Lenovo enters Pakistan’s smartphone market

KARACHI: Lenovo will launch its smartphones in Pakistan next month with a ten-model portfolio, said a press release.

The smartphones will be available at all major retailers and will be distributed in Pakistan through Tech Sirat that will also provide after sales support.

Wi-tribe develops communication app

KARACHI: Internet services provider wi-tribe has developed a smartphone application ‘Hi-App’ that allows its users to talk, chat and share for free, said a press release on Tuesday.

The app-to-app calls, messaging and file sharing are free while smart payment options are available for chargeable calls, locally and internationally.

HMB posts Rs2.1bn profit

KARACHI: The Habib Metropolitan Bank posted a pre-tax profit of Rs3.06 billion for the first half (January-June) of this calendar year, registering a year-on-year growth of 14 per cent, a press release said on Tuesday.

The bank’s after-tax profit amounted to Rs2.104bn; resultantly, its earnings per share rose by 18.2pc to Rs2.01, from Rs1.70 in the first half of 2013.

Chinese antitrust regulator targets Microsoft

BEIJING: Microsoft Corp’s Windows web browser and media player are being targeted in a Chinese antitrust probe, raising the prospect of China revisiting the software bundling issue at the heart of past antitrust complaints against the firm in the West.

The State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) suspects Microsoft of not being fully transparent with information about its Windows and Office sales, but the company has expressed willingness to cooperate with ongoing investigations, Zhang Mao, the head of the antitrust regulator, told reporters at a briefing in Beijing on Tuesday.

As Windows became the world’s dominant operating system in the 1990s and 2000s, the issue of how Microsoft bundled its web browser and media player became the focus of respective antitrust cases brought by US and European authorities.

Microsoft settled in 2001 with the US Department of Justice a long-running case centring around whether it could bundle its flagship Internet Explorer browser with Windows.

In 2004, the European Union ordered Microsoft to pay a 497 million euro ($656m) fine and produce a version of Windows without the Windows Media Player bundled.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2014