Siemens Mobile Devices managing director Jonathan Bate said:

We would like to thank Sue Rowe for her contribution over the last 10 years. We are sorry to see her go but she has left to pursue other interests.

Bate denies that Rowe may have been unhappy with Siemens decision to halt and review its marketing spend.

The last six months have been difficult for everyone. But we have finalised our plans for this year and things will start moving again.

Amex will consolidate all telecoms expenses paid for on the

Corporate Card into management information files for finance and purchasing executives who manage corporate expense management.

BTCellnet has endorsed the arrangement. The networks partnership marketing director Gary Stevens said:

The American Express solution eases processing of payment and expense management. We are delighted to be working with

American Express to help our mutual customers maximise their process efficiencies.

A German accessory distributor called More International has set up new UK offices.

Its UK managing director is Barry Colman who formerly worked for Fonerange and the accessory division of defunct Kall.

He says the company plans to target the bigger high street retailers but has no plans to supply to smaller dealers. More was the subject of failed takeover and partnership attempts from Fonerange and more recently Kondor.

Colman told Mobile News.

The UK accessory companies were seeking alliances with overseas distributors to offer a pan-European service. But it hasnt really materialised.

We are one of the first to come in to the UK to do this. We have set up distribution agreements in Germany with the top service providers and retailers and we aim to replicate that success in the UK.

We supply to Hutchison Telecom Carphone Warehouses 110 German Phone House outlets and three or four major retail chains.

There is an opportunity in the UK because we dont have very high overheads.

Ora failed because it didnt have much market share and its sales didnt support its huge overheads. Last year we turned over DM12 million employing just 20 people.

To be successful you need to have your systems and logistics right because margins are low. The cost of running a warehouse in the UK is five times more than in Germany. We have already been in meetings with The Carphone Warehouses European accessory co-ordinator. And we will be talking to other companies. The bigger companies want one product one price.

We are confident we can break into the UK market. It is harder to get a customer than to lose one. People like Dixons group has long standing relationships with suppliers but it cannot rely solely on one supplier.

We will offer a quality alternative. Our expectations are conservative. We will be looking to take a small percentage of volumes from the blue-chip companies.

We wont be catering for the smaller independent dealer market. It is too difficult to value.

Before Orange clawed back commission if customers downgraded their tariffs within the first three months of the contract period. Loughborough dealer Paul Hull of PSH Telecom says Orange has now extended this penalty period to four months.

He says this has forced him to impose new terms and conditions on customers buying or upgrading Orange handsets.

Hull says Orange is not doing itself any favours. The new four-month period could mean dealers encourage their customers to sign to another network rather than upgrade their phone and remain with Orange.

This is because new connection bonuses are higher than upgrade bonuses.

Hull says there is continuing dismay in the dealer community that Oranges own retail shops are offering better upgrade terms to customers than the independent dealers.

Im concerned that Orange shops will offer a customer an Ericsson T68 phone for 50 as an upgrade price and also give them 60 cashback for trading in their old phone. Orange is not being fair. We cant afford to match that sort of deal.

Upgrade commissions are still too low. If the networks paid increased commissions on upgrades churn would stop because dealers wouldnt have to swap customers to other networks to earn a living Hull said.

I would rather work with networks than against them. But they are screwing us by offering better deals through their own shops and chains like The Carphone Warehouse.

We can lose commission if a customer downgrades their tariff within four months. Once the customer has signed we cant control what they do.

Customers want to pay as little as they can for the handset. This inevitably means they upgrade to a higher tariff to get a better deal on the handset.

Orange head of sales Stuart Henry says dealers have nothing to worry about if they connect customers to the right tariff.

Where retailers connect consumers to the appropriate tariff dependent on that customers needs they should not have any concerns about losing commission. Orange will continue to reward the channel for the quality of customers they bring to our network said Henry.

Orange said it would pay higher commissions to dealers when customers upgrade the tariff. But Hull is not convinced:

From now on in we will set our own terms and conditions for the sale. We will tell customers that they will be sent a bill if they downgrade the tariff within four months. We are within our rights to do this.

Hull is also complaining about Oranges dealer promotions for its Everytime tariffs.

A free portable CD player will be given to anyone connecting to Oranges Everytime 20 and 200 tariffs.

But only Orange retail stores Orange business specialists The Carphone Warehouse and PC World can offer Oranges Everytime Business which offers a one months free line rental to businesses connecting to Orange Everytime 200 (two months for Orange Everytime 400 and 1000 tariffs).

A free handset upgrade is offered after 12 months.

The independent dealer is losing out again. How can PC World and Oranges own shops offer this when we cant? Its another stab in the back for the independent said Hull.

An Orange spokesperson replied:

We chose Orange Business specialists because they are equipped to service small business customers. Only PC World stores that have a team of business advisors will be offering the promotion.

We would like more dealers to become Orange Business specialists so that they can offer similar promotions.

Creditors are expected to be offered repayment of 9p in the pound.

The Paus sold the Fone Range brand only to Elite Mobile Accessories which has nothing to do with the administration.

Paragon was the name of Fone Ranges holding company. Last June Paragons creditors approved an offer of 9p in the pound after the Paus subsidiary Blue-I (ex-Fone Range partnerships) agreed to pay Paragon a goodwill payment of 300000 to release its shares.

Blue-I also purchased 100000 of stock and equipment. Blue-I owns licences to distribute accessories for Warner Brothers and Coca-Cola.

