Factbox: Mitt Romney, Republican presidential candidate

(Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is pursuing the White House for the second time.

Here are key facts about him.

- Romney, 65, espouses traditional Republican positions to cut taxes, reduce federal regulations, shrink government spending and bolster the U.S. military. He vows to create 12 million new jobs in his first term with a plan focused on domestic energy development, expanded free trade, improving education, reducing the deficit and championing small business.

- He lost the 2008 Republican presidential nomination to Senator John McCain but entered this year’s race with a large campaign war chest and the blessing of many in the party establishment. Conservative unease over his reputation as a moderate led to a stiff challenge in the Republican primaries.

- His net worth has been estimated at between $ 190 million and $ 250 million, making him one of the wealthiest people to ever run for the presidency. Romney has been attacked for holding money overseas and for not disclosing as many tax releases as his opponents have demanded.

- Romney proposes to lower individual income taxes across the board to 20 percent while closing some loopholes, which he says would stimulate economic growth without widening the deficit. He supports restructuring the Social Security retirement program and the Medicare health entitlement for the elderly.

- He is a fifth-generation member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormon church. He was a Mormon missionary in France for more than two years after leaving high school and later became bishop and stake president in Boston, roles akin to being a lay pastor. His faith, however, is viewed with suspicion by some conservative evangelical Christians.

- Born into a well-off family and raised near Detroit, Romney was exposed to politics early. His father, George, was chairman of American Motors Corporation and governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969. George Romney lost a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 and served in President Richard Nixon’s Cabinet.

- In 1994, the younger Romney ran for a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts as a moderate Republican, but was handily defeated by incumbent Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy. Eight years later, Romney was elected governor of Massachusetts, where he instituted a statewide healthcare reform that became a model for Obama’s 2010 national healthcare overhaul.

- In 1999, Romney took over as head of the committee organizing the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, which had been plagued by cost overruns and scandal, and produced a successful event that helped establish his national reputation as a premier problem-solver.

- As his party moved to the right, Romney changed his positions on sensitive social issues, including abortion and gay rights. That fueled criticism that he lacked core beliefs and was motivated only by ambition. Romney referred to himself as “severely conservative” during the 2012 primaries but has projected a moderate image during the general election campaign.

- Romney met his wife, Ann, at a high school dance and they married in 1969, while they were still in college. They have five sons and 18 grandchildren. Romney has an English degree from Utah’s Brigham Young University, which is owned and run by the Mormon church, and a joint law degree and MBA from Harvard. He speaks French.

- Romney joined the management consultancy Bain & Company in 1977 and climbed the ranks, and in 1984 co-founded the highly profitable private equity arm Bain Capital, which invested in start-ups and fledgling companies including Staples, Sports Authority and Domino’s Pizza. Critics have highlighted the number of jobs Bain cut while Romney was at its helm.

- Romney has battled a reputation for being uncomfortable and stiff when campaigning and somewhat aloof when relating to ordinary Americans. The New York Times once described his campaign persona as “All-Business Man, the world’s most boring superhero.”

- He has little foreign policy experience. He stumbled in August during a gaffe-filled trip to Britain, Israel and Poland that was meant to burnish his credentials on the world stage. He has labeled Russia as America’s “number one geopolitical foe” and said that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear capability should be Washington’s highest national security priority.

(Compiled by Americas Desk; Editing by Paul Simao)

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Obama, Romney take aim at key Midwestern swing states

HILLIARD, Ohio (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney made late pitches in the political battlegrounds of the upper Midwest on Friday, a region likely to decide the winner in next week’s closely fought election for the White House.

In dueling campaign appearances in the swing states of Ohio and Wisconsin, the two contenders battled over the economy on a day when the government reported the jobless rate ticked up to 7.9 percent in October but that employers stepped up their hiring.

In Wisconsin, where polls show Romney trailing Obama, the Republican laid out the case for his election and said the jobs report was more evidence of the president’s failing leadership.

“The question of this election comes down to this: do you want more of the same or do you want real change?” Romney said in a suburb of Milwaukee after getting the endorsement of former Green Bay Packers star quarterback Bart Starr.

With four days left until Tuesday’s election, Obama and Romney are essentially tied in national polls, but the president holds a slight edge in the battleground states that are crucial to gaining the 270 electoral votes needed to win.

