Second distributor appointed for Nokia in Oman

MUSCAT — The world's top manufacturer of mobile handsets, Finland-based Nokia, has appointed a second distributor in Oman to cope with "expanding demand" for its products in the country.

Bell Tel, the new dealer, said it planned to open branches throughout the Sultanate, beginning with three this year.
"MHD (the existing distributor) is doing a good job... The new appointment is meant to cater for rising demand for our products here," Iyad Issa, Nokia's Area Manager, Lower Gulf, told a news conference.
It was also part of the company's overall strategy of intensifying focus on consumer needs, he said, adding: "The consumer is the deciding point for us."
In reply to a question, Issa said the number of Nokia customers in Oman was "growing nicely," but declined to provide figures. "We are in a healthy position in Oman... We are definitely in a leadership position," he added.

Malik al Khalidi, Director, Bell Tel, said the company's strategy was to spread across the country in phases. It will open its first branch in Salalah in three months, and two more before the end of the year, he added.
Talal al Rahbi, Oman Mobile's Manager Product Development and Market Intelligence, said the company, the Sultanate's first and biggest cellphone service provider, would soon enter into a tie up with Bell Tel to offer their customers special packages.

Oman in talks with UK for defence college

Staff Report

Abu Dhabi: Oman is negotiating an agreement to build and operate a defence academy with an Omani-British joint venture for more than $1 billion.
The head of the British government's Defence Export Services Organisation, Alan Garwood, was upbeat about the talks.
"There is a chance that the negotiations might be completed by the end of the month," he said.
According to the Defence News website, Serco and its partners in the Training College Consortium were selected in 2004 as the preferred bidders for a 30-year private finance initiative deal to build and operate the Oman Technical College.
The academy will centralise all military training by the Oman Ministry of Defence.
Some civilian training is also expected to be undertaken at the academy.
At the time of the original announcement, the value of the deal was set at $1.4 billion, with a deal expected within four months.
That proved optimistic. The private finance initiative negotiations have taken three years - an experience replicated in the UK, where the concept of privately funded military service provision first took hold.
Serco has been a beneficiary of the British policy of contracting out services. One of its programmes is the management of the Joint Services Command and Staff College.

Oman TRA gears up for further liberalisation

by Christopher Reynolds (christopher.reynolds@itp.com)

The Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of Oman (TRA) has released details of the next deregulation phase of the country’s telecommunications market.Mohsin al Hafeedh of the TRA told press the government is in the process of finalising the administration of Class II licences, which will cover ISP services, value added services and resale services. “This will be a gradual process in order that we don’t disturb the market,” he said.The reselling of services will enable start-up operators to purchase chunks of voice minutes, or data, as a resource from dominant operators and repackage the volume before selling it to end users. Al Hafeedh said this facility would be operational once the legal framework for the issuance of Class II licences are approved, but the official stopped short of providing a date.Enterprises that are successful in buying such licences will have to enter into lengthy discussions with incumbent operators and the TRA in order to draft a contract to resell bulk time, according to the regulator.“Competition will open up more choices, while the responsiveness of the services provided to customers will be quicker. We also envision a reduction in prices because if you are buying bulk time from a main or dominant operator you will get discounts,” said al Hafeedh.Oman’s mobile market was liberalised during March 2005 with the introduction of Qtel and TDC backed cellco Nawras, ending state owned incumbent Oman Mobile’s two-year market reign. Oman Mobile’s parent company Omantel is still the sole occupier of the fixed line telephony market, however, May 2006 saw the government of Oman announce its intention to deregulate the entire telecommunications sector, including the fixed-line and internet markets, though as of yet no date has been specified.

Did Murdoch just KO Google?

When one is asked about Google’s incredible success to date, and what they did so right, the obvious answer will likely involve an explanation of the brilliant technologies that make up PageRank and Adwords.
But if one looks under the hood, there’s also a not-so-obvious reason that played an equally critical role in Google’s success: the fact that the web has been predominately comprised of text. Text affords Google the friendliest technological and legal environments to apply and optimize its superior algorithms.
But what happens in a future where video, not text, is the fundamental element of the web? If Google cannot translate and convert the advantages it had in a text-dominated web into a future web of videos, Google is in trouble.
In a web comprised of text, Google could dominate the market in terms of aggregation, search, and distribution without the need to strike one single agreement with content owners. All Google had to do was crawl and index.
But, in a web comprised of video, Google must deal with content owners and strike licensing and distribution agreements, as neither its technologies nor current copyrights laws enable it to autonomously automate the aggregation of a video library without the explicit consent of content owners.
With that in mind, let me now jump to the big news of last week — the announcement that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and NBC Universal would launch an online library of big media video assets that could be licensed by any online distributor, provided they accept the terms and conditions set forth by big media. Towards such ends, the new big media joint venture also announced that Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and MySpace had signed up as licensees and distributors.
Given the significant difference between a web of text vs. that of video for Google, the big media companies made a very smart move last week. Although not necessarily a checkmate, it was a “check” on Google. If all the other media companies fall in line as well, then it could become a “checkmate” against Google when it comes to big media content.
In other words, Google would have no choice but to accept the demands of the big media companies for the licensing and distribution of their content. The only way for Google to regain leverage against the big media companies, at that point, would be to change the game altogether (e.g. by owning content and becoming a full-fledged media company, as I had suggested they might in my last post).
But at the end of day, it may turn out that both sides of this titanic struggle were merely pawns in a higher-level game benefiting one single player… Rupert Murdoch.
Using Google as the red herring, Murdoch may actually have succeeded in rallying all of his competitors to join forces by contributing their combined digital video assets into one pool (which he has significant control over). But through his ownership of MySpace, Murdoch is in a very unique position relative to all his big media brethren.
Namely, he will be the only one that ends up owning both content (via the new joint venture) and distribution (via MySpace) in any material and meaningful way.
Owning the whole value chain has always been a strategy that has served him well, and by the looks of it, he’s going to continue enjoying such advantages. Not only that, Murdoch could very well have out-maneuvered Google by positioning MySpace to ultimately become what YouTube was supposed to be.