Western Europe

Lenovo Group expects wireless Internet products to account for up to 80 percent of its sales within five years as it pursues expansion in faster-growing emerging markets, CEO Yang Yuanqing said Friday.

Lenovo, the world's fourth-largest personal computer maker, jumped into the mobile Internet market in January with the unveiling of a smart phone and two Web-linked portable computers.

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LG Electronics said Wednesday that it has set a goal of selling 140 million cell phones in 2010. The South Korea-based handset maker also revealed that it plans to become one of the top two mobile-device manufacturers in the world by 2012.

To help boost unit sales, LG will focus on the lucrative smartphone market. Hopes are especially high for Android-based phones, which are expected to make up more than half of LG's upcoming smartphone releases, the company said.

IT industry, get ready to rejoice. According to two new reports, 2010 is going to be a good year. A report from Forrester Research and a soon-to-be-released survey from Information Technology Intelligence Corp. (ITIC) point to a recovery for IT.

The Forrester study said U.S. spending on IT will grow 6.6 percent this year to about $570 billion, following an 8.2 percent decline in 2009. On a global level, the report predicts a rise of 8.1 percent to more than $1.6 trillion.

Garmin's Nuvifone is finally making its way to the Asian market. Spawned by a co-branded alliance between Garmin and Asustek Computer, the Nuvifone is expected to make waves when it hits Singapore, Malaysia and other nations in the region -- and its next stop could be AT&T.

Dubbed the "navigation phone" by its makers, the Garmin-Asus Nüvifone series puts navigation and location-based services (LBS) on a single device. The phone is being marketed to consumers who are looking for an all-in-one, LBS-centric touchscreen phone with a mobile Web browser and personal navigator.

Fouad Ajami in The New York Times:

Justin E. H. Smith I am not all that fond of natural-law theory, as I tend to think that
there are very few things about which nature sends us the
loud-and-clear message: don't do it! In fact, I've narrowed the list
down to just three: incest, coprophagy, and flying.

Industry analysts say smartphone competition is heating up in the United States and Western Europe as vendors jockey for advantage in a market niche that is still showing signs of major growth.

Piper Jaffray, which has a team that calls hundreds of U.S. retail stores each month, saw a slowdown in the sale of rival products from Research In Motion and other smartphone vendors at AT&T during June due to Apple's introduction of the iPhone 3GS for $199 and the iPhone 3G price cut to $99.