China tightens Internet controls, legalizes post deletion

BEIJING (Reuters) – China unveiled tighter Internet controls on Friday, legalizing the deletion of posts or pages which are deemed to contain “illegal” information and requiring service providers to hand over such information to the authorities for punishment.

The rules signal that the new leadership headed by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will continue muzzling the often scathing, raucous online chatter in a country where the Internet offers a rare opportunity for debate.

The new regulations, announced by the official Xinhua news agency, also require Internet users to register with their real names when signing up with network providers, though, in reality, this already happens.

Chinese authorities and Internet companies such as Sina Corp have long since closely monitored and censored what people say online, but the government has now put measures such as deleting posts into law.

“Service providers are required to instantly stop the transmission of illegal information once it is spotted and take relevant measures, including removing the information and saving records, before reporting to supervisory authorities,” the rules state.

The restrictions follow a series of corruption scandals amongst lower-level officials exposed by Internet users, something the government has said it is trying to encourage.

Li Fei, deputy head of parliament’s legislative affairs committee, said the new rules did not mean people needed to worry about being unable to report corruption online. But he added a warning too.

“When people exercise their rights, including the right to use the Internet, they must do so in accordance with the law and constitution, and not harm the legal rights of the state, society … or other citizens,” he told a news conference.

Chinese Internet users already cope with extensive censorship measures, especially over politically sensitive topics like human rights and elite politics, and popular foreign sites Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube are blocked.

Earlier this year, the government began forcing users of Sina’s wildly successful Weibo microblogging platform to register their real names.

The new rules were quickly condemned by some Weibo users.

“So now they are getting Weibo to help in keeping records and reporting it to authorities. Is this the freedom of expression we are promised in the constitution?” complained one user.

“We should resolutely oppose such a covert means to interfere with Internet freedom,” wrote another.

The government says tighter monitoring of the Internet is needed to prevent people making malicious and anonymous accusations online, disseminating pornography and spreading panic with unfounded rumors, pointing out that many other countries already have such rules.

Despite periodic calls for political reform, the party has shown no sign of loosening its grip on power and brooks no dissent to its authority.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Sally Huang; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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Fans to join Beyonce onstage at Super Bowl

NEW YORK (AP) — All the single ladies — and fellas — will have a chance to join Beyonce onstage at the upcoming Super Bowl.

Pepsi announced Friday that 100 fans will hit the stage when the Grammy-winning diva performs on Feb. 3 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. A contest that kicks off Saturday will allow fans to submit photos of themselves in various poses, including head bopping, feet tapping and hip shaking. Those pictures will be used in a TV ad introducing Beyonce’s halftime performance, and 50 people — along with a friend — will be selected to join the singer onstage.

The photo contest — at www.pepsi.com/halftime — ends Jan. 19, but Jan. 11 is the cut-off date for those interested in appearing onstage with Beyonce.

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FDA approves Bristol Myers, Pfizer’s anti-clotting drug Eliquis

(Reuters) – U.S. health regulators approved clot prevention drug Eliquis, developed by Bristol Myers-Squibb Co and Pfizer Inc, for treatment in patients with atrial fibrillation, or irregular heartbeats.

The drug, also known as apixaban, was approved by European health regulators last month.

Eliquis belongs to a new class of medicines designed to replace decades-old warfarin for preventing blood clots in heart patients, or after a hip- or knee-replacement surgery.

Eliquis would compete against approved blood clot preventers such as Xarelto from Johnson & Johnson and Bayer, and Pradaxa from Boehringer Ingelheim.

Treating atrial fibrillation, which greatly raises the risk of strokes, is considered by far the largest and most important use for these new drugs.

The oral tablet Eliquis, like Xarelto, works by inhibiting a protein called Factor Xa that plays a critical role in blood clotting. Pradaxa has a slightly different mechanism of action.

However, Eliquis should not be taken by patients with prosthetic heart valves or those with atrial fibrillation caused by a heart valve problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a statement.

About 5.8 million people in the United States suffer from atrial fibrillation, the most common form of heart arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat.

Bristol-Myers shares were up 2 percent at $ 32.48 and Pfizer shares were up 10 cents at $ 24.99 in extended trading.

