G data services, low cost tablets in 2012

Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries plans to offer high-speed data services on attractively priced tablets by early next year and scale it up to a countrywide network by the middle of 2012.

The company, which made a comeback to telecom last year, plans to offer fourth-generation or 4G-enabled data cards that can be plugged into computers and laptops, apart from providing tablets at a game-changing price of 3,000 or even lower to hook customers, two executives familiar with the development said.

RIL has also initiated talks with media and entertainment companies, including Walt Disney's Indian venture UTV Software, to acquire content for its wireless broadband offerings. A deal with Walt Disney, which is close to being finalised, will enable the company to offer games, entertainment and applications for the younger customers.

It plans to provide data connectivity with speeds of 50-100 Mbps, much faster than 3G services currently on offer, at cheaper prices.

The strategy of enticing customers with low prices is similar to the move in 2003, when it took mobile telephony to the masses with its 'Monsoon Hungama' handsets at 501, helping it win 1 million customers in just 10 days.

Reliance Infocom, the telecom arm of the undivided Reliance Group, began its services on December 28, 2002, the birthday of the group's founder Dhirubhai Ambani. The company, now known as Reliance Communications, is owned Anil Ambani, the younger brother of Mukesh.

RIL has acquired Infotel, a company that won pan-India spectrum for broadband wireless access last year and plans full-scale commercial operations by mid-2012. By then, it expects to have its networks ready across 700 cities, one of the executives said. Neither wanted to be identified. The company will also gradually offer much higher speeds for data transfer on its network. It has considered a soft launch as early as December, one source said.

Reliance is working overtime to make a success out of its latest venture, which it hopes will boost investor confidence that has been battered by harsh criticism from the Comptroller and Auditor General. The company's other initiatives, such as retail, continue to be small blips in its balance sheet while its gas production has declined because of reservoir complexity.

The company's spokesman declined comment on specifics of its broadband plans saying Reliance would not comment on speculation. But in an update on its telecoms business, Reliance said on Friday that its telecom unit was "in the process of setting up a world-class broadband wireless network using state-of-the-art technologies and finalising the arrangement with leading global technology players, service providers, infrastructure providers, application developers, device manufacturers and others to help usher the 4G revolution into India".

The company is learnt to be in the final phase of talks with three vendors - Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson and China's Huawei - for its broadband gear after finishing trials with equipment provided by all the three. It is not clear if RIL will go with a single vendor or split the contracts between the three, said executives with gearmakers aware of the ongoing talks.