Microsoft Will Pay Nokia "Billions" To Use Windows Phone

Microsoft paid Nokia $250 million in the fourth quarter to adopt the Windows Phone operating system, according to Nokia's fourth-quarter earnings report released Thursday.
That was the first in a series of so-called "platform support" payments believed to eventually total billions of dollars. To date, Microsoft and Nokia have been quiet about the deal's specifics - perhaps because it appears as if Microsoft is paying Nokia significantly less than its paying other cellphone manufacturers.

"Our broad strategic agreement with Microsoft includes platform support payments from Microsoft to us as well as software royalty payments from us to Microsoft" Nokia said in its results today. "We have a competitive software royalty structure, which includes minimum software royalty commitments."
Slashgear's Chris Davies is suggesting Microsoft's Nokia arrangement is less than that it has struck with other cellphone makers. LTE, for example, is reportedly paying about $27 for each phone it sells with Windows Phone.
"Over the life of the agreement both the platform support payments and the minimum software royalty commitments are expected to measure in the billions of US Dollars," Nokia said.
Windows Phone has gotten rave reviews, but Microsoft could struggle to get developers to create apps for the phone. By some estimates, Windows Phone could pass Apple's iOS in market share by 2015.

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Bill Gates: I don't pay enough tax

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says he does not think he pays enough tax, and says wealthy Americans should contribute more in order to solve the deficit problem.
Speaking on BBC World, Mr Gates said taxing the rich, was "just justice".

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Pakistan v England: Hosts recover after Cook-Trott stand

By Stephan Shemilt
BBC Sport

Second Test, Abu Dhabi, day two:

Pakistan 257 v England 207-5

Match scorecard

Trott and Cook shared their sixth century stand before Pakistan fought back

A late Pakistan revival undid the good work of England's Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott on day two of the second Test in Abu Dhabi.

The pair shared a second-wicket stand of 139 after Andrew Strauss managed only 11.
But after Trott (74) fell to Abdur Rehman, Saeed Ajmal accounted for Cook (94), Kevin Pietersen and Eoin Morgan to leave England 207-5, 50 behind.
Earlier, Pakistan lost their last three wickets for one run in 16 balls.
More to follow.

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World Economic Forum - Imran Khan: The face of Pakistan at Davos

The most prominent Pakistani at Davos is Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf chief Imran Khan who was the guest speaker at a lunch hosted by defence analyst Ikram Sehgal, who runs a security company in Pakistan. PHOTO: FILE

DAVOS: Every country that matters is here, but where is Pakistan? Pakistanis are found on panels such as “Security Agenda in 2011” and “The Reality of Terrorism” and even there, our representation is weak.
The most prominent Pakistani at Davos is Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf chief Imran Khan who was the guest speaker at a lunch hosted by defence analyst Ikram Sehgal, who runs a security company in Pakistan.
“The moment Nato leaves Afghanistan, things will settle down. There will be peace and then we can deal with the terrorists,” Khan tells a bewildered Western audience, who mostly showed up to get a good look at their favourite cricket star.
Speaking about Pashtuns, he said it was important to make a distinction between al Qaeda and the Taliban who are Pashtuns and the Pashtuns should not be attacked. “You must understand the Pashtun mentality. If you kill them (with drone attacks) they will take revenge, so there will be repercussions,” he said. “There are human beings and then there are Pathans,” he joked.
“The Pashtuns of Pakistan and Afghanistan are not a threat to the West, al Qaeda is,” he said to a sceptical audience.
Khan explained that Salmaan Taseer’s murder had exposed the extreme polarisation in society. “If the war on terror continues and the US keeps pressuring Pakistan to flush out Taliban militants, this polarisation of society will be detrimental,” he said.
Apart from his well-known stance on the war on terror, Khan advocated that the present government had lost its moral authority and the time was ripe for  change. He warned that if the present “corrupt set up” is tolerated, there may be a revolution made up of young Pakistanis under the age of 30.
“After the National Reconciliation Ordinance was promulgated, the biggest crooks formed the government,” he said, while referring to the country’s top political leadership. He predicted that in the next general election, which he believes will be free and fair, all “the old political faces will be wiped out”.
But Khan also insisted that any form of democracy is better than dictatorship. “I supported Musharraf in the beginning and I admit that it was the biggest mistake I have ever made,” he said. Later in the day, Khan shared panel space with the Indian Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, who forcefully stated that terrorists must be dealt with sternly and there should be swift punishment for those found guilty.
Chidambaram maintained the traditional Indian foreign office line that there are “home-grown modules in India that get support from across the border.”
On a panel titled “The reality of terrorism”, Chidambaram made it quite clear that India was not willing to show flexibility on the issue of terrorism, putting a dampener on the upcoming India-Pakistan secretary level talks at Thimpu.
Another panellist, Tahirul Qadri called upon the West and India to recognise the “root causes” of terror and to immediately resolve outstanding disputes such as Kashmir. However, Chidambaram shot back, “none of the issues (Kashmir or the territorial dispute between Israel and Palestine) justify use of terror. This is not the way civilised societies settle their disputes.”
But Khan insisted that the root cause of terror must be dealt with. “The cancer must be treated and not its symptoms,” he said.
While the security debate dragged on at Davos, it was quite clear that no one – those asking questions or those answering them – had found a fresh approach to deal with problems in Pakistan. The same questions were asked and the familiar rhetoric was repeated.
While back in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous areas, the tribal lashkars and paramilitary forces battle Taliban militants, it seemed like our leadership was making no effort to engage powers of the world on platforms such as the World Economic Forum where perhaps sympathetic ears would have helped. A Pakistani delegation well-prepared to plead their case and defend their position regarding the war against militancy should have been sent. Instead, what the World Economic Forum saw was a cricketer-turned-politician advocating a view that not necessarily represents the official line taken by the government of Pakistan.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 30^th,  2011.