(Reporting by Prateek Kumar; Editing by Sreejiraj Eluvangal)

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Deal reached to avert U.S. port strike for now

(Reuters) – The union representing nearly 15,000 dockworkers at U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coast seaports stretching from Boston to Corpus Christi, Texas, reached a tentative contract deal with shipping companies on Friday, averting a strike that threatened to wreak havoc on the U.S. economy.

The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the U.S. Maritime Alliance clinched a deal in federally-mediated talks less than two days before a strike deadline set by the union to coincide with expiration of the contract on Sunday.

The threatened walkout would have brought container cargo operations to a halt at 15 ports along the Eastern seaboard and Gulf Coast, marking the first such work stoppage in 35 years. Friday’s announcement came hours after the White House urged the parties to settle their dispute.

Under Friday’s deal, the two sides agreed to extend the terms of their expiring labor pact for 30 more days while negotiators finalize details of their settlement, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service said in a statement.

The breakthrough came as the parties agreed “in principle” on the contentious issue of “container royalties,” or bonus payments earned by ILA dockworkers based on the tonnage of cargo moved through their respective ports.

The new contract does not eliminate the royalty payments, as the shippers had demanded, according to Benny Holland, an executive vice president for the ILA.

“The royalty will stay intact. We have worked out a formula for it,” he said in an interview. He did not elaborate and the shippers declined to comment. No further details were disclosed in the government’s statement.

LONG-TERM AGREEMENT AWAITED

Established in 1960, the royalty payments to ILA workers are based on the tons of container cargo that move through a port. That tonnage has risen from 50 million tons in 1996 to 110 million tons last year, according to the alliance.

Total payments last year were $ 211 million, according to the USMX, or an average of $ 15,500 per worker.

The original idea of the royalty payments was to protect longshoremen from wage losses expected as a result of “containerization,” in which more and more goods are packed in the now-familiar 20- and 40-foot long boxes. Those take less manpower to offload than the less-standardized containers they replaced.

The two sides also fought over the guaranteed eight-hour workday in the current contract as well as the seven-man “lashing gang.” Lashing crews, or gangs, secure the cargo containers to the vessel using metal lashing rods to keep them from moving while the vessel is at sea. The maritime alliance wanted to eliminate each.

A new long-term agreement has an 80 percent chance of happening by January 28, Capital Alpha Partners analyst Loren Smith said in a research note.

The temporary agreement comes as labor forces felt emboldened by recent victories by other unions across the United States. At the same time, shipping companies and port operators have been using more automation, but have seen profits shrink.

The Baltic Dry index, which tracks the cost to ship materials overseas, is down 55 percent in the past year and currently trading at levels it has not seen in a decade.

(Additional reporting by Kevin Gray in Miami and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, editing by Mary Milliken; desking by G Crosse)

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2 arrested after Guinea treasury chief killed

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Officials in the West African nation of Guinea say they’ve arrested two suspects in the case of the killing of the country’s treasury chief, who was shot to death nearly two months ago.

Authorities paraded the pair in front of journalists Friday. Aissatou Boiro was killed as she was driving home. She had launched an investigation into the loss of 13 million francs ($ 1.8 million) which went missing from the state coffers.

The government says the suspects were found with Boiro‘s computer memory stick and mobile telephone.

The men denied any involvement in her slaying and said a friend had given them the items.

Boiro’s colleagues say she had zero tolerance for corruption and was intent on putting an end to the mismanagement of state funds.

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Analysis: For tech investors, it’s hard to know when to bolt

(Reuters) – When Hewlett-Packard Co agreed to buy British software company Autonomy in August last year for $ 11.1 billion, two well-known investors made diametrically different bets on how the big deal would play out.

To short seller Jim Chanos, who had been raising red flags on Autonomy for years and had started shorting shares of HP in 2011, the deal was another nail in the coffin of the Silicon Valley tech giant, according to a source familiar with his thinking.

But to activist investor Ralph Whitworth, co-founder of Relational Investors LLC, it was time to commit to HP and the turnaround story the company was trying to sell to Wall Street. His fund bought more than 17.5 million HP shares after the deal was announced, and Whitworth received a seat on the company’s board. This year, Relational roughly doubled its stake in HP.

In the wake of HP’s decision to take an $ 8.8 billion write-down on the deal because of alleged accounting irregularities at Autonomy, it appears Chanos – whose call to short Enron before the energy company collapsed in a corporate scandal may be his most famous trade – was more astute.

