Lenovo, the giant Chinese electronics manufacturer mainly known for producing desktop PCs and laptops, announced it will quit the mobile phone industry and sell its mobile division
for $100 million to Legend Holdings Ltd., one of its main shareholders.

2007 was a great financial year for Lenovo, with overall profits of $171 million, a huge increase when compared to 2006’s profits that raised to $57.7. Despite this, the company’s mobile business is far from being profitable, as it made losses of 134 million CNY (about $18.6 million) in the last year.

Lenovo entered the mobile business in 2001 and limited its handset distribution to China, but in the last years it started producing devices based on Windows Mobile with the intention of penetrating other markets, like Europe and North America. However, this did not happen, and the Lenovo handsets remained in China. Apparently, the Chinese market – where phones from Nokia and Motorola have a huge demand – is not suitable for Lenovo’s mobile plans, otherwise the company’s losses cannot be explained.

Lenovo is currently the world’s fourth largest personal computer manufacturer, after HP (Hewlett-Packard), Dell and its Taiwan-based neighbor Acer. It reached this position after acquiring IBM’s PC division, back in 2005. By selling its mobile branch, Lenovo will be able to concentrate on its main PC business, at the same time allowing the mobile business to overcome the loss-generating period and re-think its market strategies.

After completing the acquisition of Lenovo Mobile, Legend Holdings will continue to produce handsets under the Lenovo brand and will probably try to conquer a bigger portion of the Chinese market share. Also, we might see Lenovo phones expand to Europe and North America, as initially planned. This can only be a good thing, as a bigger competition generally means better products – better mobile phones, in our case.

via softpedia

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Luxury cell phones are not a new thing anymore, but they keep on appearing to satisfy the fashion needs of those who have larger bank accounts. SoftBank, a leading Japanese mobile carrier,
partnered with Tiffany Japan to bring such a phone, that will be sold for 10 million Japanese Yens, meaning about $93,600. It cannot compete against the world’s most expensive phone, Goldvish Le Million, which costs more than 1 million USD, but it’s still a terribly expensive device.

The handset comes encrusted in no less than 400 diamonds, totaling a bit over 20 carats, and will be available starting this month, most probably before Valentine’s Day, to make an extravagant gift.

There aren’t many technical details about the Tiffany handset, except the fact that it’s a 3G device. However, judging by the specs the other SoftBank phones announced for 2008 have, this diamonded clamshell might pack a good photo camera and even Mobile TV features.

The real manufacturer of the phone is unknown for the moment, but it sure isn’t Tiffany, known mainly for being one of the most respectable US jewelry brands. It’s hard to believe they have a secret cell phone division, so it is more likely that they only worked on the handset’s luxurious cover. Most probably, as the phone seems to be a clamshell resembling the majority of the phones released in Japan (except the diamonds, of course), the non-jewelry part was created by a Japanese producer. So it could be a Sharp, Toshiba, NEC, Fujitsu, Panasonic, Sanyo or Hitachi. Hard to tell.

The new Tiffany phone is available only from SoftBank starting February, as a limited number edition, so the Japanese men who want to offer their lovers a flower and hundreds of diamonds on a phone should quickly pay a visit to their bank for a small withdrawal.

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