The administration will shortly come to a close. After this a liquidator will pay the money to creditors in a prescribed order.

The actual amount creditors get will depend on whether Blue-I continues to pay the deferred goodwill payments to the agreed deadlines. Preferential creditors will be first in line. Unsecured creditors should get something back. The nine pence in the pound rate was only a rough estimate.

This means Carphone Warehouse has won its category every year for eight years while 20:20 collects its fifth best Distributor Award in a row.

Another repeat winner was Ternhill Communications (Best Small Dealer).

Samsung broke Nokias run of luck for six of the eight Awards by winning Best Manufacturer.

Caudwell Groups accessory divison Dextra won the award for Best Distributor (Handsets).

Full Mobile News Awards results are on our web site: www.mobilenews.uk.com

Payne (18) joined the Mobile Phone Companys Loughton branch in August 2000 but left soon after to set up his own shop.

During his final weeks at the shop he sold two phones that turned out to be obtained fraudulently by the customer.

Kempster said he would deduct the sum from Paynes commission along with a further 100.

After a row about the two phone sales relations between Payne and Kempster broke down.

On one occasion Mr Payne was ill and not allowed to go home. Only after he had been physically sick was he allowed time off. He was also subjected to verbal assault from Mr Kempster said Tribunal chair Jean Laidler.

Payne told the Tribunal he was offered no commission but a reasonable pay-off if he went without a fuss.

I told my dad and he said I should go back and ask for 1000. I did and Mr Kempster went mad. I was quite frightened. There was a lot of verbal abuse. He commented about my family punched me in the arm and asked me to leave the premises. He also tried to push me down the stairs.

Kempster denied either physically or verbally assaulting his former employee.

He told the Tribunal:

Mr Payne is making wild allegations. It is totally outrageous. I have owned shops for many years and never have I been accused of anything like this. He [Payne] received commission payments but it was at the discretion of the company. We actually paid him more on one occasion than we had to. Russell was a kid. We had to give him some leeway which we did on numerous occasions. We could have thrown the book at him many times.

But the Tribunal ruled that although payments were discretionary employees were owed them if they had been paid in the past.

Manchester-based Celltalk went into administration in February with debts of 3.2 million.

Creditors will be asked to agree to a voluntary arrangement at a meeting to be held on March 27. This would require Celltalk to pay 10000 a month up to 100000 a year for at least two years towards meeting its debts. It has been given a payment holiday in January and September because of slow trading in those months.

In addition the company will pay half its profits each year over and above the 100000 annual payments.

Stanley says this could see creditors get back up to 70p in the pound. Of the 3.2 million debt 2 million is due to the directors and holding company. Outside creditors are owed around 1 million.

Stanley says there is a good chance for Celltalk to make healthy profits as he has slashed the companys monthly overheads by more than half.

Celltalk was started as a telesales operation connecting mainly to Orange in March 1999 by Richard Marsden and Jess Meredith-Watts.

The company was once Oranges largest independent dealer and generated more than eight per cent of its contract business.

But its reliance on Orange caused it problems when it couldnt get enough up-to-date handsets.

Although Celltalk is allowed to continue as a going concern the company is effectively being run by Begbies Traynor.

The directors will not be able to spend more than 5000 without the approval of the supervisor and will have to produce regular management reports.

The faulty chargers bear the model number TA3061-UK. Units starting with the serial number 0105 and higher are being recalled. Trium will send customers a free replacement charger with a pre-paid envelope to return the faulty one

Trium UK head of operations Richard Ward says there have been no serious injuries reported so far and that a small percentage of units are affected.

We issued a recall after there were a handful of instances where chargers were reported as falling apart. There is a relatively low risk of someone getting a shock but we have to treat it very seriously.

Ward says the problem arose after its Philippines charger manufacturer used a different type of screw to hold the unit together

Our supplier recently changed its screw supplier. The new screws crack the plastic lugs so the top part of the case can come apart. We are not sure exactly how many units are involved but we have identified the affected batch. We are recalling good units either side of the affected batch to be sure there is no safety risk said Ward

Ward says that Trium will be seeking compensation from its Far-East supplier.

We will be taking the hit financially at first and then discuss it with our supplier.

There was no hesitation in issuing a recall. We do not know how long it will take to recall most or all of the faulty chargers because this has never happened to us before.

I hope that we can quickly mop-up the situation Ward told Mobile News

Trium is also contacting any owners of Mars and Eclipse handsets who registered their handsets on Triums website.

Sendo Britains first mobile phone manufacturer debuted on Virgin Mobile with its S200. In July last year Virgin Mobile launched Sendos popular gaming mobile the S230. The small handset proved to be a success among the youth market with user-friendly features as well as four interactive two-player games.

In the S230 Sendo combined design ease of use and value for money said Virgin Mobile product marketing manager Jim Powell.

It has all of the features that our customers are looking for.

Sendo commercial director Thomas Leliveld said:

Virgin Mobile was the first mobile phone operator to work with us and selling more than 100000 phones since then is an excellent achievement.

The announcement is good news for Sendo which is currently locked in a legal dispute with US software giant Microsoft (Mobile News January 13).

Sendo is suing Microsoft claiming it used its partnership with Sendo to steal trade secrets.

According to Sendo Microsoft then passed these secrets to Taiwanese manufacturer HTC.

Sendo and Microsoft had been in partnership to manufacture the first Windows-based smartphone.

HTC which also makes the O2 xda combined PDA and phone later produced the Windows-based SPV Smartphone for Orange.