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David whatmore to reach Pakistan on Feb 20

David whatmore to reach Pakistan on Feb 20

LAHORE - 26th January 2012 (5 hours ago)

By Javeria Nasir

Australian Dav Whatmore is due to arrive here on Feb 20 to sign a two-year contract as head coach of the Pakistan cricket team, Though the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is not confirming Whatmore, or anyone else, as head coach of the team, sources said Whatmore has finalised all the details of the contract and would sign it in Lahore on Feb 20. Whatmore visited Lahore on Jan 14 and almost settled all the issues with the PCB, but the announcement was delayed for one month since both the parties agreed to delay it owing to the England series under way in the UAE. Whatmore will take charge of the team from interim head coach Mohsin Khan after the ongoing series against England. However, the PCB is being criticised by some quarters for making a change at the moment when the national team is performing well under the coaching of Mohsin Khan.

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Sharapova, Azarenka reach Australian Open final

Sharapova, Azarenka reach Australian Open final

MELBOURNE - 26th January 2012

By AP

Maria Sharapova avenged her defeat in the Wimbledon final to Petra Kvitova with a gutsy three-set victory over the Czech in the last four of the Australian Open. Sharapova, who won 6-2 3-6 6-4 to move through to a meeting with Victoria Azarenka in the title-decider, was overpowered at times but found the reserves to advance. Saturday’s champion will also become the new world number one, taking over from Caroline Wozniacki, who will drop to number four. “I just felt in the third set she had the advantage because I was always down on my serve,” said Sharapova. “I thought I had to hit it and don’t let her finish the points the way she likes to. I just hung in there and got a few returns in in that final game, perhaps that was the key.” Kvitova looked completely out of sorts in the first set, with her movement particularly suspect. Sharapova, on the other hand, was full of intensity and forced an early break from the Czech and although her opponent hit back, further breaks in the fifth and seventh games handed her the opening set. The Russian started the second shakily with her serve, so often her Achilles heel, starting to falter and a double fault on break point handed Kvitova a route back into the contest. And with the momentum shifting as Kvitova’s powerful groundstrokes started to find their target, the second seed levelled with ease. The players traded breaks at the start of the decider and having come through a titanic seventh game, Sharapova made her move to snatch the Kvitova serve and clinch the match.

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Why the United States Will Never, Ever Build the iPhone

It's not just cheap wages. China has more skilled factory workers and sits at the center of the global supply chain. 
Reuters

This weekend, The New York Times published a long exploration of the many reasons why Apple chooses to build its iPhones in China. The piece is indispensable reading for anybody who wants to understand why the United States has seen certain types of manufacturing all but disappear from its shores. But the article's core lesson might be tough to swallow: Apple doesn't only choose China because work is cheaper. Apple also chooses China because the factories and the workers do a better job. 

Here are four basic lessons that we can learn from Apple's manufacturing:
Cheap Labor Isn't the Issue 
There's no question that China's low wages are part of the country's appeal -- even though they've increased. According to the Times, building the iPhone stateside would add up to $65 to the cost of each device. To put that in perspective, it's about 10% of the full retail price for the cheapest iPhone 4S. Given the fat margins on Apple's products, the company could absorb that extra cost and still come away with a profit. But it's hard to imagine why they would make that sacrifice.
The price of labor, though, is just one small piece of what makes China a better place to make an iPhone. After years of building its computers in California, Apple began offshoring its production after the company's near collapse in the 1990s. Driving the decision was Tim Cook, now the company's CEO, and formerly its head of operations. Per the Times:

For Mr. Cook, the focus on Asia "came down to two things," said one former high-ranking Apple executive. Factories in Asia "can scale up and down faster" and "Asian supply chains have surpassed what's in the U.S." The result is that "we can't compete at this point," the executive said. 