On a stop in Ohio, the most heavily contested swing state and a vital cog in the electoral math for both candidates, Obama said the jobs report was evidence “we have made real progress.”

Obama, whose federal rescue of the auto industry has been popular in a state where one in eight jobs is auto industry-related, hammered Romney for a recent statement that Chrysler planned to move Jeep production to China.

Chrysler has refuted that, noting it was adding workers to build more Jeeps in Ohio, and the two campaigns have aired advertisements over the issue. Obama said Romney, who opposed a government auto bailout, was trying to scare workers in a desperate bid to make up ground in Ohio.

“I know we’re close to an election, but this isn’t a game. These are people’s jobs, these are people’s lives,” Obama said. “You don’t scare hard-working Americans just to scare up some votes.”

Obama’s advisers said the Jeep controversy, which has featured heavily in the state’s media, had helped the president solidify his lead in Ohio.

“We all felt prior to this week we were in very solid shape in the state of Ohio, and our expectation is that our position’s been strengthened by this,” White House senior adviser David Plouffe told reporters.

While campaigning in the Midwestern heartland, Obama’s team was casting an eye on the Northeast where New York-area motorists were scrambling for gasoline on a third day of panic buying after the storm Sandy devastated the area.

Obama won plaudits for turning his attention to storm relief earlier this week, but growing frustration among victims could hurt the Democrat if the federal response is deemed unsatisfactory.

A variety of state polls show Obama still has slight leads in four states – Ohio, Iowa, Nevada and Wisconsin – that would give him 277 electoral votes, barring any surprises elsewhere.

Obama plans to visit Ohio each of the next three days, and will close the campaign on Monday with a swing through his Midwestern safety net of Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa.

‘LOCK IT IN’

“We want to make sure we lock it in and that it’s definitely in our column,” Obama senior adviser Robert Gibbs said on “CBS This Morning,” when asked why Obama was focusing so much on Wisconsin if he had a solid lead there.

Romney needs a breakthrough in one of those Midwestern states, or an upset in another state where Obama is even more heavily favored, to have a shot at making his electoral math work.

Romney is within striking distance of Obama in four other states with a combined 55 electoral votes – Florida, Virginia, Colorado and New Hampshire.

A series of Reuters/Ipsos online state polls found Obama led Romney among likely voters by a narrow margin of 3 percentage points in Virginia and 2 points in Ohio and Florida. They were tied in Colorado.

The Romney campaign launched ads this week in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota – Democratic-leaning states where Obama’s lead has dwindled in recent weeks – in an effort to expand the playing field, and Romney will visit Pennsylvania on Sunday.

Republicans say the move is a sign of momentum, while Democrats call it a sign of desperation.

“By every metric, the Obama campaign is doing far worse than they were four years ago. They will continue playing defense on turf they once took for granted – Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania,” Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer said.

With the polls so close and the outcome unpredictable, both campaigns made plans for a final weekend of get-out-the-vote efforts, focusing on getting their base supporters to the polls and reaching out to independents and the last undecideds.

Romney headed to Ohio after starting the day in Wisconsin, and told voters in both states that Obama had failed to bridge the partisan divide and would be unable to work with Congress and break the gridlock in Washington.

“He promised he’d have a post-partisan presidency but it’s the most partisan I’ve seen,” Romney said during a visit to a machine factory in Etna, Ohio. “I will not represent one party, I will represent one nation.”

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said Romney’s conservative agenda had already been rejected by the Democratic-led U.S. Senate and accused him of having a “terrible” relationship with Democrats when he was Massachusetts governor.

“Mitt Romney’s fantasy that Senate Democrats will work with him to pass his ‘severely conservative’ agenda is laughable,” Reid said in a statement. “Senate Democrats are committed to defending the middle class, and we will do everything in our power to defend them against Mitt Romney’s Tea Party agenda.”

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Wisconsin and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)

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Canada will push to keep bank capital rules on schedule

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada will urge all countries to stick to the agreed schedule for implementing tougher bank capital rules at a November 4-5 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 nations, a senior finance ministry official said on Thursday.

The so-called Basel III rules are the world’s regulatory response to the financial crisis, forcing banks to triple the amount of basic capital they hold in a bid to avoid future taxpayer bailouts.

They were to be phased in from January 2013 but areas such as the United States and the European Union are not yet ready and U.S. and British supervisors have criticized them as too complex to work.

