Global vendor strategies - 21/06/2005

Axalto and Gemplus are rumored to talk potential merger or alliance. Professionals questioned the interest of the deal between market leaders 1 and 2 that could only benefit to followers.

Nokia is cutting R&D expenses to between 9% and 10% of revenue by 2006, from 12.8% in 2004. A risky strategy when technology is moving fast.

Ericsson is to buy loss-making multiservice provisioning platform (MSPP) equipment vendor Axxessit for $1.3m. The move will reinforce Ericsson position in the metro Ethernet market.

Amdocs said it has agreed to acquire a privately held customer care and billing software company in China (Longshine Information Technology) for $30m.