HP’s shares are down 36 percent since Relational, which declined to comment, built its stake in the third quarter of 2011.

BARRIERS TO ENTRY

Relational’s big move into HP is a reminder that even smart investors can get things wrong in the fast-evolving technology sector, where once hot global names like Research in Motion and Yahoo can quickly become yesterday’s news.

It is a world where a company may effectively erect barriers to entry in a market only to have them torn down by a rival with a new whizz-bang product – just as Apple‘s iPhone broke the dominance that Research in Motion’s BlackBerry had enjoyed.

One warning sign that a tech company may be on the verge of losing its edge is when it makes acquisitions outside of its main area of expertise to move into new product lines. Savvy tech investors also say be wary of companies that experience a succession of management changes, or when a successful core business starts looking tired.

The pace of change in the technology sector is much faster than in other industries, said Kaushik Roy, an analyst at Hercules Technology Growth Capital. “It attracts new talent and capital, many startups are formed, which can be extremely disruptive to incumbents,” Roy said. “In other words, yesterday’s winners can rapidly become today’s losers and vice versa.”

In the case of HP, the company not only has had four CEOs since 1999, it has been striving to find another niche to dominate as demand for one of its core products – computer printers – wanes and as its PC business stumbles.

Or consider online search pioneer Yahoo, which has gone through six chief executives and is struggling to keep pace with Google.

Josh Spencer, a portfolio manager at T. Rowe Price, said frequent turnover in the executive suite at Yahoo was a warning sign to him. Spencer said he does not own Yahoo shares and has not in the recent past.

RED FLAGS

While a company may view an acquisition as a fresh start – that is what HP was trying to say about Autonomy – some investors see it as a warning the core business is struggling.

Spencer noted that the technology industry’s most successful companies – Apple and Samsung – generally have not made acquisitions and instead developed new products internally.

For Margaret Patel, managing director at Wells Capital Management, one of the first red flags she saw at HP was when former CEO Carly Fiorina bought Compaq for roughly $ 25 billion in 2002.

“I felt then that the acquisition was too large and expensive, and personal computers were not their core strength,” said Patel, who has since avoided investing in HP.

Of course, timing can be everything even if an investor is eventually proven right. Patel missed out on a 137 percent gain in HP’s stock price from the time of the Compaq deal up until the end of 2010.

PREMIUM VALUATIONS

A few money managers see a flashing yellow light in the big sell-off of Apple shares in the past few months.

Apple, the most valuable U.S. company, has shed nearly 30 percent of its value in the last three months.

Since the death of co-founder Steve Jobs – the driving force behind Apple’s iPod, iPhone and iPad – DoubleLine co-founder Jeffrey Gundlach has been recommending that investors short the company’s shares because “the product innovator isn’t there anymore.”

Gundlach said he began shorting Apple’s stock at around $ 610 and maintains that it could drop to $ 425. He declined to comment on Tim Cook, who succeeded Jobs over a year ago and is seen by many as less visionary and innovative than Jobs.

Christian Bertelsen, chief investment officer at Global Financial Private Capital, with assets under management of $ 1.7 billion, said his firm began paring back its exposure to Apple this fall because he felt the expectations for the company’s new iPhone5 had gotten overheated.

He said his firm dramatically took down its exposure to Apple shares when the stock hit $ 670 a share. “For us, the light bulb went off this fall,” he said. Mind you, Apple’s shares still remain up about 25 percent for the whole year.

And then there’s Research in Motion. Once a leader in smartphones, it’s now in danger of becoming irrelevant.

“They saw the move towards all touch-screen phones and didn’t move with it,” said Stuart Jeffrey, an analyst at Nomura Securities who noted how the BlackBerry 10 touch-screen phone will debut on January 30, 2013, six years after Apple released its first iPhone in 2007.

Robert Stimpson, a portfolio manager at Oak Associates Funds whose fund does not own any shares of Research in Motion, said the company’s BlackBerry phones are on a downward slope and it will be tough for the company to regain its lost luster.

“The end of the road is a long, lonely journey,” Stimpson said of Research in Motion. “I think they will fight the good fight for many years, probably unsuccessfully.”

