The three aim to develop products for mobile users who want one device that can make phone calls, access the internet and run advanced multimedia, application content and services.Katsumi Ihara, president of Sony’s personal IT network company, said: “As a leader in consumer electronics, Sony is ideally positioned to offer compelling mobile solutions based on TI’s OMAP and the Symbian platform. The upcoming broadband data services and the rising demand for ubiquitous, omni-functional mobile devices will require a powerful, power-thrifty processing engine and open operating system.”Sony’s decision to embrace the Symbian alliance raises question marks for Palm, the market leader in handheld devices. Palm had licensed its less powerful 16-bit software to Sony and has also made a loose co-operation pact with Symbian. Analysts now believe Palm will need to decide quickly whether to work closely with Symbian to help fend off an expected Microsoft-led onslaught in the handheld market.Although Psion shareholders have been burned recently, analysts were encouraged by the pact with Sony and TI.”News flow should be good over the 18 months, and that will help the stock,” said one analyst. “But it’s a momentum stock and is likely to suffer when the market does.”. Independent directors of Sun Life & Provincial Holdings are holding out for about 520p a share in return for recommending a deal that would allow AXA, the insurance giant, to buy out the 43.7 per cent of the company it does not already own.

Independent directors of Sun Life & Provincial Holdings are holding out for about 520p a share in return for recommending a deal that would allow AXA, the insurance giant, to buy out the 43.7 per cent of the company it does not already own.
The directors, led by chairman Lord Douro, are confident that their tough negotiating tactics will result in a deal early next week on far more favourable terms to minority shareholders than had been hoped for when the talks began in late March.The directors have warned AXA, which has so far been reluctant to pay anywhere near the sums UK institutions have been seeking, that unless it comes back with an improved offer Prudential, SL&P’s biggest independent shareholder, could veto a deal, whether or not it is recommended by the board.The Pru, which has 5.99 per cent of SL&P, is understood to have initially asked for £6 a share, and as of yesterday was believed still to be hoping for £5.70.The French insurance giant, which approached SL&P’s independent directors last month when SL&P’s shares were below 360p, had hoped to get away with an offer of about 420p a share, but this was rejected by the board. AXA has now agreed to come back with an improved offer before the end of the week.In an attempt to ginger up SL&P’s share price and bolster their negotiating hand, SL&P’s directors put out a statement yesterday, confirming that negotiations were still going on. The statement appears to have had the opposite effect: SL&P shares fell 5p to 436.5p.City observers have argued that AXA initiated the buy-out discussions last month because it saw an opportunity to buy in the minorities on the cheap. However, there have been strong suspicions that AXA’s enthusiasm had cooled as soon as news of the discussions leaked and the board of SL&P started putting pressure on AXA to improve the terms.The statement said: “It has not so far been possible to reach agreement on the terms of any such offer. AXA has now indicated to the independent non-executive directors that a new proposal will be put to them by the end of the week.

When the independent directors have had an opportunity to consider this proposal a further announcement will be made.”SL&P shares have languished since the £3.5bn takeover of Guardian Royal Exchange last year, much to the irritation of UK holders, who agreed to take SL&P paper in return for GRE.. The competition to create a pan-European stock market heated up yesterday as Tradepoint said it would be the first to offer the service. The competition to create a pan-European stock market heated up yesterday as Tradepoint said it would be the first to offer the service.
Tradepoint Financial Networks, currently a minor player in London backed by 11 brokerages and banks, said it would launch the first pan-European exchange to trade blue-chip equities, on 10 July.The move will pit Tradepoint against Euronext, a merger announced last month between the Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels bourses. It will also compete with any combined London-Frankfurt stock exchange.The pattern of fragmented stock markets across the Continent had made cross-border dealing in shares costly and complicated.Steve Wilson, director of business development at Tradepoint, said: “There’s been an awful lot of talking between the major exchanges over the last couple of years. We’re actually getting on with it.”Yesterday, the Paris stock exchange said that the door remained open to London to joint Euronext.

The ParisBourse said the LSE has yet to reply to Euronext’s merger proposal, made earlier this month.It is thought the LSE and Frankfurt aim to reach a conclusion on negotiations before 4 May, when the Deutsche Börse holds a meeting with its shareholders. The LSE has said that it is also talking to other exchanges.Tradepoint’s Mr Wilson said that these rivals had yet to set out a viable business model. “We have a starting date, the technology and a clearing house in place,” he said.Tradepoint will initially add 230 continental European equities to the 2,000 UK stocks on offer in July, to cover the companies in the major European indices. The service will use the London Clearing House as a central counterparty, to guarantee the trades.

The trades will be cleared through Euroclear, an industry co-operative.Critics have said that Tradepoint lacks the necessarily liquidity. Tradepoint said it handles just 1 per cent of the UK equity market.. Shareholders of Britain’s biggest companies are to be given new powers to control directors’ pay. Shareholders of Britain’s biggest companies are to be given new powers to control directors’ pay.
Stephen Byers, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, is to announce that all publicly quoted companies will be required to ask shareholders to vote on the salaries paid to their board members each year.The move comes amid increasing anger among ministers that companies such as Barclays bank are awarding directors huge pay packages while closing branches and planning to impose charges for the use of cash machines.The issue was highlighted starkly yesterday when shareholders at Barclays’ annual general meeting attacked the £1.3m pay awarded to its new chief executive, Matt Barrett. Despite their complaints there was no mechanism for shareholders to vote separately on the renumeration package.Mr Byers’ long-awaited announcement on directors’ pay, to be made in the next few weeks, follows extensive consultation with business on the best way to improve the accountability and transparency of British firms.Under the proposals, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will require that publicly quoted firms ask their shareholders to vote on the board’s renumeration report at annual general meetings.Currently the only way that investors have of expressing their objections to salaries is either by voting against a company’s annual report or against individual directors standing for re-election.Mr Byers is keen to show that the Government takes the issue of corporate accountability seriously, but does not want to over-regulate business in its commercial decisions.The DTI has decided that the changes will not be achieved through legislation but will instead be written into the code of practice being drawn up by the Financial Services Authority. All companies will be expected to comply with the code when it takes over the role of the Stock Exchange in policing corporate law later this year.Even tougher moves, to require directors to stand for re-election every year and to allow shareholders to elect the chairman of the renumeration committee, have been rejected.However, companies will be required to ensure their renumeration reports explain the link between rewards and performance and will have to show clearly how high pay results in long-term objectives.