THE WRAP: More bad news than good on earnings

Galileo, the much delayed European rival to the US' GPS satellite system, finally launched a Giove-B satellite last Sunday.

Microsoft hasn't made any progress in its proposed take-over of Yahoo, despite setting last weekend as the deadline for Yahoo to accepts it offer and avoid a hostile take-over.

In the meantime, Yahoo has outsourced IM for mobile to Jajah, while Skype launched a beta VoIP client for mobile - sort of.

The week started well with TeliaSonera posting a 12% profit increase and Samsung's profits up 37%.

Then Alcatel-Lucent and Siemens posted poor results and forecast a bleak immediate future. Time Warner and BSkyB's profits also fell. (story today)

Alcatel-Lucent was chosen by Belgacom as its partner to design, integrate and deploy an end-to-end, multi-vendor IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) solution.

On the other hand, Debevoise & Plimpton, lawyers hired by Siemens to investigate allegations of corruption reported evidence of it in several countries.

On a more cheery note, Germany's Freenet is to buy Dutch mobile operator Debitel for about €1.63 billion, plus liabilities of about €1.135 billion.

Deutsche Telekom is negotiating the take over of Greece's incumbent OTE, despite opposition from trade unions and opposition politicians.

From today, T-Mobile customers in the UK will be able to use Qix software from Zi on certain phone models. Qix helps users locate items on their device - and the web - quickly.

Not all UK mobile users are having a good time. Regulator PhonepayPlus is to review mobile premium services, worth around £350 million (€447 million) annually, after a 40% increase in the number of complaints about content providers.

The US' Digi International acquired British company Sarian Systems, which makes wireless routers for £15.45 million (US$30.5 million; €19.71 million).