Well, it didn't take long for the backlash to begin. Telcos were in uproar following Monday's speech by Neelie Kroes, the European Commission's vice president for the Digital Agenda, in which she outlined her plan to restrict by law the amount of money telcos can make from unbundling their copper networks. Telecom Italia CEO Franco Bernabe called the idea "simply crazy," reports Reuters, and most of the other major European telcos concurred. Steely Neelie has another fight on her hands. (See Euronews: Steely Neelie's Copper Clampdown.)
HP's acquisition of Autonomy Corp., an enterprise software firm which grew out of research work begun at the U.K.'s Cambridge University, has been confirmed. Autonomy has more than 25,000 customer accounts worldwide. As an amusing sideshow, Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch has managed to get right up the schnoz of Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison, reports The Daily Telegraph. Who said software was boring? (Don't answer that...) (See HP's New CEO Sets a Spinoff Deadline and HP Shuts Down WebOS Device Biz.)
Sticking with the snout theme ... The Guardian reports that George Osborne, the U.K.'s strangely-nosed Chancellor of the Exchequer, has used the Conservative Party's annual conference to announce that he plans to use £150 million (US$230 million) in department "underspends" to enable mobile connectivity to reach 99 percent of the country.
Hundreds of thousands of BT Group plc's business and residential broadband customers were left bereft for several hours on Monday, as a power failure at a major exchange in the U.K. city of Birmingham wreaked its havoc, reports the BBC. The operator is now checking to see if it paid its most recent electricity bill.
Gadget fetishism is alive and well as a mystery "special event" is planned for London's Covent Garden Apple Store to "celebrate" the launch of the iPhone 5 (or whatever it's going to be called), reports the Press Association. (See Apple Picking: Before the iPhone Launch.)
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