Mitsubishi Exits Mobile Handset Business

Mitsubishi Electric has decided to no longer continue its mobile handset business in Japan. The company said it will strategically shift resources to its other communication-related businesses, including next generation network (NGN) related equipment and base stations.


Mitsubishi Electric started supplying car phones in 1983 to NTT. In recent year, it has been a supplier to NTT DoCoMo.


Mitsubishi Electric had previously forecast shipment of approximately 2.1 million handsets in fiscal 2008 (April 1, 2007-March 31, 2008).
http://www.mitsubishielectric.com

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Motorola Lands $335 Million Contract with Zain Saudi Arabia

Motorola has signed a $335 million turnkey contract to deploy and manage a 2G/3G mobile communications network for Zain in Saudi Arabia, the recent addition to the Zain group in Saudi Arabia. Under the deal, Motorola will supply its GSM/HSxPA network solutions as well as managed services for network design, integration, deployment, operations and maintenance.



Network deployment is expected to commence in Q1 2008 to enable Zain to launch its network in Saudi Arabia later this year.


A substantial portion of the purchase price on this contract will be financed by Motorola.http://www.motorola.comhttp://www.zain.com

• In January 2008, Nokia Siemens Networks announced a contract valued at approximately US$1 billion to roll out a state-of–the-art greenfield mobile network in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on behalf of Zain. Formerly known as the MTC Group, Zain is the leading telecommunications mobile provider in 22 countries across the Middle East and Africa and was recently awarded the third mobile telecommunications license for Saudi Arabia. Nokia Siemens Networks will provide to Zain in Saudi Arabia the latest 2G and 3G mobile network technologies, including HSDPA and HSUPA, based on the latest base station design and distributed architecture for both radio access and core networks according to the 3GPP release 4 standard. Nokia Siemens Networks said it will deliver a full turnkey solution, including managed services for five years from a dedicated local network operations center. The US$ 935 million turnkey contract also includes network planning, implementation, project management, systems integration, logistics management, multi-vendor maintenance, field services and network optimization for the base station sites. The company will also provide a wide range of operations and business support system (OSS/BSS) solutions.

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Intel's Centrino Atom Aims for New Mobile Internet Devices

Intel unveiled its new line of low-power "Atom" processors designed specifically for mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and a new class of Internet-centric computers expected later this year. Intel sees these new market segments as significant new growth opportunities.


The Intel Atom processor features a new microarchitecture that maintains Intel Core 2 Duo instruction set compatibility and includes support for multiple threads. The chip measures less than 25 mm² and packs 47 million transistors, making it Intel's smallest and lowest power processor yet. These new chips, previously codenamed Silverthorne and Diamondville, will be manufactured on Intel's 45nm process with hi-k metal gate technology. Intel said new chips in this line have a thermal design power (TDP) specification in 0.6-2.5 watt range and scale to 1.8GHz speeds depending on customer need. By comparison, today's mainstream mobile Core 2 Duo processors have a TDP in the 35-watt range.


The Intel Centrino Atom processor, formerly codenamed "Menlow," includes the Intel Atom processor, a low-power companion chip with integrated graphics, a wireless radio, and thinner and lighter designs. Together, these components are designed to enable mobile computing.http://www.intel.com

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