Well administrators have failed to find a buyer and so the company will close down, meaning almost all jobs will go.  All assets will be auctioned in Hamburg to be set against liabilities (a massive $1.16bn).

It seems that competition from the big players, noticably Nokia, were too much for the outfit to make things work.  Which is a shame because the loss of the brand further reduces the pool of choice.

It’s amazing that such a brand could fail so easily - with the likes of LG going from strength to strength, it is certainly possible to make an impact against the big four, and all it would have taken is a ‘hero’ product (like the LG Chocolate, Motorola RAZR).

RIP BenQ Siemens.

The week following Vodafone’s announcement regarding MySpace, O2 has unveiled its own offering - My BlueBook. Not the most creative of brands in my opinion, but I guess it’s descriptive.

The O2 service puts the emphasis on user generated content - photos, videos and profiles, all of which can be shared amongst other registered customers (with 3G enabled handsets of course). It all sounds pretty fancy, but what it really comes down to is providing online server space for O2 customers.

It does have some nice features like being able to backup contact lists and numbers - hopefully spelling the end of those irksome SMS backup devices (I never have found one I liked or that worked well).

O2 is actually just the latest network provider to utilise NewBay’s Lifecache system, joining Orange, Alltel Wireless, T-Mobile and Swisscom.

It’s difficult to imagine a social networking producing working in the current environment - 3G usage isn’t as high as it could be, and tends to still be expensive. But it is a sign of things to come, with popular internet services gradually migrating onto mobile devices.

Of course, camera phones aren’t the only application - it can also be used for standard digital cameras, barcode readers, telemetry products and more.

The RIZR will have 90mb of onboard memory with support for 4GB SD card, and a 2mpx camera.

Other handsets shown off by Moto are simply RAZR/SLVR clones - the KRZR K3 and SLVR L9. I won’t show pics because you know basically what they look like …

And here it is - the U100:

Also launched were two skinny sliders, the U600:

And U700:

And finally, an iPhone lookalike, the symbian based F700:

Some of the key stats:

• 45% of disconnections were due to the cost involved
• 24% dropped the service because of quality and reliability issues
• 30% of UK users cited quality as their main issue

The study didn’t establish which technology was being used, which would have been useful, but it’s clear that unless Nokia et al can address these issues, Mobile TV could just be the next white elephant of the telecoms world.

Nokia have made their move into the Mobile TV market with the N77, aimed at “bringing Mobile TV to the mainstream”. Nokia’s CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo (OPK) claimed the N77 handset would “help take live TV out of the living room into your hand”, and expects it to be available in DVB-H (Digital-Video-Braodcasting, Handheld) markets in Q2 this year.

The phone will also include the NOkia Video Centre, which is possible due to a recent deal being struck with video-sharing giant YouTube. The service will combine branded video services, internet videos and sideload videos from PC in one place. Nokia Video Centre will also be available on the N95 and preinstalled on that device going forward.

OPK says he expects the global market for DVB-H handsets to be 5-10 million by next year, and 20 million by 2009.

Mobile TV may well be on its way, but for it to really take off the handsets need to be more attractive than this one. Sure it’s a lower end device aimed at being price competitive, but it isn’t stretching the boundaries of design. And the primary users of Mobile TV, at least for the first year, are going to be those techies that love to show off their phone. I wonder sometimes how Nokia don’t get things like this.

Nokia also recently expanded its business range, with the eagerly waited (by some at least) E90 - the new Communicator. As the picture below shows, it doesn’t look much like a phone any more - which isn’t a bad thing actually. The past communicators were largely ugly looking phones - this looks more like a mini-laptop with phone capabilities.

But the cost pales into comparison when looking at their latest purchase. They have just paid $11bn for a controlling interest in the Indian network Hutch Essar, currently the country’s fourth largest. Even for one with deep pockets, that’s no small change.

Why have Vodafone gambled so much? Because India is the world’s fastest growing mobile phone market and has massive potential. And because they need to offset their ailing European operations, where growth has almost come to a halt.

Now that Sir Richard Branson is part of the mix, since the takeover/merger of Virgin Mobile, he’s shaken things up in the old Branson style. Virgin Media was launched yesterday in a typical Virgin publicity stunt, with Branson arriving in Covent Garden on a horse drawn carraige alongside Dita Von Tesse (whom he at one point threw over his shoulder!), before taking up residence in a plastic box. Yes, a clear plastic box, a la David Blaine.

The multi-millionaire entrepeneur was then visited by several high-profile stars during the day. Apparently he was back there this morning sipping his morning tea.

Such publicity is something that only a true great like Branson can pull off. He understands how brands work and leverages the most he can from the press. His peers on the Virgin Media board must be looking at him and wondering what they are doing wrong, because it’s fairly certain that most people now believe Branson to be the head of this company.

The mass advertising has alraedy begun, with Uma Thurman fronting a £20m campaign to get people to sign up for ‘quadplay’, an industry term that seems to have leaked into public usage. It sounds fancy, but it just means that one brand is offering four different services - mobile, fixed line, broadband and TV. Most of the others only offer ‘triple play’ and are missing one or other component.

Virgin Media hopes that its brand strength will lead to consumers using more than one of the four offerings, rather than different companies for each. In most cases this is a dream often not realised (by the triple-play companies), but with the Virgin brand behind it anything is possible.

Virgin Media currently has about 3m subscribers (inherited from the NTL Telewest merger), and plans for 4m by 2010. Seems like a modest target, but with Freeview increasing its offer this year, it’s a tough market to make inroads into.

Virgin Media chairman Jim Mooney said: “Virgin Media is better by far than what the competition has to offer.” Quite a bullish statement for a newly rebranded organisation.
He added: “Our competitors have never had to deal with the Virgin brand coming down their tailpipe before and deal with the competition of customer services getting better and better week after week.” How the Virgin brand will instantly transform their customer services is anyone’s guess.

LG will be rolling out several “Black Label” phones over the year, including the hugely anticipated Prada phone which will beat the iPhone to full touchscreen navigation.

LG was rescued by the Chocolate phone despite it’s lack of usability (personally I’ve never had a worse phone in my life), with the Korean’s handset division in the black last year for the first time. The real question is whether current Chocolate owners will be seduces by the sleek lines and glossy finish, or whether they’ll be put off LG for life (I know I have).