Nokia

On Thursday came news that the flagship Nokia N8 was available for pre order in Italy for a cool €469 ($612 US) with availability set for September.

RCR Unplugged recently reported that German chipmaker, Infineon Technologies, was under Intel’s acquisition microscope, but it seems another suitor – Samsung Electronics – has joined the fray.

In a letter written to the telecom department, IB raised concerns over security and asked for monitoring arrangements, yet to be addressed. What has apparently saddened the intelligence agency is the ‘adamant’ attitude of Nokia as it continues to openly advertise its push email service in the market.

Nokia is still struggling to take a larger bite out of the smartphone market and retain its position as number one mobile manufacturer in the world, though recent results and growing uneasiness amongst shareholders has given the firm cause to worry.

Samsung UK is giving out free Galaxy S smartphones to people who have publicly expressed their frustration with the new iPhone 4 on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The downward trend for Nokia Corp. (NOK) continues. Few companies can sustain a nearly one-third drop in profit for long, but Nokia did just that in the recently closed second quarter, reporting a 31% drop in profit from last year.

Android has made significant gains in the US when it comes to mobile advertising, but remains the OS with the lowest Response Rate (CTR) in Europe according to the latest Smaato Metrics.

Not wanting to miss out on the hype, Nokia has decided to beam us over its thoughts on Apple’s antenna issues, admitting that while the way you grip your phone may affect signal strength, Nokia puts its phones through vigorous testing which should allow you to hold your phone however you want… but does it?

Ovi store developers are certainly a surly bunch, with more than half of them unhappy with the way the Finnish phonemaker runs its app shop.

The Chinese have launched a British invasion, as ZTE announced the launch of its first Android powered device – the Racer – on the UK’s 3 network.

With worldwide market-share for smartphones constantly growing, it may seem to some that dependable old feature phones are being neglected, but a change in terminology could soon see feature phones getting smarter – on paper anyway.

Popping up again like a recurring rash is the rumor that Intel is about to acquire German chip maker Infineon’s mobile chip business, a move which would significantly help the firm in its ARM wrestle for significance in the mobile/wireless space.

Microsoft recently announced it would be killing off its Kin devices, and Emblaze declared a while back that its ELSE Intuition smartphone would never see the light of day, but what other innovative devices have been killed off before being given much of a chance?

Nowadays, with smartphones becoming the “must-have” devices for anyone under the age of 40 in the developed world, the distinction between enterprise phone and consumer phone is blurring and so are the distinctions between which operating systems are business focused and which are more for personal use.