THE WRAP: Google gets music, another roadblock for PCCW

This week Google swung into music downloads and PCCW faced yet another obstacle on the road to privatisation.

Google tackled Baidu head-on in the China search market with its first music download service, with a revenue share deal with major labels. It also unveiled a $100 million VC fund targeting the net, software and cleantech.

Hong Kong's securities regulator asked a High Court judge to block PCCW's privatization. PCCW lawyers said the alleged vote-rigging scheme involving staff at insurance firm Fortis was merely the distribution of PCCW shares as a bonus.

Australian research agency CSIRO won a settlement from HP in its long-running WLAN patent suit. The case continues against Microsoft, Dell, Intel and others.

Skype landed on the iPhone. RIM launched its app store, Microsoft said it had signed up dozens of developers for its store and Nokia said it had lined up thousands.

Boxes of unsold iPhones are stacking up in India because of the $700 price tag.

China Unicom announced a 6% fall in profit and said it would spend $16 billion on its networks this year.

Taiwanese hackers breached China's Great CyberWall to download early drafts of the premier's top-secret work report. A senior official was stripped of his Party post as punishment.

Five months after the shutdown of spam kings McColo, bulk email volumes have returned to normal.

Faced with soaring consumer complaints, the Australian industry regulator will get more powers to deal with dodgy telcos running premium phone call scams.

Cyber-crime rose by a third last year to $265 million, according to the IC3. The most common complaint was non-delivery of goods, followed by auction and credit card fraud.

CSL went all-IP with its new 21Mbps HSPA+ network, as CEO Tarek Robbiati derided 3G as "a voice-centric network with erratic coverage and poor speeds."

Dell is to become a Japanese MVNO. HP is thinking about installing the Android OS in netbooks.

SingTel lined up a $709 million credit facility. The New Zealand government set up a dedicated firm to drive its $855 million next-gen broadband investment and seek matching funds from the private sector.

Rackable Systems swept up the remains of once-mighty Silicon Graphics for $25 million. Facebook sparked IPO speculation as it parted ways with CFO Gideon Yu.

The UK government may have to intervene in a dispute between mobile operators over how to share broadband wireless spectrum.

And in an outbreak of April 1 humor, the iToaster, the Twitter newspaper, and the tambourine password recovery app made an appearance.