(Reporting by Nicola Leske and Sam Forgione in New York; Editing by Paritosh Bansal, Tiffany Wu, Jennifer Ablan and Matthew Goldstein; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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Celebrity bad science: Dried placenta pills and oxygen shots

LONDON (Reuters) – Pop guru Simon Cowell carries pocket-sized inhalable oxygen shots, America’s “Mad Men” actress January Jones favors dried placenta pills, and British soap star Patsy Palmer rubs coffee granules into her skin.

Celebrities rarely shy away from public peddling of dubious ideas about health and science, and 2012 was no exception.

In its annual list of the year’s worst abuses against science, the Sense About Science (SAS) campaign also named former U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney for spreading misinformation about windows on planes, and Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps for false justifications for peeing in the pool.

To help set the record straight, SAS, a charity dedicated to helping people make sense of science and evidence, invited qualified scientists to respond to some of the wilder pseudo-scientific claims put about by the rich and famous.

It suggested Romney, who wondered aloud in September why aircraft crews don’t just open the windows when there’s a fire on board, should listen to aeronautical engineer Jakob Whitfield:

“Unfortunately, Mitt, opening a window at height wouldn’t do much good,” the scientist said. “In fact, if you could open a window whilst in flight, the air would rush out…because air moves from the high pressure cabin to the lower pressure outside, probably causing further injury and damage.”

January Jones’s dried placenta pills, which the actress admitted in March she consumed after giving birth, win no favor with Catherine Collins, principal dietician at St George’s Hospital in London.

“Nutritionally, there’s nothing to be gained from eating your placenta – raw, cooked, or dried,” Collins said. “Apart from iron, which can be easily found in other dietary choices or supplements, your placenta will provide toxins and other unsavory substances it had successfully prevented from reaching your baby in utero.”

Gary Moss, a pharmaceutical scientist, patiently points out to Palmer that while caffeine may have an effect on cellulite, rubbing coffee granules into the skin is unlikely to work, since the caffeine can’t escape the granules to penetrate the skin.

Phelps’s claim that it’s fine to pee in the pool because “chlorine kills it” is put straight by biochemist Stuart Jones, who reminds him that “urine is essentially sterile so there isn’t actually anything to kill in the first place”.

And for Cowell, Kay Mitchell a scientist at the Centre for Altitude Space and Extreme Environment Medicine warns that very high levels of oxygen can in fact be toxic – particularly in the lungs, where oxygen levels are highest.

“Celebrity comments travel far and fast, so it’s important that they talk sense,” said Sense About Science’s managing director Tracey Brown. “The implausible and frankly dangerous claims about how to avoid cancer, improve skin or lose weight are becoming ever more ridiculous. And unfortunately they have a much higher profile than the research and evidence.”

To encourage more vigilance among celebrity pseudo-scientists in the future, SAS provided a checklist of “misleading science claims” it suggests should be avoided:

* “Immune boosting” – you can’t and you don’t need to

* “Detox” – your liver does this

* “Superfood” – there is no such thing, just foods that are high in some nutrients

* “Oxygenating” – your lungs do this

* “Cleansing” – you shouldn’t be trying to cleanse anything other than your skin or hair.

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SeaWorld Hopes For an IPO Splash

Shamu may have new masters. The private equity firm Blackstone today filed to take SeaWorld public at an undisclosed date. Blackstone (BX)  bought the amusement parks in late 2009 for $ 2.7 billion from Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD). At the time, the amusement parks weren’t profitable—they lost $ 58 million in December 2009 alone—but they’ve made money since: In 2011 net income was $ 19 million, and in the first nine months of 2012 it was $ 86 million.

SeaWorld Entertainment runs 11 parks under several different brands: SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Aquatica, and Sesame Place. It also runs Discovery Cove, a park next to the SeaWorld in Orlando that offers luxury cabanas and the ability to swim with dolphins and limits admission to no more than 1,300 people a day. More than half the company’s revenue comes from parks in Florida, several of which are in the theme park mecca, Orlando. In an attempt at the quantification of fun, the IPO filing says the parks combined have 93 animal attractions (Hello, Shamu), 193 rides (lazy rivers, anyone?), 113 shows, 49 play areas (like Halloween mazes), 38 limited-time events, and 113 “distinctive experiences,” such as feeding penguins.

