News In Brief: Zain, Samsung, Amazon, O2, Alcatel-Lucent

Middle-eastern telecom group Zain will be forced to hunt for a new CEO after the surprise resignation of current chief executive Saad Al Barrak.
 
Samsung expects its handset shipments to grow 19% to over 270 million units in 2010, with growth facilitated by strong smartphone demand.
 
Amazon has acquired Touchco, a New York-based start-up specializing in touchscreen technology, New York Times reported. Amazon will merge Touchco’s technology into its Kindle reader to help it compete against the iPad.
 
Mobile carrier O2 says its it has signed 1m subs to its priority tickets services since it was launched in 2007
 
Alcatel-Lucent will expand Bell Labs Ireland with help from the Irish Industrial Development Agency.
 
Global DSL prices per megabit dropped by almost 30% in the 12 months to Q409, new research from Point Topic found. Cable prices per megabit fell by just over 23%, while the bandwidth cost of fiber increased by 2.1% in the same period.
 
Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile have sealed a deal covering future development of M2M products and services with Telit Communications.