Batelco and Kingdom Holding Company today announced that their consortium to purchase Zain Kuwait’s 25 per cent stake in Zain Saudi Arabia anticipates completing due diligence by the end of September 2011. The consortium intends to move to complete its proposed acquisition of Zain Saudi based on term sheets signed in April and July of 2011 with Zain Group and Zain Saudi Arabia respectively, as soon as all outstanding conditions are satisfactorily negotiated with all parties concerned.

Yahoo Inc.’s board has removed CEO Carol Bartz September 6, two-and-a-half years into her tenure that began in January 2009, after growing impatient with the lack of a turnaround at the once-successful web company.

The move was abrupt, amid a number of competitive and strategic challenges facing Yahoo. Bartz was informed of the board’s decision by phone and was not expecting the change, said a person familiar with the matter.

Independent directors did a study of Yahoo’s assets and performance in the past two weeks and concluded the company was not performing as well as it could, said a person familiar with the matter. The review came after nearly a year of board discussions about Yahoo’s flagging performance, and the independent directors ultimately decided a change at the top was the only way to turn things around, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The board named CFO Tim Morse to be interim CEO while it searches for a replacement for Bartz.

Yahoo is currently bidding to buy video site Hulu LLC and that effort is expected to continue, said another person familiar with the matter.

The departure of the CEO, who had more than a year left on her contract, underscores how much the Internet industry has reordered itself and how difficult it has been for a first-generation web company to fight competition from younger competitors.

Dell and China’s top search engine Baidu plan to jointly develop tablet computers and mobile phones, targeting the Chinese market dominated by Apple and Lenovo.

China is one of the fastest growing markets for tablets and is home to more than 900 million mobile phone subscribers, but analysts were sceptical that the partnership would unseat Apple as the dominant force in the market.

Dell declined to give a timeline for the launch of the devices, but local media reported that it may be as early as November.

Baidu launched a new mobile application platform early in September and offered a glimpse of its upcoming mobile operating system, which it hopes will serve a growing number of users accessing the Internet from smartphones and tablet computers.

The company said it already had partnerships with Dell and other device makers and declined to comment on the new tie-up. Dell said the partnership with Baidu involved the company’s new mobile platform.

Baidu has built on its dominance of China’s search market significantly since Google’s high-profile exit last year citing hacking and censorship concerns.

Baidu’s Nasdaq-listed shares are up nearly 50 per cent so far this year, giving it a market value of around U$50 billion.

Bahrain’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced the completion of investigations into complaints received from a group of licensed operators that Batelco and Viva had launched anti-competitive prices for mobile originated calls to certain international destinations that prevented a fair opportunity being provided to all and harmed competition.

The TRA issued separate notices on August 23, 2011 to both operators upon its investigation, which allege that the operators’ pricing constituted an abuse of dominance in the international mobile telecom market, and breached the conditions of competition provided for by the law.

The TRA said it would subsequently issue its final decision following consideration of Batelco and Viva’s responses on the notices.

“Batelco has been informed of this decision and is in the process of making a detailed submission to the TRA outlining reasons why we believe we acted fairly and consistent with the regulatory and competitive laws of the kingdom, commented Rashid Abdulla, CEO Batelco Bahrain. “We look forward to the opportunity to outline our case to the TRA and we are confident we will receive a fair hearing.”

Ericsson is hoping to reach an agreement with Chinese infrastructure company ZTE over their respective patent lawsuits, Ericsson’s CEO, Hans Vestberg has said.

Earlier this year, Ericsson filed a lawsuit against ZTE over allegations of patent infringement in the UK, and reportedly also in Italy and Germany – apparently after years of negotiation did not deliver a settlement. ZTE responded by filing a lawsuit of its own against Ericsson in China.

ZTE is also seeking patent invalidation procedures against Ericsson before the patent re-examination board of SIPO (China’s State Intellectual Property Organisation).

“The telecommunication industry is an industry (in which) we share technologies with competitors, customers and suppliers … Hopefully we can get an agreement (with ZTE),” said Vestberg. He made the remarks at a news briefing during a one-day business trip to Beijing.