SeaWorld’s filing makes clear what anyone who’s ever purchased an outrageously priced amusement park soda already knows—the real profit comes from food and merchandise. In the nine months through September, SeaWorld spent just $ 99 million on food and goods that brought in $ 445 million in revenue. Compare that with the $ 560 million it cost to operate the parks, which brought in $ 716 million in ticket sales. The average customer spent $ 22.39 on “in-park” spending, the filing says. That’s on top of the nearly $ 35 the average person spent on admission.

The filing points out some unique risk factors. Blackstone will keep a controlling share in SeaWorld, which could lead to a conflict of interest, because Blackstone also owns a “substantial stake” in the company that owns Legoland theme parks. And then there are the animals. They are susceptible to infectious diseases, the filing says, and dangers lurk in their interactions with humans, too. “Injuries or death, while rare, have occurred in the past and may occur in the future,” it says. So Shamu and his buddies are both assets and liabilities.

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China tightening controls on Internet

BEIJING (AP) — China‘s new communist leaders are increasing already tight controls on Internet use and electronic publishing following a spate of embarrassing online reports about official abuses.

The measures suggest China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, and others who took power in November share their predecessors’ anxiety about the Internet’s potential to spread opposition to one-party rule and their insistence on controlling information despite promises of more economic reforms.

“They are still very paranoid about the potentially destabilizing effect of the Internet,” said Willy Lam, a politics specialist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “They are on the point of losing a monopoly on information, but they still are very eager to control the dissemination of views.”

This week, China’s legislature took up a measure to require Internet users to register their real names, a move that would curtail the Web’s status as a freewheeling forum to complain, often anonymously, about corruption and official abuses. The legislature scheduled a news conference Friday to discuss the measure, suggesting it was expected to be approved.

That comes amid reports Beijing might be disrupting use of software that allows Web surfers to see sites abroad that are blocked by its extensive Internet filters. At the same time, regulators have proposed rules that would bar foreign companies from distributing books, news, music and other material online in China.

Beijing promotes Internet use for business and education but bans material deemed subversive or obscene and blocks access to foreign websites run by human rights and Tibet activists and some news outlets. Controls were tightened after social media played a role in protests that brought down governments in Egypt and Tunisia.

In a reminder of the Web’s role as a political forum, a group of 70 prominent Chinese scholars and lawyers circulated an online petition this week appealing for free speech, independent courts and for the ruling party to encourage private enterprise.

Xi and others on the party’s ruling seven-member Standing Committee have tried to promote an image of themselves as men of the people who care about China’s poor majority. They have promised to press ahead with market-oriented reforms and to support entrepreneurs but have given no sign of support for political reform.

Communist leaders who see the Internet as a source of economic growth and better-paid jobs were slow to enforce the same level of control they impose on movies, books and other media, apparently for fear of hurting fledgling entertainment, shopping and other online businesses.

Until recently, Web surfers could post comments online or on microblog services without leaving their names.

That gave ordinary Chinese a unique opportunity to express themselves to a public audience in a society where newspapers, television and other media are state-controlled. The most popular microblog services say they have more than 300 million users and some users have millions of followers reading their comments.

The Internet also has given the public an unusual opportunity to publicize accusations of official misconduct.

A local party official in China’s southwest was fired in November after scenes from a videotape of him having sex with a young woman spread quickly on the Internet. Screenshots were uploaded by a former journalist in Beijing, Zhu Ruifeng, to his Hong Kong website, an online clearing house for corruption allegations.

Some industry analysts suggest allowing Web surfers in a controlled setting to vent helps communist leaders stay abreast of public sentiment in their fast-changing society. Still, microblog services and online bulletin boards are required to employ censors to enforce content restrictions. Researchers say they delete millions of postings a day.

The government says the latest Internet regulation before the National People’s Congress is aimed at protecting Web surfers’ personal information and cracking down on abuses such as junk e-mail. It would require users to report their real names to Internet service and telecom providers.

The main ruling party newspaper, People’s Daily, has called in recent weeks for tighter Internet controls, saying rumors spread online have harmed the public. In one case, it said stories about a chemical plant explosion resulted in the deaths of four people in a car accident as they fled the area.

