Global vendors strategies

HP announced it is in talks with Dutch PinkRoccade, a heavyweight in information services, for taking over the Getronics subsidiary. The move is quite surprising as Getronics only bought PinkRoccade in January.

Nokia intends to sell out its Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) business. While a leader in PMR systems, and a defender of TETRA- based systems, Nokia would sell its business to competitive EADS (the defender of the Tetrapole competitive standard). The deal could be € 90m and involved 325 employees, but needs the EU approval.

Nokia is building a $ 150m manufacturing plant in Chennai, India.

IBM is teaming with NetApp to resell its NAS-based storage portfolio. The deal is seen as a strategic move against EMC.

Nortel secured a stake in Trapeze, and a $10m investment in Indian Sasken, a pioneer in telecom research and development (R&D) outsourcing.

NEC and SUN are expanding the strategic alliance between the two firms. The deal aims to create new system solutions, incorporating technology and products from both companies.

Alcatel plans to ask shareholders to split chairman and CEO functions. Doing this, the chairman's age limit will be extended to 70 years from 68 (allowing S. Tchuruk, 67, to stay) and a new CEO could be named. But the change is announced when current COO and second to Tchuruk, P. Germont, announced its departure. The succession burden at Alcatel is not over.

Siemens bought IPTV middleware vendor Myrio for $ 50m.

Micromuse bought performance management software specialist Quallaby for $ 33m.