On Thursday, the networking bigwig Cisco Systems announced its intentions of taking over the San-Francisco, California-based Pure Digital Technologies, the manufacturer of the popular Flip Video camcorder.

The San-Jose, California-based Cisco plans to strike a $590-million-in-stock deal with Pure Digital. In exchange, Cisco will gain all the Pure Digital shares, as well as a robust gadget startup that would further its foray into the consumer marketplace. The deal would likely close in Cisco's fiscal fourth quarter, ending July.

With a view to fulfill its fuel requirement, country’s biggest thermal power generating company, NTPC has decided to import 12.5 million tons of coal in the next financial year (FY-09-10).

Speaking on the sidelines of a CII event here, VS Sampath, Power Secretary said, “We have set a coal import target of 35 million tons for power utilities in 2009-10 against the earlier planned 25 million tons.”

Norway-based Telenor Group has made the payment of the first installment of Rs 1,250 crore in Unitech Wireless that gave it a stake of 33.5 per cent in the telecom JV.

With this investment, the Norwegian company has made a formal entry into the world’s fastest growing telecom sector.

Speaking on this, Telenor Group President and CEO, Jon Fredrik Baksaas said, “This marks the formal entry of Telenor into the world’s fastest growing mobile market and we are now embarking on an operational phase, and the preparations for the launch of our services.”

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) and Research In Motion (RIM) rolled out the BlackBerry® solution for enterprise and individual customers with the BlackBerry® Bold™, BlackBerry® Curve™ 8310 and BlackBerry® 8700g smartphones.

BSNL clients can now enjoy the freedom and productivity advantages of using BlackBerry smartphones to stay connected to people and data while on the move.

To aid telecommunication market in India, Ericsson, Swedish telecom equipment giant, has come up with its new energy-efficient and cheap radio base station site concept, called Ericsson Tower Tube in Hyderabad.

Speaking on this, Mr. P Balaji, vice-president (marketing and strategy), Ericsson India, said, “The company has set up a prototype of the Tower Tube at Ibrahimpatnam near Hyderabad and would decide about the location of the production facility depending on the customers it would get.”

Power equipment manufacturer KEC International announced that it has bagged orders worth Rs 291 crore from Power Grid of India for setting up transmission lines in Madhya Pradesh and Assam.

The company said that the first order is for the supply and creation of 765 kv Satna-Bina line and another 400 kv line at Bina associated with ATS for the Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project in Madhya Pradesh.

The other project consists of two 400 kv and one 132 kv transmission lines between Balipara-Biswanath and Depota-Gohpur in Assam.