The Canadian official, who briefed reports ahead of the meeting on condition that he not be named, said it was imperative that the rules, the timelines and the principles behind them be respected and said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty would make that view known to his G20 colleagues.

Canada sees the European debt crisis as the biggest near-term risk to the global economy, and it also expects the U.S. debt crisis to be top of mind at the talks, the official said.

But the meeting takes place just before the U.S. presidential election and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will be absent, so it remains unclear how much the G20 can pressure Washington on that front.

Some other countries have also scaled back their delegations, raising doubts about how meaningful the meeting will be.

The official dismissed that argument, saying high-level officials substituting for their ministers allowed for extremely important issues to be addressed anyway.

He said holding each country around the table accountable to its past commitments helped keep the momentum going toward resolving global economic problems.

(Reporting by Louise Egan; Writing by David Ljunggren; Editing by M.D. Golan)

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First iPad mini teardown reveals Samsung display

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc’s iPad mini uses a display from South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, one of Apple’s major suppliers and also its fiercest rival in the global mobile-device market that the two companies dominate.

Analysts say the Silicon Valley-based iPhone maker is trying to wean itself off its reliance on Samsung, as both giants are embroiled in a bitter international legal battle over mobile patents, for everything from microchips to displays.

In the first dismantling of the iPad mini, which will be sold in 34 countries beginning Friday, teardown and gadget-repair specialist company, iFixit, discovered a Samsung display driver chip, which indicated that Apple had picked the Korean firm’s screen technology.

Like most producers of mobile hardware, the U.S. company typically employs several suppliers for the same components in its gadgets. Apple has been known to use screens made by LG Display, for instance.

“Though the markings on the back of the LCD (display) don’t turn up much information, the Samsung display driver IC (chip) reveals that Apple, once again, went with Samsung in its display manufacturing,” iFixit said, detailing the teardown on its website.

Supplying parts for Apple’s iPhones and iPads – some of the industry’s most popular and advanced gadgets – is considered a coup for chipmakers and other manufacturers.

The iPad mini also employs SK Hynix Inc flash memory, a Broadcom touch controller, and a number of microchips from Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc, according to iFixit, which acquired one early.

The 7.9-inch iPad mini marks the Apple’s first foray into the smaller-tablet segment. The company hopes to beat back incursions into its home territory – carved out with the original iPad’s launch in 2010 – with 7-inch slates that are popular with consumers, even as it safeguards its lead in a larger tablet space that even deep-pocketed rivals like Samsung have found tough to penetrate.

It has won mostly positive reviews focused on its ability to wrap most of the functions of its full-sized iPad sibling into a smaller package, but critics pointed out the higher price tag of the iPad mini and an inferior display relative to those of rival products like Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD and Google’s Nexus 7.

START YOUR ENGINES

A smaller tablet is the first device to be added to Apple’s compact portfolio under CEO Tim Cook, who took over from predecessor Steve Jobs just before his death a year ago. Analysts said it may have been Google and Amazon that helped influence the decision.

Online sales have run for a week, but Apple has not disclosed sales numbers so far. Friday’s global sales rollout may offer a hint of demand for the gadget, which analysts expect to be strong.

Still, it will be playing catch up. Priced at $ 329 for a Wi-Fi only model, the iPad mini is more expensive than many analysts had expected. Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Google’s Nexus 7, both released at $ 199, have grabbed a chunk of the lower end of the tablet market.

Meanwhile, it is battling Samsung in the smartphone arena, which still yields the majority of Apple’s revenue and profit. The Korean giant last year became the world’s largest maker of smartphones as other rivals lost steam.

Apple and Samsung are engaged in patent disputes across several countries, and Apple is believed to be seeking ways to rely less on Samsung. But the Asian tech powerhouse remains a key supplier for Apple, manufacturing its application processors and providing other components.

Samsung has stopped supplying displays for Apple’s iPhone, and plays a reduced role in the full-sized iPad, according to DisplaySearch. Apple is also buying fewer memory chips from Samsung for the iPhone 5, relying more on Hynix and Elpida Memory.

Many analysts believe Apple will also gradually phase out Samsung as the main producer of the mobile micro-processor and shift business to rival supplier TSMC.

(Editing by Matthew Lewis, Tim Dobbyn and Bernadette Baum)

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Cablevision says Sandy outage hit half of its customers

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Cable operator Cablevision Systems Corp said on Thursday about half of its 3.3 million customers in the New York, Connecticut and New Jersey area had lost power in the wake of superstorm Sandy, causing widespread disruptions to its service.