Proposed rules released this month by the General Administration of Press and Publications would bar Chinese-foreign joint ventures from publishing books, music, movies and other material online in China. Publishers would be required to locate their servers in China and have a Chinese citizen as their local legal representative.

That is in line with rules that already bar most foreign access to China’s media market, but the decision to group the restrictions together and publicize them might indicate official attitudes are hardening.

That comes after the party was rattled by foreign news reports about official wealth and misconduct.

In June, Bloomberg News reported that Xi’s extended family has amassed assets totaling $ 376 million, though it said none was traced to Xi. The government has blocked access to Bloomberg’s website since then.

In October, The New York Times reported that Premier Wen Jiabao’s relatives had amassed $ 2.7 billion since he rose to national office in 2002. Access to the Times’ Chinese-language site has been blocked since then.

Previous efforts to tighten controls have struggled with technical challenges in a country with more than 500 million Internet users.

Microblog operators such as Sina Corp. and Tencent Ltd. were ordered in late 2011 to confirm users’ names but have yet to finish the daunting task.

Web surfers can circumvent government filters by using virtual private networks — software that encrypts Web traffic and is used by companies to transfer financial data and other sensitive information. But VPN users say disruptions that began in 2011 are increasing, suggesting Chinese regulators are trying to block encrypted traffic.

Curbs on access to foreign sites have prompted complaints by companies and Chinese scientists and other researchers.

In July, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said 74 percent of companies that responded to a survey said unstable Internet access “impedes their ability to do business.”

Chinese leaders “realize there are detrimental impacts on business, especially foreign business, but they have counted the cost and think it is still worthwhile,” said Lam. “There is no compromise about the political imperative of controlling the Internet.”

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Nokia Lumia 920′s fascinating Christmas sets stage for battle with BlackBerry 10

The Chinese version of Nokia’s (NOK) new flagship Windows Phone model recently debuted in Shanghai. According to pictures posted to Chinese websites, the Lumia 920T drew a big crowd… and sold out in two hours. So the debate over whether there is wide mass market demand for the model rages on.

[More from BGR: Microsoft Surface trampled at the bottom of the tablet pile this Christmas]

The very limited early supply makes it hard to gauge the demand in China. The Lumia 920 did hit Amazon China’s (AMZN) top-five list a week ago, but sold out quickly and dropped out. There are now rumors about China Mobile planning to further subsidize the Lumia 920T in January, making it effectively free on contract. This would be China Mobile’s revenge on Apple (AAPL) for its refusal to cut a sweetheart deal with the giant carrier and its 700 million subscribers.

[More from BGR: Purported photo of new BlackBerry phone with QWERTY keyboard leaks]

Nokia may thus be close to landing the Chinese version of the role that Motorola played for Verizon (VZ) in 2010. Back then, the U.S. carrier used DROID models to flaunt the fact that it did not really need the iPhone as badly as many assumed.

China Mobile is now planning to show Apple it can turn even Windows Phones into mass-market hits in China with its marketing and subsidy machine. This could be great for Nokia — if Apple isn’t forced into a cutting a quick deal in coming months. The iPhone’s ho-hum market share performance in markets like Latin America and Asia is piling pressure on Apple right about now.

In a fascinating U.S. twist, the Lumia 920 climbed the Amazon charts again over the past week as its supply has improved. The black variant of the Lumia 920 debuted in the top-three in November, dropped out of top-40 after Amazon’s delivery time stretched to two weeks… and has now staged a comeback to No.14. This makes it the second-biggest AT&T (T) phone on Amazon right now, with only the blue version of the Galaxy S III outperforming the 920.

The Lumia 822 is fizzling badly at Verizon, but Nokia just might be gaining a toehold at AT&T even after the pre-Christmas supply drama. It is now clear that the Lumia 920 is beating its biggest Windows rival, the HTC Windows Phone 8X, convincingly at AT&T.

This sets up a very interesting rivalry when AT&T debuts the new generation of BlackBerry 10 models sometime in February or March. The battle for the third mobile ecosystem at AT&T will be effectively waged by Nokia and RIM (RIMM) this spring. The loser may well find out that it does not have strong subsidy or marketing support in 2013.

AT&T has an incentive to build up a third rival for the Apple and Android ecosystems, but it has little reason to support both minor operating systems.

This article was originally published by BGR

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