**As published in Mobile Marketing Magazine**

NEW ORLEANS — At CTIA, the heads of America’s four largest carriers paid lip service to their respective pet projects and, in some cases, their favorite the-sky-is-falling scenarios of the day. Following extended commercial-like keynotes from each executive (complete with those obligatory sizzle reels), they all joined together on stage to field questions from one of the country’s most bombastic and outlandish TV personalities, Jim Cramer of CNBC, who came on stage calling mobile the “fastest-changing industry in the world.”

It could and should have been fireworks, but alas, nary a fuse was lit. Other than the occasional spat over which network is faster, better, greater — ad nauseum — disagreements were few and far between. And that’s unfortunate for the hundreds of millions of customers who send their money to AT&T Mobility, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless every month. Read more

BARCELONA — The wireless industry was almost treated to news of another major carrier acquisition this week, but the would-be suitor’s board of directors walked away from the deal at the final hour, according to The Wall Street Journal. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse presented his board with a plan to acquire MetroPCS for up to $8 billion, but the board balked, ending a deal that had been in the works for several months.

Perhaps it was the fear of announcing a major deal during a mobile trade show — in retrospect, something that didn’t turn out so well for AT&T after it announced plans to acquire T-Mobile USA almost a year ago — but I think the board will eventually be vindicated for having avoided another catastrophe. Read more

**As published in RCR Wireless News**

BARCELONA – HTC showed no signs of slowing today as it announced a refresh to its HTC Sense user-interface overlay and a trio of new smartphones. Indeed, CEO Peter Chou said he expects the device maker to be among the top three smartphone suppliers by 2013.

While noting the difficulties the mobile industry went through as a whole last year, Chou boasted it “was the most significant year in our history.”

After raising the brand’s profile considerably during 2009, HTC is continuing to refine Sense and pursuing smartphone market share growth even more aggressively, he said during a morning press conference. Read more

** As published in RCR Wireless News **

SAN FRANCISCO – The spark that led Motorola Inc. Co-CEO Sanjay Jha to reinvigorate his company’s relationship with Google Inc. was similar to two drunks finding each other in a bar, or at least that is what Jha half-jokingly explained at this week’s Mobilize conference in San Francisco.

As was widely expected, Jha took the stage to announce Motorola’s plan for a new lineup of devices that run on Google’s Android operating system. Read more