Cablevision said in a statement that 1.6 million of its customers were without power while 7,265 of the remaining 1.65 million customers who were not affected by power outages still had no access to Cablevision’s service.

The company did not respond to questions about how the disruption would impact its financials.

A Barclays analyst, James Ratcliffe, said in a note that “power outages make a good proxy for storm impact on telcos and cable operators, since the same factors which cause power outages (flooding, downed lines) also cause telecom network failures.”

Cablevision, which provide Internet, television and telephone services under the Optimum brand, said, “Following this unprecedented event, loss of electrical power continues to be the primary cause of widespread disruptions of Optimum service.”

It said it had crews working to restore service and would continue to provide updates.

Last year, Cablevision said it took a hit of $ 16 million because of Hurricane Irene, a storm that affected the New York area in late August 2011.

“For CVC, with 1.6 million of their subscribers still without power, the impact is likely to be significantly greater than the $ 16 million cost of Irene; we estimate a $ 36 million impact,” Barclays’ Ratcliffe said in his note.

Cable operators Comcast Corp and Time Warner Cable were also having service problems.

Time Warner Cable said it has had no reports of significant damage to its network, but said it was hard to assess the situation because many of its customers have no power.

Cablevision had been due to report earnings November 1, but said on Wednesday it rescheduled the release to November 6.

The company, which mainly serves the New York area but also has operations in Montana and Wyoming, is controlled by the Dolan family. The company also owns a newspaper and TV networks.

Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications also said they had service problems in the wake of the storm, but they did not provide details as to how many customers were affected.

Of all the cable companies, Cablevision has the largest percentage of their subscribers in the area hard hit, Ratcliffe said.

Wireless service providers also struggled to maintain service after the storm due to floods and power outages.

Cablevision stock closed at $ 17.46 on Thursday, up 0.22 percent.

(Additional reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Vertex posts loss as hepatitis drug sales fall

(Reuters) – Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc reported a net loss for the third quarter on Thursday with results hurt by declining sales of its Incivek hepatitis C drug, as the company turned its attention to developing a next generation of treatments for the serious liver disease.

Vertex posted a net loss of $ 57.5 million, or 27 cents per share, compared with a profit of $ 221.1 million, or $ 1.02 per share, a year ago.

Incivek product revenue fell nearly 23 percent from the previous quarter and 40 percent from a year ago to $ 254.3 million. The company maintained its full-year forecast for Incivek revenue of $ 1.1 billion to $ 1.25 billion.

Results were also affected by a $ 57.6 million charge related to expected future payments under Vertex’s collaboration with Alios BioPharma.

Earlier on Thursday, Vertex announced separate collaborations with GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Johnson & Johnson to test various combinations of its own next-generation hepatitis C medicines with those being developed by GSK and J&J.

Vertex shares closed up 4.6 percent at $ 50.48 on Nasdaq on Thursday, but fell more than 4 percent to $ 48.30 in extended trading after the company released quarterly results.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Yee called the collaboration announcements “a fundamental good positive for Vertex because it gets them moving in the race (for an all oral treatment regimen), albeit one and a half to two years behind Gilead and Abbott.”

The Massachusetts-based biotechnology company reported $ 49 million in revenue from its new cystic fibrosis drug Kalydeco and $ 20 million in royalty revenue from overseas sales of Incivek, known as Incivo in Europe.

Kalydeco currently helps only a small percentage of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients with a specific gene mutation. The company is testing other drugs and combinations with the hope of eventually reaching a larger portion of the CF population.

“In hepatitis C, we are advancing rapidly with our plans to evaluate multiple all-oral regimens of VX-135, both with medicines in our own pipeline and, as we announced earlier today, in collaboration with other companies,” Chief Executive Jeffrey Leiden said in a statement. “We are also advancing toward our goal to help more people with cystic fibrosis.”

Total revenue for Vertex fell to $ 336 million for the quarter from $ 659.2 million a year ago, and was shy of Wall Street estimates of $ 377.1 million.

RBC’s Yee said Kalydeco sales were below Wall Street expectations of about $ 57 million. “The Kalydeco launch looks like it’s reaching a peak penetration in United States and the key for growth here going forward is country by country launches in Europe, and that’s going to take some time over the next six to 12 months,” Yee said.

