Within a year cellphones will be able to use operators' WiFi hotspots without cumbersome logging-in procedures, giving consumers faster access to the Internet on the go, a new industry initiative promised on Tuesday.

The initiative from two industry groups - the GSMA and the Wireless Broadband Alliance - aims to provide technical and commercial solutions for WiFi roaming, which would also ease the traffic load on operators' already crowded networks.

Oracle Corp beat Wall Street's earnings estimates as new software sales came in at the high end of the company's forecast, offsetting a sharp drop in hardware revenue. The software maker's stock rose 1.5% after the news, in sharp contrast to the sell-off three months ago when its second-quarter profit missed analysts' forecasts for the first time in a decade.

On Tuesday, International Business Machines (IBM) launched three services to help companies sift and understand so-called "big data," hoping to get some of the $120 billion or more that businesses are expected to invest in data analytics by 2015.

Eniram Ltd., a provider of real time decision-support systems for the shipping industry, claims that its latest machine-to-machine (M2M) software tool will help change the way the shipping industry manages speed, engine use and fuel consumption.

Eniram’s (Helsinki, Finland) new product, Optimum Speed Assistant (OSA), launched last week, is an onboard decision support tool that enables a ship’s crew to attain the optimum speed profile for each voyage, allowing vessels to maintain a constant performance and arrive into ports just in time.

AppDirect, a provider of cloud service marketplace and management platforms, announced that it is providing its cloud service for Deutsche Telekom’s new Business Marketplace. With the Business Marketplace, Deutsche Telekom is able to deliver secure cloud applications and services to SMB customers.

The European competition watchdog is questioning five of Europe's biggest telecoms companies to see if a series of meetings they held since 2010 on strategy and technical co-operation constituted collusion.

Laird Technologies Inc., a supplier of customized electronics and wireless products, announced its acquisition of Summit Data Communications, a manufacturer of wireless LAN modules and cards for mobile computers, medical devices, and similar equipment.  Summit posted a revenue of $17.2 million in 2011, increasing 13% from the previous year.

On Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, JDSUintroduced PacketPortal, a Smart Network Application Platform that uses microprobe technology to gather intelligence anywhere in the network for use with customer care, marketing and other applications.  These applications provide service providers with a new way to generate revenue, build brands and build subscriber loyalty, says JDSU (Milpitas, Calif., USA).  

This week, Chinese telecom equipment makers Huawei and ZTE both announced separate extensions to partnerships in the U.S.

Huawei (Shenzhen, P.R.C.) announced that it will grant contracts totaling $6 billion to Qualcomm, Broadcom and Avago (San Jose, Calif., USA), three California-based communications technology companies which Huawei has worked with in the past.

Oracle Corp agreed to buy Taleo Corp, a maker of Web-based software for recruiting employees, for about $1.9 billion, as technology companies’ battle for the top spot in the fast-growing cloud computing market.