The resignation of Apple chief Steve Jobs dominated the headlines this week, however the firm also got mentions for ongoing patent litigation against Samsung that saw the South Korean vendor point to a Stanley Kubrick movie in defense of its Galaxy Tab.
Jobs finally stepped down from the company he founded after an eight month medical leave of absence. He gave strong backing to successor Tim Cook, who has been at the helm since January, and pledged to remain involved with the firm as chairman of the board and an “Apple employee.”
Initial stock market jitters about the change, which was announced after the NASDAQ closed on Wednesday, proved short lived as analysts claimed to already be braced for Jobs’ departure.
Samsung featured heavily in Apple-related news this week, with a Netherlands court ordering a ban on sales of three Galaxy smartphones in the majority of Europe because they breach an Apple photo viewing patent. The South Korean vendor claimed a partial victory because the court rejected two other patent claims from Apple.
However, it lodged a bizarre defense in a separate case relating to the design of its Galaxy Tab, claiming Apple has no rights because the iPad copied devices seen in Stanley Kubrick’s 1969 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In its home country, Samsung was one of several firms linked with government plans to develop its own open-source operating system. Rival LG Electronics was also named as a potential partner for the scheme, which would initially target PCs, but could be extended to smartphones if successful.
Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia Siemens hold the largest share of the mobile infrastructure market, figures from Dell’Oro revealed. The research firm states total vendor revenues grew 25% year-on-year during 2Q11, as the market enjoys its fastest growth since 2004.
Indian mobile numbers are overplayed with up to a third of the country’s 850 million registered subscribers inactive at end-2010, Wireless Intelligence revealed. If accurate, the figures would cut India’s overall penetration rate from 68% to 48%.
There were mixed fortunes in the earnings of Chinese cellcos as China Telecom grew first half profit 10.2% to 9.71 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) while China Unicom saw income fall 9% to 2.65 billion yuan during the period.
SingTel offered SAP its first cloud deal in Asia Pacific, agreeing to host the German enterprise software firm’s business management service on its cloud infrastructure. The service will be targeted at small- to medium-sized enterprises in Singapore.
Austrian cellco A1 revealed that text messaging remains the most-used mobile service despite strong gains by social networks, e-mail and instant messaging. Games, news and social media are the most popular apps.
And researchers unveiled a wearable device that jams unauthorized access to pacemakers and other “implanted medical devices,” ComputerWorld reports. Apparently there is a very real threat that hackers could seize control of the medical kit or drain all power with a DDoS attack.