You guessed it – theyre O2 promo girls working hard at the O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park last week

The City & Guilds Vocational Rich List compiled by Sunday Times Rich List author Philip Beresford ranks the wealth of those who have built their fortunes on a vocational qualification or apprenticeship.

Said Caudwell:

If you want to be a doctor or a solicitor or a dentist then you need to go to university. If your ambition is to be successful in business you have to be prepared to work hard understand your markets and just get out and start selling your product or service.

My City and Guilds qualifications taught me to be very analytical and disciplined on how to make projects succeed.

This was very important when I started out in business and has helped me and my businesses to be the success they are today.

Caudwells first job was as an engineering apprentice at the Michelin Tyre Company in Stoke-on-Trent in 1970.

He followed that with jobs sweeping pottery floors working at a steel factory and as a nightclub bouncer before becoming a car dealer.

Said Beresford:

Sales at his Caudwell Group leapt 45 per cent to just over 2 billion and profits rose to 30.4 million in 2002. The remaining operations should easily be worth 800 million. With sale proceeds added plus another 75 million for assets such as his 10 million Staffordshire mansion Caudwell is now easily worth 1.28 billion.

The SME and corporate indirect and dealer sales channels are apparently left unscathed.

The purge was ordered by group financial director Craig Gibson who took a close look at the department and decided there was too much wrong to be put right.

Caudwell Group managing director Tim Whiting denied that as many as 200 jobs would be lost but said the field sales teams were being streamlined.

We dont yet know if jobs will go and I wont comment on numbers. The only jobs that are going at the moment fit with the natural turnover of a business. Certainly nobody is leaving who is performing well.

Whiting claimed that the group was in the middle of a process to optimise the efficiency and performance of the corporate sales teams across the group.

He added: We have a corporate sales force for mobile and a corporate sales force for fixed and they are selling to the same customers. It could be done more efficiently.

This follows a tie-up between ATM operator LINK and software company Morse which has produced a Java application called mobileATM.

The application took more than two years to develop and will be available to subscribers on all networks by the end of the year giving them instant access to all their banking requirements.

To access the service consumers will download the free application by sending a text message to a short code or by visiting a Carphone Warehouse store where it can be uploaded to their Java handset.

MobileATM claims to be more secure than online banking. Advanced encryption technology will generate a one-off authentication code. This is said to eliminate password theft from phishing (whereby a fake web site asks for security details) or trojan attacks (where a virus is lodged in a PC to harvest data) as codes are changed every time the handset is used.

We have assessed mobileATMs current service and we are impressed with its security specification said Professor Fred Piper director of the information security group at the Royal Holloway University of London.

We think mobileATMs dual-factor authentication system has excellent potential for promoting secure mobile Internet banking.

The service which uses T-Mobile offers customers flat rates and a choice of 12 handsets.

It will at first be marketed to Toucans 140000 fixed-line and broadband customers. They will get a single bill for their fixed-line phone line broadband service and mobile phone.

As a post-paid service it will appeal to only a section of the market admitted Toucan MD Joseph Blass. But it still has a wide appeal because it is a very good offer. Its not a niche offer like other MVNOs that have launched recently. There are of course niche elements to it such as the international calling service. But there is nothing niche about 5p flat-rate anytime calling.

Toucan Mobile offers four different 12-month contracts: 50 minutes ( 15 a month) 150 minutes ( 25 a month 300 minutes ( 35 a month) and 500 minutes ( 50 per month).

Calls cost 5p per minute anytime between Toucan fixed-line and mobile customers. Calls to other landlines cost 10p a minute and calls to other mobile networks cost 25p a minute. International calls are included as bundled minutes.

Its a one-stop-shop said Blass. Its about simplicity transparency and choice. A flat rate of 5p a minute effectively offers our customers off-peak rates all day long. The possibility of combining all communication costs on a single statement make it even more compelling.

Toucan plans to roll out its brand into the Netherlands in the next few months with the roll-out of fixed-line services.

