Corporate and legal

WiMax appears to be a hit around the world--except for the U.S., according to deployment data released by the WiMax Forum Monday.

WiMax, also known as 4G, now is offered on networks covering 620 million people in 147 countries, said the WiMax forum. By the end of 2010, 800 million people will be covered with 1 billion by the end of 2011. The 2011 time frame is notable because that's when Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, a WiMax rival technology, will begin to ramp.

The data, however, indicates that WiMax is a global effort, but lags in North … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is trying to hold on to business customers with a free version of its BlackBerry Enterprise Server software.

Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis announced here Tuesday during his keynote address to the Mobile World Congress that the company will offer a free version of BlackBerry Enterprise Server software for small and medium-size business customers, as well as for businesses that want to let employees use their own phones to access corporate e-mail.

BlackBerry Express Server is software that syncs BlackBerry phones with Microsoft Exchange or Windows Small Business servers. Previously, RIM had charged all companies a … Read more

Fulfilling a 10-year ambition, Larry Ellison's sailing team won the America's Cup sailing race Sunday near Valencia, Spain.

The BMW Oracle Racing team used a triple-hulled craft called a trimaran sporting a giant vertical airfoil rather than a conventional sail. The airfoil works on the same principal an airplane wing, only it pushes the boat along through the water while a horizontal wing on a plane lifts the plane up.

"It's absolutely an awesome feeling," Ellison said in a statement. James Spithill, a 30-year-old from Australia, was skipper of the boat; Ellison was listed in … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Verizon Wireless is on track to offer its 4G wireless service later this year, the company's chief technology officer said here Monday.

Dick Lynch, an executive vice president and CTO for Verizon Communications, said during a press conference here that Verizon Wireless is on track to launch its commercial LTE (long-term evolution) service this year. The gathering was hosted by the GSM Association, which puts on the Mobile World Congress.

Lynch said Verizon Wireless is in the final testing phase, or "Phase 4," of its LTE technology. Within 60 days he said he expects testing to … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Steve Ballmer hopes "7" will be Microsoft's lucky number as the company restarts its mobile business with the release of Windows Phone 7.

On Monday, the CEO of Microsoft and his team of Microsoft executives took the wraps off the latest version of the Windows Mobile operating system at a press conference here at the Mobile World Congress. The new Windows Phone 7 is a fresh start for the company in mobile.

"There's no question that a year and a half ago we had to rethink everything," Ballmer said.

Instead of revamping Windows … Read more

In an effort to spread its Flash technology as widely as possible, Adobe Systems has joined the LiMo Foundation, a group devoted to putting Linux on mobile phones.

Adobe's Flash Player is ubiquitous on computers, but the company's Flash Lite effort hadn't met with much success extending the programming foundation to mobile phones. With a new generation of relatively powerful smartphones on the market, Adobe is trying again with a full-featured but lightweight version of the computer software, Flash Player 10.1, due in the first half of 2010.

Flash is missing from the highest-profile smartphone, Apple'… Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Some of the world's largest wireless operators are uniting to create "an open international applications platform" in an effort to tap demand for mobile applications.

At the Mobile World Congress 2010 trade show and conference here on Monday, two dozen mobile phone carriers, including Verizon Wireless, AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Deutsche Telekom, China Mobile, and Vodafone announced plans to launch the "Wholesale Applications Community" to create a wholesale platform for launching mobile application stores. The platform would provide a single point of entry for application developers.

The effort is meant to reduce fragmentation … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Executives from Sony Ericsson, the struggling European handset maker working hard to make a turnaround in 2010, said most of its new phones introduced this coming year will sport the Google Android operating system.

On the eve of the Mobile World Congress trade show, Sony Ericsson held a press conference here to show off its three new smartphones due out the first half of 2010. All three phones fit into an existing portfolio of devices that the company is calling the Fab Five. And two of the latest handsets will use Google Android.

The two new Android phones are … Read more

Carl Icahn has substantially cut his stake in Yahoo, according to regulatory filings made public Friday.

The billionaire investor had just under 12 million shares of Yahoo at the end of 2009, according to the new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That compares with more 60 million shares he held last summer.

Two years ago when Microsoft was attempting an acquisition of Yahoo, Icahn amassed a huge stake in the Internet pioneer. When Yahoo turned down Microsoft's offer, Icahn started a proxy fight and sought to oust Yahoo's board in order to influence the deal. In … Read more