“What matters here longer term is development of their cystic fibrosis combination program to expand this market from a potential $ 1 billion drug to a $ 3 billion potential program,” Yee added.

Incivek, which was approved in May 2011 to great fanfare as it doubled cure rates and shortened treatment durations compared with older drugs, reached $ 1 billion in sales faster than any drug in pharmaceutical history. But it must still be taken with the older injected drug interferon that causes flu-like symptoms.

As excitement builds for interferon-free, all-oral regimens being pursued by several companies, including Vertex, more patients appear to be delaying treatment, hurting Incivek sales. In addition, hundreds of other potential Incivek patients have been recruited to take part in the many clinical trials of next-generation treatments.

(Reporting by Bill Berkrot in New York; editing by Gary Hill, Matthew Lewis and Carol Bishopric)

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Barclays faces $470m energy fine

1 November 2012 Last updated at 04:12 ET

Barclays has been threatened with fines of $ 470m (£291m) by US regulators to settle accusations it sought to manipulate the California energy markets from 2006-2008.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has been investigating it, the bank revealed on Wednesday.

Barclays denies the charges. The fine is larger than the one it paid over the Libor rate-rigging scandal.

The bank is also the subject of other regulatory inquiries.

Barclays now has 30 days to contest the fine.

Manipulating prices

The proposed fine is over communications by four traders on Barclays’ West Coast power desk.

The team of four traders – veterans of power firm Mirant, which was fined hundreds of millions of dollars after the California power scandal a decade ago – was said by Ferc to have exchanged messages explaining how they would use certain trades in one market to profit in another.

The traders are alleged to have manipulated power prices to make money with their financial swap positions, causing losses for rival power traders of $ 139m and winning the bank $ 34.9m.

“We believe that our trading was legitimate and in compliance with applicable law,” Barclays spokesman Mark Lane said. “We have co-operated fully with the Ferc investigation, which relates to trading activity that occurred several years ago. We intend to vigorously defend this matter.”

Ferc notified Barclays that it had begun the investigation of Barclays’ Western US power trading on 3 July 2007 – but the bank only informed shareholders on Wednesday.

US authorities are also looking at whether the way that Barclays won business complied with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the other new investigation in a series of scandals that have dented the bank’s reputation.

In June, Barclays was fined £290m by UK and US regulators for attempting to manipulate Libor, an interbank lending rate which affects mortgages and loans.

And in August, the Serious Fraud Office started an investigation into payments between Barclays’ bank and Qatar Holding in 2008, when the bank was raising money in the Middle East during the banking crisis.

The entire financial services industry has come under scrutiny since the financial crisis in 2008.

The industry’s reputation has been battered further by the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI) and of specialist insurance – called interest rate swaps – to small businesses.

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Clinton calls for overhaul of Syrian opposition

ZAGREB (Reuters) – The United States called on Wednesday for an overhaul of Syria‘s opposition leadership, saying it was time to move beyond the Syrian National Council and bring in those “in the front lines fighting and dying”.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, signaling a more active stance by Washington in attempts to form a credible political opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said a meeting next week in Qatar would be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against him.

“This cannot be an opposition represented by people who have many good attributes but who, in many instances, have not been inside Syria for 20, 30, 40 years,” she said during a visit to Croatia.

“There has to be a representation of those who are in the front lines fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom.”

Clinton’s comments represented a clear break with the Syrian National Council (SNC), a largely foreign-based group which has been among the most vocal proponents of international intervention in the Syrian conflict.

U.S. officials have privately expressed frustration with the SNC’s inability to come together with a coherent plan and with its lack of traction with the disparate internal groups which have waged the 19-month uprising against Assad’s government.

Senior members of the SNC, Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other rebel groups ended a meeting in Turkey on Wednesday and pledged to unite behind a transitional government in coming months.

“It’s been our divisions that have allowed the Assad forces to reach this point,” Ammar al-Wawi, a rebel commander, told Reuters after the talks outside Istanbul.

“We are united on toppling Assad. Everyone, including all the rebels, will gather under the transitional government.”

Mohammad Al-Haj Ali, a senior Syrian military defector, told a news conference after the meeting: “We are still facing some difficulties between the politicians and different opposition groups and the leaders of the Free Syrian Army on the ground.”

Clinton said it was important that the next rulers of Syria were both inclusive and committed to rejecting extremism.

