iPhones reach China by agreement of Apple

China Unicom Ltd. said Friday it will sell the iPhone in China of Apple Inc., after months of rumors about the appearance of this device in the most populous market mobile phones.
The phone probably will go on sale in the fourth quarter following an agreement between the companies, executives said Unicom in Hong Kong. They refused to provide financial details or indicate the price of the iPhone, merely indicating that it will be "competitive."
Unicom, one of three major state companies will be the first Chinese company that officially supports the iPhone, even thousands of devices from other markets are used in China. It is the only company in China that supports the required standard network for the iPhone, called WCDMA.
The mobile market in China is less than the U.S., Japan and other nations in terms of financial scale, but has 650 million mobile accounts and is considered an important target for foreign firms.
"It's an open window for Apple that will allow you to enter this huge market," said the executive Edward Yu, CEO of Analysys International, a high-tech research firm based in Beijing. "But we must see the actual product to determine if they fit well into the bulk of China's population and how the market reacts."
Apple, based in Cupertino, California city, said last month that sales of the iPhone increased their profits in the last quarter by 15% to 1,200 million dollars despite the U.S. recession.
Nokia launches new Linux smartphone.
Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, on Thursday introduced its first high-end phone with Linux software operated.
The Finnish company had worked with Linux since 2005 using its software in "Internet tablets", devices like a phone plans to access the network that failed to capture market attention in part because it did not allow for phone calls.
The new N900 model, with a cellular connection, touch screen and a sliding keyboard, will sell for about 500 euros, excluding taxes and special offers.
The operating system is Nokia, Symbian, controls half the volume of smart phone market - more than its rivals Apple, Research in Motion and Google together.
Nokia said it would work well alongside Linux Symbian in their high-end products.
"This does not Symbian endangered in any way," said Anssi Vanjoki Reuters, Nokia's sales manager.
"Open source Symbian is going to be our main platform, and are expandable and upgradeable everything we can in terms of functionality as well as distribution (...) increasingly populating our product line with Symbian," he said.
Linux is the most popular open source operating systems free and competes directly with Microsoft, which charges for its Windows software and opposes freely sharing its code. Linux providers earn money selling improvements and technical services.