France Télécom's newly instated CEO, Stephane Richard, has outlined the new direction for the company in Les Conquêtes 2015 (or loosely translated Conquest 2015). The main impacts are in Content & TV and Network Infrastructure. In the future France Télécom will scale back its investments in content acquisitions. Instead of purchasing expensive content rights on its own, it will seek partners for select bids, such as football rights. This change of tack is a contrast to the policy of the former CEO. In the past years the operator has made significant investments in content acquisitions in order to boost its IPTV services. This will now change. Instead the company will focus on investments in LTE (Long Term Evolution) and fibre networks. Although Mr. Richard states that that the company will continue its efforts in content & TV there is little doubts that the company is shifting investments from content to networks which worth while discussing. Read more

This is an open letter response to Ofcom's latest discussion paper on traffic management and 'net neutrality'. The document raises several concerns to the future the British digital economy and British citizens. Instead of focusing on encouraging growth in the digital economy and creation of new companies and jobs, as well as protect UK citizens' interests, Ofcom's preliminary conclusions and arguments show that the regulator may more interested in protecting the interests of ISPs and established content and service providers in order to drive the development of fibre networks. Read more

It has been on the cards since the relaunch of Palm at CES 2008 that the likely outcome for the new Palm was to be acquired. Spear-headed by former Apple executives, such as CEO Jon Rubinstein, and capital from Elevation Partners, Palm set out to essentially become a second Apple in the mobile phone industry by launching Webos.

Although I have not thoroughly tested and reviewed Webos phones, such as the Pre or Pixi, Webos brought innovations to the mobile phone industry in terms of contact management, messaging and combining activities.

However, unlike when Apple entered the high end mobile phone market, Palm faced much stronger competition and failed to gain developer traction as well as operator support and commitments. These issues resulted in poor customer uptake. Consequently Palm's share price has tanked and there have been plenty of speculations as to which company would acquire Palm.

It was puzzling to attend the IPTV Forum that was recently organized in London, UK. The event talks up the IPTV market, where a range of suppliers show case how they can help telcos drive TV and video services over broadband pipelines. Those that are familiar with our views know that we have for years expressed our views and concerns, via advisory and consulting capabilities, on IPTV implementations and how telcos are setting up loss making business operations. Read more