Rumors Are Rife, But 3UK Not For Sale And Disney/Apple Connection Tenuous

There’s a couple of rumors doing the rounds, about the usual suspects.
Telecoms.com is reporting on an article in the UKs Mail On Sunday (which I can’t find) which quotes anonymous sources claiming that Hutchison has engaged investment bank Goldman Sachs to look for a buy for its UK operations, 3UK…China Mobile is mentioned as a potential buyer. Hutchison flat-out denies this in the most unambiguous terms possible. “A spokesman for 3 said Monday: “The 3 group of businesses across Europe are simply not for sale and there is no contract with Goldman. At the time of the [X-Series] launch we made it clear that 3 was not for sale. Hutchison has repeatedly said it is not for sale and the launch of the X-Series was a demonstration of its commitment to the 3 businesses [across Europe].”
The other rumor involves Apple (which is hardly a surprise). SeekingAlpha suggested that Walt Disney is planning a content deal with Apple for for the (also still a rumor) upcoming iPhone. “The filing pertains to streaming-video technology for a Disney handset (flip phone?), and reads, “the systems and methods of the present disclosure may be applied to other mobile electronic devices…such as e.g. the iPod digital music player available from Apple Computer,” suggesting that Apple and Disney are going to be cooperating in media ventures.” I haven’t seen the patent, but it sounds a bit like the ESPN patent which was basically streaming ESPN content to a mobile device (which doesn’t need patent protection). As such, the casual mention of an iPod is probably largely covering Disney’s bases, especially since it’s used as an example…iPod is dangerously close to becoming the default term for portable MP3 player, something Apple really doesn’t want.

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