What does it mean to "scale up" faster? For Foxconn, the global manufacturing behemoth Apple pays to assemble its products, it's the ability to hire thousands of new workers in a single day. It's being able to wake up 8,000 employees, herd them out of the company's on-sight dorms, and order them pull a midnight shift fastening glass screens onto phones. In China, workers are cheap, plentiful, and -- most importantly -- mind bogglingly compliant in ways that America's culture and its tightly enforced labor laws simply wouldn't allow. Yes, Foxconn's notoriously harsh treatment of its employees led to a now-notorious spate of suicides. But how many Americans in the 21st century can you see under any circumstances agreeing to live in, say, a General Motors dorm? 

The second half of Cook's equation -- supply chains -- might be even more important. We like to talk about how the world is flat, but in reality, it still takes a month to ship goods from the U.S. to China. Because Asia is the hub of electronic components manufacturing, Chinese factories can get crucial parts faster and cheaper, whether they're coming from a semi-conductor factory down the street, or a Samsung plant in South Korea. Local Chinese factories also crank out the little metal bits like screws that you can't build an iPhone without,  a small but important advantage. The United States is cut off from those networks. Logistically, it just makes less sense to build a high tech gadget here. 

Fixing Education Isn't About Sending More People to Harvard

China's labor advantage goes well beyond the low-skill workers who do the menial task of stuffing parts into iPhones. The country also excels at educating middle-skill "industrial engineers." These aren't Stanford graduates capable of designing the next iteration of the iPad. Rather, they're akin to alums from your local community college who have the technical skills to manage the iPad production line. As the Times notes: 

Apple's executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufracturing iPhones. The company's analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States. 

In China, it took 15 days. 

Those sorts of statistics should bring into cold, clear focus why America's education system is at such a disadvantage when it comes to manufacturing. The problem isn't a lack of elite graduates. We have those. It's our unskilled working class.
It's been widely reported that Chinese schools graduate roughly 600,000 engineers a year, versus about 70,000 in the United States. Some have tried to downplay the severity of that gap by pointing out that as many as half of those Chinese engineers have the equivalent of a 2-year associate's degree. That may be true. But it's also missing the point. China has learned to produce graduates with mid-level technical skills that, as The Atlantic's cover story this month illustrates, are crucial to the modern manufacturing process. The United States needs to learn to do the same if it wants to remain a manufacturing force in the future. Our immediate goal shouldn't be to prep more students for Harvard, Penn State, or University of Central Florida. It should be to find a way to make sure that more than 25% of the students who enroll at community colleges actually graduate within 3 years.
Industrial Policy Matters
The Times reports that when Apple was looking for a new factory to cut the high-strength glass for its iPhone screens, it picked a Chinese plant that had already built a new wing for work in anticipation that it might win the contract. It was able to afford that pricey gamble thanks to subsidies from the Chinese government.
In the United States, of course, most factories could not have counted on Washington for the same kind of support. Here, conservatives like to argue that the government shouldn't be in the business of "picking winners and losers." But that's what our competitors have been doing for decades, to great success. Both Germany and Japan rose up from the ashes of World War II and rebuilt themselves as industrial powerhouses thanks largely to carefully managed government industrial policy. China has done the same in the 21st century. Yet, as the scandal around failed solar panel maker Solyndra showed, a large part of the U.S. public is still deeply ill at ease with the idea.
The ironic part is that, although conservatives rail against the idea of an active federal industrial policy, they're very comfortable with it on the state level. Southern states such as Alabama and Tennessee have made an art of attracting foreign auto-makers using the promise of millions in tax breaks and other perks. Rather than putting the unmatched muscle of the federal government behind building our manufacturing base, we've settled for the scattered efforts of 50 states.
Where Apple Goes, Others Follow 
Manufacturers have a habit of playing follow the leader. Or more precisely, follow the customer, especially when that customer is another industrial company.
Again, it's the natural outcome of needing to be close to the supply chain. The Times piece focuses on Corning, the Upstate New York-based company that produces the high-strength glass used in iPhone and other smartphone screens, which has moved much of its production to Japan and Taiwan in order to be closer to its buyers. 

Our customers are in Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China," said James B. Flaws, Corning's vice chairman and chief financial officer. "We could make the glass here, and then ship it by boat, but that takes 35 days. Or, we could ship it by air, but that's 10 times as expensive. So we build our glass factories next door to assembly factories, and those are overseas.

As Corning's story shows, industries are often connected in unexpected ways. Because consumer electronics manufacturing has moved offshore, the Untied States is now losing out on jobs in glass production. If a company like Apple moves abroad, others will go with it.

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