The new service called PopVid will make music videos available through DX3s distribution deal with Universal Music.

Headline acts include U2 Eminem Scissor Sisters and Keane. The Universal deal means that its content can be distributed via WAP or Java across a range of different platforms such as PCs mobile phones and memory cards.

DX3 will announce deals with high street retailers and MVNOs within the next fortnight.

It is available cross-network on multiple handsets said DX3 managing director Neil Marshall.

It doesnt need a proprietary music player in the handset. It will locate and activate whatever music player is in the device whether that is Real Player or a manufacturers own player. Its not a stream; its a progressive download. So after you have watched it you can keep it and build up a collection.

It means content including music videos is now available to the highest ever number of mobile customers regardless of whether they access the service using a 2.5G or 3G connection and irrespective of the network that provides their service.

Opera Telecom managing director Gary Corbett said: We are hoping to expand this service to make PopVid into a complete interactive mobile music magazine.

A marketing campaign is running on satellite music channels including MTV VH1 and Kiss. A phased roll-out will see more functions added to the PopVid application over time including wallpapers realtones and full audio downloads.

Impact was formed to supply communications tools to businesses across the UK and employment prospects to jobless youngsters in Yorkshire.

Managing director Dave Lowther and director of telecoms Jill Johnson have gone as well as two sales staff.

Lowther said that he left the company by mutual consent after a difference of opinion about the commercial direction the company was taking. He stated that his departure was unrelated to Johnsons exit three weeks later.

Johnson confirmed her departure but refused to comment on it.

Said Lowther: The reason that Jill left is entirely different from the reasons for my own departure. Jill hadnt been involved in the telecoms side of the business for six months. She had been working in community development. There are two different reasons for our departures.

My departure is a joint decision that has come about because of differences about the commercial direction the company was taking and how to acquire finances.

The girl in charge of the fundraising side of the business left a few months ago and it has left a vacuum.

Two members of the sales team left Impact within a week of Lowther to secure long-term futures at different jobs.

Lowther said he had helped Impact obtain a billing platform and airtime agreements and that the money was not available for further expansion. A redundancy settlement is expected within the next fortnight.

Lowther added: I did not leave under a cloud. In this industry if you leave under a cloud you dont come out with anything.

Impact was unavailable for comment.

The new .mobi domain will be reserved for web sites that are designed to be viewed on a mobile phone. It is expected that it will improve the web browsing experience of visitors.

The mTLD Initiative an Ireland-based coalition of leading companies within the industry and ICANN the company responsible for the Internets addressing system signed a contract this week formalising the creation of the .mobi domain for the entire mobile industry.

Members of the mTLD include the GSM Association 3 Nokia Samsung T-Mobile and Vodafone among others.

The organisation also announced the creation of a new joint-venture to auction domain names to the industry. It will also allocate and run services for the .mobi domain for the next 10 years.

The .mobi domain is expected to give the data market a fillip and create new business opportunities for Internet service and content providers in the mobile domain.

The initiative will launch with a 90 day sunrise period allowing corporations with trademark validated names to secure a second-level .mobi domain.

Generic second-level domain names will be available on a first-come first-served basis after the sunrise period.

The main idea behind the development is that it will provide a simpler more predictable way to find content on the move.

The idea is that users will be sure that the content they are viewing works properly because it is made for mobile.

The award is designed to encourage excellence within companies who install communications and other equipment such as mobile phones two-way radios vehicle positioning systems and telematics into vehicles.

The Isis installations division supplies and advises on a wide portfolio of equipment for vehicles including conventional car kits navigation products in-car multimedia and tracking equipment.

Co-chairman of the FCS Installers Group Stewart Gent of the Chameleon Group said: We set the mobile installer community a challenge to tell us why their products and services delivered into the UK market are special.

The panel of independent judges chose Isis Telecommunications as the clear winner for its well-defined commitment to customer care in its installation work and its declaration to always be Right First Time.