Nokia and Capcom have announced that Capcom will be publishing games on N-Gage in 2008. Capcom is the first Japanese based publisher to show their commitment to N-Gage, which makes its global debut later this year. Classic titles such as Mega Man, Street Fighter and Resident Evil can distributed over the air through operator networks or over the internet to a user’s PC.
Matsushita Electric shares fell to a two-year low after Nokia offered to replace as many as 46 million handset batteries produced by the company on concerns they may overheat. Matsushita, the world’s largest consumer-electronics maker – more widely known as Panasonic – saw it’s shares drop 5 percent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange to 2,015 yen which is the lowest closing price since October 2005.
Sanyo has decided to sell its mobile phone business as part of its effort to improve group-wide profitability, with an agreement expected by the end of the year, according to a web report on Saturday by public broadcaster NHK. Sanyo is said to be negotiating separately with Sharp and Kyocera according to this article on The Japan Times. The exit rumor surfaced late last year.
The LiMo Foundation issued a statement [.PDF] to announce it has experienced a surge in membership as some of world’s most well-known mobile industry players have joined the Foundation during the past six months. Aplix, Celunite, LG Electronics, McAfee and Wind River have joined as Core members and will participate on the foundation board. Additionally, ARM, Broadcom, Ericsson, Innopath, KTF, MontaVista Software and NXP B.V. have joined as Associate members.
ACCESS has announced the addition of eight new members to the growing roster of companies supporting its ACCESS Linux Platform and NetFront browser technologies through the ACCESS Connect Ecosystem (ACE) global partner program. The addition of the eight new members brings the total number ACE partners to over 65. ACE partners work closely with ACCESS to expand the mobile Linux market and help fuel the growth of converged technologies and devices.
IDC released a report earlier this month which identified InnoPath as the strongest MDM (Mobile Device Management) vendor in its ability to gain market share and alignment with market opportunities. Of the top eleven MDM providers, InnoPath was favorably positioned with its ability to leverage market trends, its growth potential, as well as its ability to gain market share.
AP is reporting, via Yahoo, that NEC Corp. said Tuesday its profit in the April-June period more than tripled, helped by turnaround efforts in its overseas mobile phone operations. Profit at the Tokyo-based electronics manufacturer totalled 973 million yen (US$8.2 million) for the three months ended June 30, up dramatically from 261 million yen the same period the previous year.
NextWave Wireless announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire all shares of IPMobile held by Mori Trust Co., Ltd., of Japan. Upon closing of the transaction, NextWave will hold a 69.2% stake in IPMobile. The agreement is subject to required government approvals. IPMobile has been working with IPWireless towards a commercial launch of a TD-CDMA wireless broadband network by November of this year. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Zentek announced a strategic partnership with UDcast to provide the Japanese and Far East Asia markets with DVB-H enabled products. Zentek will act as the reseller and integrator for in these markets to bring the tools for Japanese manufacturers and Asian operators. In Japan, the equipment provided by UDcast and Zentek will enable manufacturers to develop and produce mobile phones, notebooks, chipsets, in-car TV receivers and other devices compatible with DVB-H technology.
The USPTO has awarded NEC a patent on their technology for smart file downloads. The technology has been designed for phones with built-in wifi radios – allowing them to connect to any wireless access point. The idea is to have the phone decide, on its own, whether to download a file over-the-air via cellular networks or through a wifi network wireless access point.
