a pound for every time..

..somebody told me that SBC are going to buy AT&T..I’m drowing in emails from everybody telling me the news.

Restructuring in the sector

A deal could usher in the next chapter of restructuring in the
sector, creating a vertically integrated communications giant with a
strong presence across technologies and customer bases.

Analysts
believe this may in turn trigger another wave of consolidation as SBC’s
fellow regional telecoms such as Verizon and BellSouth also seek to
extend their reach.

The most likely targets would be MCI, the
long-distance operator recently emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy
proceedings, and Qwest, the struggling regional player.

America’s
telephone companies have been hit by the migration of customers to
other technologies such as wirleless and cable. These pressures have
led to a series of mergers and talks about deals. Last year, Cingular
Wireless bought AT&T Wireless for $41bn and Nextel and Sprint
agreed to a $36bn merger. [via FT]

We all know who’s going to be the real winner in all this..the merchant bankers.

SBC and AT&T approve $16bn merger

SBC Communications and AT&T
on Monday said they had approved a $16bn merger that will create the
largest telecommunications company in the US and end AT&T’s
120-history as an independent company.

//

Under
the terms of the deal approved by both boards, shareholders at AT&T
will receive stock worth $18.41 a share and a special dividend of $1.30
a share. This means SBC is paying AT&T shareholders a combination
of just under $15bn in stock and just over $1bn in cash.

David
Dorman, AT&T’s chief executive, will become president of the
combined group, and join its board along with two other AT&T
executives. Edward Whitacre will remain as chairman and chief executive
of the new company. [via FT.com]

So the roumours and speculation has proved correct and the merger has gone through. Now we’ll have to see how this affects EMEA as this new huge American company develops its strategy.

Is printing on the wall for Fiorina?

If you strapped enough LaserJet printers together, could you make a life
raft?

At some point during the past few days, Carly Fiorina must have pondered the
question.

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Hewlett-Packard’s board is
considering a plan to take some of Fiorina’s chief executive authority away and
divvy it up among three underlings.[via Houston Chronicle]

I read somewhere the other day that the share price of HP was 21 dollars and that if you ripped out the printer business from HP that it’s share price alone would be around the 21 dollar mark. So it’s other business interests are dragging the money making business. So obviously the board has thought maybe it’s time to do somehting about this and split/sell off part of the business to realise some of that money, which must be billions for the printer business.

BT goes on spending spree to challenge IBM

BT Global Services, the international arm of the telecoms group,
is to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on further acquisitions in a bid to
challenge IBM in the IT services sector.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Andy Green, the
head of the division, said the group is planning a string of further
acquisitions. The telecoms group has already spent $1.4bn (£740m) in the past
nine months to
buy two US businesses, Infonet and Radianz, and Albacom in Italy.

"We are actively looking at everything that’s moving in the
marketplace. But don’t get this out of proportion. Hundreds of millions of
dollars is about the range you should be looking at," he said, adding that
Europe would be a key area for expansion. [via Telegraph Money]

This is nothing new really…it’s clear that BT has a dying phone business and needs to do something about it. Hence it’s push into services. But as Martin has suggested a few times is, that BT lacks a clear vision.

The phone of the chav

The razr is the phone of choice for the chav but now they’re all gonna be a bit miffed as there’s an even more exclusive chav phone..the black razr.  I can’t see it being as big as the silver coloured phone as chav is all about being as ‘bling’ as possible with your obligatory burberry baseball cap.

Amsterdam..again!

Back to Amsterdam again this week, flying out Tuesday morning and back Thursday afternoon with KLM.

It’s the EMEA Networking Services education sessions and as I’ve mentioned before I’ve got a presentation on the Teleco landscape and procurement. I’ve also got an hour slot and the NSD EMEA team meeting the day before…two different presentations in a week. One an inward looking one on what my team is doing and where it’s going and one outward looking at the landscape of the telco market place right now and how to procure within it.

PC rebuild

As I mentioned a few days ago the HD on the house PC was clicking away and due to die at any moment. So I bought a new 120gb HD and some more ram and a new case and CPU fan along with a new silent power supply too. I spent most of yesterday installing it all and re-installing XP. Well it’s all back up and running and making a lot less noise than it used to.

The whole job was fun and made me think about taking it further to making either the house PC or another PC silent….but i doudt I’ll ever get around to it…ho hum.

First week with the SPV C500

It’s been over a week now since it arrived and so far I’m impressed. It does what it says on the tin, it’s a smart phone.  It syncs up to my Lotus Notes via mNotes which is great. So I can read my Notes on the go and have an uptodate calendar and to-do list all on the go. Surfing the web, well tried it and it works but why bother when it’s available all day at work and at home.

I’ve tried IpodderSP and it works fine…I’m running ppctunes right now, but I’ve just written them a snotty email as the software doesn’t do what the web page says…it doesn’t sync more like copies and re-copies a playist not playlists (more than one).

Otherwise, great, sound quality really impressed, the speaker phone is great too…all in all I think the reviews are right it’s a damn fine smart phone..thanks Mr Scoble.

SBC & AT&T

All the financial papers are reporting it’s more advanced than they first thought. So is it a done deal..I don’t know, but it looks very likely. The interesting part will be what will the new company want to do here in EMEA, we can only wait and see.