JAPAN
Japanese wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. said it will buy a stake in a U.S. mobile asset management provider. DoCoMo signed a joint venture and share subscription agreement with Ultra d.o.o., a Slovenian technology company. Under the agreement, DoCoMo will acquire a 49-percent equity stake in Telargo Inc., Ultra’s wholly owned U.S. mobile assets management service provider, for $28.6 million. Telargo’s service is based on a mobile asset management platform providing companies with fleet and workforce management tools to streamline their businesses. Telargo plans to offer its service worldwide starting in the fall. DoCoMo said the investment is a part of its strategy to expand location-based fleet management services and follows its investment last year in a Thai fleet management service company.
FINLAND
TeliaSonera Finland has selected Nokia Corp. to provide its solution for presence, a service that allows mobile users to inform callers about their availability, whereabouts and preferred means of communication. The value of the deal was not disclosed. The first service offered by TeliaSonera Finland will be Sonera Olotila, which is a person-to-person presence and information channel application. The service can be used by all Sonera mobile-phone customers at normal data transfer rates. “The target group of the service is a new generation of users whose communication is community-based in nature and who find continuous, multichannel communication important,” said Juhani Kivikangas, director of TeliaSonera Finland.
UNITED KINGDOM
European operator Orange plc said it has expanded its work with U.S. application creators with new development centers in Boston and San Francisco. The centers, which will work within the research and development laboratories of Orange’s parent company France Telecom Group, offer tools and support for developers as well as Orange handsets and Subscriber Identity Module cards for testing applications.
