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Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin stepping down, to be replaced by Vittorio Colao
You know how you quit your job that one time because you just weren't seeing results and the coffee kind of sucked? Well, not this guy. After five years at the helm of the world's largest phone company, Arun Sarin is leaving his CEO spot at Vodafone at the ripe old age of 53. His #2, Vittorio Colao, the current Regional CEO of Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa for Vodafone, will be taking the top spot, with the handover to happen on July 29th. Sarin's rule of Vodafone included a failed bid for AT&T Wireless and considerable expansion into emerging markets like India, Turkey and Romania. It's certainly paid off for the company, with full-year profits of $13.25 billion. According to the man himself, "I've done what I came here to do. The time is right and the time is now." It does appear he'll be sticking around a bit in an advisory role, and rumor has it his next gig will be private equity-related.
Vodafone CEO urges industry to rally around LTE
Late last year, we were still wondering whether LTE even had the backing to keep up with WiMAX. Fast forward to CTIA 2008, and my, how the tables have turned. Vodafone, which already teamed up with Verizon in order to initiate an LTE trial in 2008, urged the rest of the wireless sector to put its support squarely behind Long Term Evolution. Vodafone Group's CEO, Arun Sarin, suggested that we could all see mobile internet speeds more similar to those enjoyed on the PC today if the industry "rallied around one broadband standard," specifically noting that "we need to look at LTE as an all-encompassing standard." The push comes hot on the heels of Sprint's unfortunate delay of its XOHM WiMAX network, but it should be noted that infrastructure vendors in attendance tended to feel that the two would coexist at least in the short term. Sheesh, let's just forget this whole LTE / WiMAX spat and place our bets on TD-SCDMA.
