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Having rather unwisely offloaded its mobile phone division to investors for $100m in January 2008, Lenovo has spotted that it was a mistake of rather epic proportions and bought it back - for $200m. So that’s a wrap on the knuckles and a $100m penalty for being daft.

“As Lenovo’s global PC business continues to make steady progress, we view mobile Internet as a key growth opportunity moving forward globally,” said Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing while rather ignoring the question everyone has on their lips.

Let’s ask it: WHY sell off the business in the first place? Actually, there is some logic. Lenovo was short on cash at the time and needed the money so when investors offered $100m to take the then-unprofitable arm off its hands it seemed like a good move. Since then Lenovo’s PC business has improved and at the same time those crafty investors have transformed Lenovo mobile into a profitable business that is now ranked number three in China’s handset market and is the number one domestic brand! Consequently Lenovo felt ready to splash out again, especially when it admits:

“Industry analysts project the China mobile Internet market will grow to exceed US$16 billion by 2014, fueled [sic] by the rapid evolution of 3G mobile broadband and accompanying multimedia Internet services.”
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HP announced an extension of its BladeSystem solution builder program to enable additional independent software vendors (ISVs) to build solutions that customers can quickly deploy and easily manage in a converged infrastructure.

The HP converged infrastructure portfolio now includes new solutions capabilities developed with leading software vendors. New application infrastructure templates for HP BladeSystem Matrix (Matrix) represent best practice implementation and enable fast provisioning of complex infrastructures in minutes instead of months.

“Customers today are grappling with silos of infrastructure and are looking to simplify their data centers, as well as maximize the value of their technology investments,” said Santanu Ghose, Country Head, infrastructure software and blades, HP India. “With solutions such as HP BladeSystem Matrix, customers can align business initiatives with technology, creating a business-ready infrastructure that automatically adapts as market and business conditions change.”

Matrix templates are available on Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 as well as Oracle Database 11g, Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle’s PeopleSoft, and SAP NetWeaver. More Matrix templates are planned to be available in early 2010 to cover applications from Citrix, F5, McAfee, MicroStrategy, Novell, Red Hat, SAS, Siemens PLM Software, Inc., SunGard, TIBCO Software Inc. and VMware.
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IBM this week announced new development centers around the globe to help telecom operators develop new services that fit within today’s evolving communications business models.

Three standalone development centers will be located in China, South Africa and Malaysia. A fourth, in partnership with vendor Comverse, will set up shop in France.

The centers will focus on helping providers build new applications and services based on IBM’s Service Provider Delivery Environment 3.0 framework and will encompass software and hardware from a variety of business partners, IBM said.

Setting up global development centers has become standard practice for large telecom vendors, enabling them to handle local development needs but also in some cases to offer outsourced operational services as well.

The IBM Telecommunications Solution Center in China will operate as a subset of IBM’s already established China Development Labs. Among the work already underway there including efforts by China Mobile to deploy a new service creation platform.

IBM’s South Africa location, in Johannesburg, will serve all of Sub-Sahara Africa, IBM said. But Africa is also served by three additional solution center locations in Nairobi, Lagos and Cape Town. Among the work being done at the South Africa location is a proof of concept solution called “The Enterprise Applications for IMS + SDP for Mobile Healthcare” – which showcases how the health care industry can use standards-based telecom applications to improve the delivery of medical services.

IBM is opening a third center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Finally, the new Comverse Center of Excellence will work within the IBM Telecom Solutions Lab in France. The center will focus on BSS/OSS and service delivery platform solutions support.
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IBM is determined to show that the reports of the mainframe’s death have much exaggerated. The company has just announced a mammoth release of ten new software products all designed to improve the performance and introduce cost efficiencies for IBM’s System Z mainframe.

The new products cover a range of functionality including enhanced application connectivity, productivity, security and data management.

The appearance of so many products at once made a statement, said Jim Porell, a distinguished engineer at IBM. “It’s a pretty massive launch,” but he believed it was necessary to introduce so many enhancements at once. “The mainframe is competing with distributed environments - we wanted to show that there was a real commitment from IBM to the mainframe,” he said.

Porell said the themes of the new software launches were to simplify management, to offer a more consistent view of the data and to improve access. “The mainframe is like an interstate highway,” he said. “But trying to communicate with it is like using dirt back roads,” he added.

One of the key announcements was a new version of IBM’s information management system. The new release, IMS 11m uses open standards such as SQL to access IMS data said Porell.

Concerns about security have been met by the release of Tivoli zSecure to provide improved handling for the reporting of mainframe event: an important aspect of this is the improved graphical capability added Porell.

Complementing this is a new version of management product NetView helping managers get better insight on System Z data centres, while Asset Discovery for z/OS removes unused and obsolete software. “What are your assets?” said Porell, “this makes sure that software that is not being used can be removed, it offers a massive saving on licence costs.”

Among the releases are Rational Developer for System z version 7.6 which IBM claimed would lower development costs by reducing CPU usage, while Rational Team Concert for System z version 2.0 uses a new common repository to help development collaborate better.

Porell said that the company was keen to demonstrate where the mainframe offered an advantage over distributed systems. “You can get rid of multiple boxes and build everything on the mainframe. It simplifies the process and you don’t so many people to keep the systems running.
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Apple’s iPhone will be officially available on the 28th of this month from South Korea’s second largest mobile phone carrier KT Corp, ending a long wait for South Korea.

KT Corp have been taking reservations for the SmartPhone and plan to hold a special launch event on Saturday for around 1,000 customers who have pre-ordered the phone.

