Samsung Electronics, the world's No. 2 handset maker, said on Monday the 2008 global handset market could fall short of its 9 percent growth forecast and did not exclude the possibility the market could shrink in 2009.

Americans expect to limit credit-card purchases, seek out bargains and stretch spending as recession fears put a damper on their holiday cheer. If the gloomiest predictions come true, that could spell disaster for many more store chains and their employees, and provide insight on how long it may take the economy to recover.

Struggling smartphone maker Palm said Friday it is cutting its workforce, a move the company takes as it loses market share to rivals Apple and RIM.

Japan's largest mobile-phone operator and KT Freetel of South Korea will work together to develop a low-cost smart phone using free software from Google.

ZTE, China's No. 2 telecoms equipment vendor, expects the country's high-speed third-generation technology to be adopted outside of China as soon as 2009, despite "flaws" that will need to be ironed out.

Research In Motion (RIMM) President Mike Lazaridis Monday said he's still confident about growth in the smartphone market. Lazaridis said despite the economic crisis everybody needs communication devices. He added the smart phone market outpaces the overall mobile phone sector.

The Finnish communications giant said it expects to ship 330 million handsets in the quarter. Consequently, Nokia's shipments forecast for the whole of 2008 dropped from 1.26 billion units to 1.24 billion.

Qualcomm has has stopped development of its next-generation, high-speed wireless technology Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) which was originally intended as an alternative to LTE and WiMAX 4G telecomunications standards.

Samsung Electronics is considering cutting its supplier-vendor relationship with Circuit City Stores, the No. 2 electronics chain in the United States, after the retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from the court.

Things were looking better for Qualcomm than they had in a long time. Demand for its technology has been strong, and it had finally settled a long-running royalty dispute with top mobile phone maker Nokia. But that was before the economy started really falling to pieces, dragging the wireless-chip maker down with it.

First-generation TD-SCDMA is designed to offer top speeds of 384k bps which, if attained, would be as fast as a typical ADSL (Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line) connection in China. However, the TD-SCDMA USIM cards issued so far have "128k" stamped on them, which points to lower speeds on the trial service.

Alvarion's Mobile WiMAX 4Motion solution will be used by Altitude to extend its coverage and provide voice and data services at 3.5 GHz to corporate, ISP and residential users in the Jura and Deux Sevres districts. The rollout of this commercial network is already underway, with plans to be completed in early 2009.

This option enables Motorola, within a specified time period, to enter into a pre-negotiated license agreement with Tessera and settle all outstanding litigation between the companies. If Motorola exercises the option and takes the license, it will pay royalties on all its products that include chips that use Tessera's technology and are sourced from companies who are not Tessera licensees. Detailed terms of the agreements including the time period, option fees, license fees and license royalties are confidential.