The awards were founded and produced by business advisers Ernst & Young. As a regional award recipient Jones automatically becomes a member of the Entrepreneur Of The Year Institute which bring together successful business people from around the globe.

FoneMan is a specialist retail software system designed for mobile phone dealers and distributors. It has been available in the UK and Ireland for over six years.

Primemark boss Asif Laher has been involved in a bitter dispute with Odyssey over alleged unlicensed use of FoneMan software in several Odyssey stores.

However the likely demise of Odyssey (see P1 and Mobile News September 3) means that the dispute over alleged illegal use of the software is probably now at an end. Syntros produces a similar suite of software under the SaleStar name.

Syntros aims to achieve 25 per cent market share in the specialist mobile communications retail software system market by the end of 2003. It says it will do this through further acquisitions as well as organic growth.

Syntros founder and chief executive Deen Ossman said:

This deal will give existing and potential FoneMan customers access to comprehensive support as our partnership approach encompasses IT and systems integrity training and ongoing support from pre-sales configuration to aftersales service both online and on-site.

Mobile retailers require suppliers offering customer retention and tracking software and extensive maintenance and support.

The first units of the Nokia 8310 will be available this month with the Nokia 6310 shipping in the fourth quarter and the Nokia 8390 at the end of the year .

With the GPRS business system our industry is moving to a new level of complexity. Careful attention has had to be paid to the smooth functioning of the entire system before the volume roll-out of terminals and services Alahuhta said.

This year we estimate the GPRS terminal market volume to be about 10 million units but expect its share of the GSM handset market to rise to over 50 per cent in two years time. Our GPRS phone tests give us confidence that our products will perform to high expectations when they are released to the market.

A key element in the overall success of GPRS is the ability of multiple vendors to consistently test GPRS features between infrastructure and terminals in order to deploy interoperable products in the market.

All leading manufacturers are unanimous on the importance of moving GPRS forward as a joint effort following a commonly agreed process of interoperability testing in relation to new features. This kind of broad industry consensus is essential for the successful rollout of the new mobile services.

Vodafone objected to Oranges claim that speeds of 28.8 kbps three times faster than any other UK network could be made using the Nokia Card Phone and Orange high-speed data service.

Vodafone objected to the claim because it says the Vodafone network allows mobile data to be sent at faster speeds of up to 48 kilobytes a second.

Abdulkader Merhabi (31) had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to attempting to steal the 199 phone from Isabelle Briche at Paddington station on May 23.

I have a duty to protect the public said District Judge Roger Davies.

The courts take a serious view of theft from the person especially when people are relaxing in a restaurant or bar and their property gets stolen by people like you.

The court heard four plain clothed police officers were observing Merhabi as he made several attempts to remove the womans phone from a pouch on her belt.

Merhabi had been fined in December last year for shoplifting and conditionally discharged in June last year for a similar offence.

Pointing out that Merhabi came to England in January 1999 the judge asked why he did not go to France which has links with Algeria.

Defence counsel said that France does not accept asylum applications from Algeria.

In two separate incidents a Russell Specterman was remanded in custody charged with stealing aMotorola charger and Sony camcorder worth 500 during a burglary at the Elizabeth Hotel in Paddington on June 11.

And salesman Abdul Latif (19) was remanded on bail until July 17 charged with stealing three Nokia phones from the Orange Shop in Oxford Street London on January 28.

The company lost 130551000 in the year ending December 2000 according to the Deloitte report.

Dolphin companies are still being allowed to trade while a buyer is being sought.

Potential purchasers had until last Friday (September 14) to submit bids.

The main asset is the network equipment of masts and switches and the network management centre at Hemel Hempstead.

Deloitte &Touche stresses that it is in the interests of all concerned that the shares and/or assets of the businesses are sold without delay and with the minimum disruption.

Deloitte wants cash for the business. It says it will consider the sale on a piecemeal basis of Dolphin businesses and assets.

Dolphin has 1075 Tetra cell sites of which 1019 are in service providing 90 per cent population coverage.

There are currently around 300 remaining members of staff still employed at Dolphin working from the stricken companys Basingstoke offices.

Details of each phone make model and IMEI number covered by Lifeline policies will be held on for a year on the Equipment National Database (MEND).

This provides a central register that can be accessed by people who find phones or organisations tracing lost and stolen equipment.

The mobile phone tycoon has reportedly issued a writ against Rolls-Royce and Bentley Motor Cars Ltd after his third Bentley developed mechanical faults. Caudwell is claiming compensation and damages against Rolls Royce and car dealers Ron Stratton.

The writ has been lodged with the High Court in Manchester and lists problems with the cars warning lights brakes steering convertible roof and doors.

People take a great deal of pride in the ownership of the prestige brand.

The experience of owning the car nowhere near matches up to the image he told journalists at a press conference in Manchester.

Caudwell seeking a substantial amount of compensation and damages from Rolls-Royce and Ron Stratton following allegations of failures and defects in his open-topped car. He bought his first Bentley in 1993 and upgraded to a burgundy 230887 Bentley Azure convertible in 1997.

But the car had developed problems with its battery requiring it to be jump started.

Tow (35) started his career with Racal Electronics when it was setting up the cellular division which later became Racal Vodafone then Vodafone.

I was employee number 74. The other 73 were mainly engineers said Tow.

The 9p share price gives the company market capitalisation of just over 3.5 million and values chairman Warren Hardys 39.25 per cent share at just under 1.4 million.

Losses of 19 million were blamed on one-off costs such as the 15 million (cash and shares) Banner Telecom acquisition and abnormal trading conditions.

Also included in the deficit is 4 million from European Telecoms share of the losses of its joint venture Global Telematics. This 4 million included costs spent on the aborted flotation of Global Telematics.

European Telecoms bankers the Royal Bank of Scotland have agreed to continue providing banking and debt facilities to European Telecom for the next 12 months.

European Telecoms newly-appointed group managing director David McKinney said: The financial year ended March 31 was a very difficult and disappointing one.

The continuing support from our financiers is encouraging and we can now begin to focus our effort on operational improvements and restructuring our range of activities.

It is our firm intention to move ET forward as a leading supplier of value-added fulfilment services for the telecoms and converging industries McKinney said in a statement issued last week.

As part of its strategy to divest itself of non-core business European Telecom has offloaded its voice technology subsidiary ET Voice.

The ET Voice division set up to licence voice recognition software has been sold back to Swindon-based signal processing and speech recognition specialist Domain Dynamics.

Domain Dynamics invented TESPAR (Time Encoded Signal Processing and Recognition) technology which is an advanced voice recognition system designed for use in mobile phones and other devices (see interview P28).