South Korea is one of the last of the Asian Pacific countries to offer the iPhone, which was launched in China last month and Japan last year, and is already on sale in India and Australia. In fact the iPhone is now available in 86 countries across the globe.

Part of the reason for the delay in making the iPhone available in South Korea was due to regulations surrounding the location based services the iPhone offers.

Under South Korean law, any business offering location based services such as maps and direction finders has to obtain permission from the government first.

Korea Communications Commission finally approved the granting of a business license to Apple to offer the location based services on Wednesday meaning that the last of the obstacles had been overcome.

It remains to be seen though, whether Apple will be able to eat into the dominance those Asian based manufacturers like Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics as well as Pantech Co have in South Korea. Locals tend to favour these suppliers over others.

Collectively these three companies are responsible for more than 90 percent of sales of mobile phones in South Korea, a country where 46 million people possess a mobile phone, or roughly 9 out of 10 of the population.

Apple isn’t saying much on the matter. Steve Park, Apple’s spokesman in Seoul has confirmed KT Corp’s announcement but wouldn’t be drawn into commenting on any sales projections.

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, Apple became the world’s most profitable handset vendor in Q3 2009. Nokia slipped into second position, as margins have been hit hard by both the economic downturn and a stagnant presence in the United States.

Alex Spektor, Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, “We estimate Apple’s operating profit for its iPhone handset division stood at $1.6 billion in the third quarter of 2009. Apple overtook Nokia for the first time, which recorded a lower $1.1 billion of operating profit. With strong volumes, high wholesale prices and tight cost controls, the PC vendor has successfully broken into the mobile phone market in just two years.”

Neil Mawston, Director of the Wireless Device Strategies service (WDS) at Strategy Analytics, added, “Nokia’s profit margin for its handset division has been shrinking during the 2009 global economic downturn. Strategy Analytics believes that the United States, where Nokia now trails Apple in marketshare, is the key to Nokia’s recovery in 2010. A successful fight on Apple’s high-profit home turf can simultaneously help to revitalize Nokia’s margins and to put a check on Apple’s surging growth.”

Microsoft has teamed up with hardware manufacturer Acer to deliver a Windows 7 laptop created to its specifications.

“I want to talk about the making of a laptop,” said Microsoft’s president of Windows and Windows Live, Steven Sinofsky, at the day-two keynote at the software giant’s annual Professional Developers Conference, being held in Los Angeles. “What we wanted to learn in building Windows 7 was what it’s like to make some hardware. We don’t do that a lot in the Windows Group.”

Sinofsky was promoting the new features available in Windows 7 to hardware developers, such as multi-touchscreen maker Sony, that improve the user experience via new APIs (application protocol interface) available in the operating system. The device comes as speculation mounts over the arrival of an Apple multi-touchscreen tablet equivalent to the iPhone.

Though our US readers will be able to get their hands on Dell’s latest premium laptop only from December 22, Asian consumers can will be the first to hold the super slim Adamo XPS as it starts shipping today to the region.

For S$3,299 (US$2,376.63), you get a unit decked out with a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo SU9400 chip, 4GB RAM and a 128GB SSD running on Windows 7 Home Premium, not to mention that cool heat-sensing strip. Unlike its cheaper siblings, there are no configurable options for this machine except for warranty upgrades.

The 1.44kg Dell Adamo XPS is available in Singapore, Malaysia, India and Australia and can be ordered via Dell’s online store.

For the second year running, solutions provider First Technology received the award for the Most Certified HP Person in South Africa. Riaan Swart, Technical Consultant, was honoured to receive this accolade at the recent HP Annual Partner Award’s evening.

Maintaining and achieving these HP certifications is a lifelong commitment, when one considers the continuous and fast moving changes in the IT industry.

According to Chris Bladergroen, First Technology’s COO: “Our focus on HP includes ensuring that our certification levels across the complete portfolio of HP products are maintained. We are thereby able to ensure that First Technology is able to provide our customers with the HP skills and knowledge they require to run their businesses efficiently and to get the best ROI possible.”

First Technology would like to congratulate Riaan for achieving this award. Not only has he managed to balance his training and studies, but he has also managed to successfully meet his customer commitments.

The rumor mill was abuzz with talk of insider trading after 3Com Corp. (NASDAQ:COMS) call trading jumped to a 26-month high four hours before Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ) announced it would acquire the Ethernet switching provider for $2.7 billion. Now, according to Bloomberg, the Securities and Exchange Commission is getting involved.

The regulator is reportedly examining whether advance knowledge of HP’s offer was used by traders to profit from the takeover. More than 8,000 3Com calls changed hands Wednesday, 17 times the four-week average.

As Baz Hiralal in Corporate Dealmaker pointed out, this isn’t the first time 3Com has been in the middle of possible insider trading around its M&A dealings. Federal prosecutors once alleged that a group of traders associated with hedge funds Galleon Group and Schottenfeld Group obtained insider information about Bain Capital LLC’s $2.5 billion acquisition offer for 3Com in September 2007. However, that deal eventually fell through.

Another similar case involves the investment adviser to one-time presidential candidate Ross Perot. The SEC in September filed a suit against Reza Saleh for buying options in Perot Systems Corp. (NYSE:PER) three weeks before Dell Inc.’s (NASDAQ:DELL) $3.9 billion bid.

In that scenario, the SEC was hot on Saleh’s trail, filing a complaint a mere two days after the announcement of the deal. But given the scope of this situation, as well as the difficulty in proving insider trading, an investigation into 3Com could take a bit longer.