“There needs to be an opposition that can speak to every segment and every geographic part of Syria. And we also need an opposition that will be on record strongly resisting the efforts by extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution,” she said.

Syria’s revolt has killed an estimated 32,000. A bomb near a Shi’ite shrine in a suburb of Damascus killed at least six more people on Wednesday, state media and opposition activists said.

NEW LEADERSHIP

The meeting next week in Qatar’s capital Doha represents a chance to forge a new leadership, Clinton said, adding the United States had helped to “smuggle out” representatives of internal Syrian opposition groups to a meeting in New York last month to argue their case for inclusion.

“We have recommended names and organizations that we believe should be included in any leadership structure,” she told a news conference.

“We’ve made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition. They can be part of a larger opposition, but that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice which must be heard.”

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance.

It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance – a fact that Assad’s chief backer Russia says shows western powers are intent on determining Syria’s future.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

Clinton said she regretted but was not surprised by the failure of the latest attempted ceasefire, called by international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi last Friday. Each side blamed the other for breaking the truce.

“The Assad regime did not suspend its use of advanced weaponry against the Syrian people for even one day,” she said.

“While we urge Special Envoy Brahimi to do whatever he can in Moscow and Beijing to convince them to change course and support a stronger U.N. action we cannot and will not wait for that.”

Clinton said the United States would continue to work with partners to increase sanctions on the Assad government and provide humanitarian assistance to those hit by the conflict.

(Additional reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley; editing by Andrew Roche)

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Pentagon sees further use of BlackBerry as door opens to others

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon on Wednesday said it would continue to support “large numbers” of BlackBerry phones made by Research in Motion Ltd even as it moves forward with plans that would allow the U.S. military to begin using Apple Inc‘s iPhone and other devices.

The U.S. Defense Department last week invited companies to submit bids for software that can monitor, manage and enforce security requirements for devices made by Apple and Google Inc, with an eye to awarding a contract in April.

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) quietly posted its request for proposals on a federal website on October 22, the same day that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency said it would end its contract with RIM in favor of Apple’s iPhone.

Losing some of its Pentagon business to other providers could deal another blow to RIM, which once commanded the lead in the smartphone market but has rapidly lost ground to Apple and Samsung’s line of products as customers abandon its aging BlackBerry devices.

For many years, the Pentagon relied solely on BlackBerry phones because RIM met its tough security requirements, but other companies have been improving security on their devices, and a growing number of military commanders are clamoring for rival devices with bigger touch screens and faster browsers.

A Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. military was working toward allowing vendors to supply other smartphones, while maintaining strict security requirements.

He said the department aimed to use commercial mobile technologies as it stepped up the use of “new and innovative applications” to support the military’s evolving requirements.

But the Pentagon also stressed it was not moving away from its use of BlackBerry phones.

“DISA is managing an enterprise email capability that continues to support large numbers of RIM devices while moving forward with the department’s planned mobile management capability that will support a variety of mobility devices,” the spokesman said.

The DISA request for proposals said the software would manage at least 162,500 devices to start, but that number could grow to 262,500 by the end of the contract, which will have a one-year base and four six-month options.

Ultimately, the Pentagon wants the software to support a total of 8 million devices, according to the document.

RIM spokesman Paul Lucier said his company’s BlackBerry Mobile Fusion product could also be used to manage Android and Apple devices, and RIM was “excited for the opportunity to include BlackBerry Mobile Fusion in the DOD’s portfolio.”

Lucier said the product could enable the Pentagon to “support a growing number of mobile devices across multiple platforms.”

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM is also planning to introduce new smartphones that will run on the BlackBerry 10 operating system, offering a faster and smoother user interface and a better platform for various smartphone applications.

(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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Disney unlikely to change ‘Star Wars’ brand

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Naysayers would have you believe Disney‘s purchase of Lucasfilm can only mean one thing: Bambi and Mickey Mouse are sure to appear in future “Star Wars” movies taking up lightsabers against the dark side of the Force.

Not so, say experts who’ve watched Disney’s recent acquisition strategy closely. If anything, The Walt Disney Co. has earned credibility with diehard fans by keeping its fingerprints off important film franchises like those produced by its Marvel Entertainment and Pixar divisions.

“They’ve been pretty clearly hands-off in terms of letting the creative minds of those companies do what they do best,” says Todd Juenger, an analyst with Bernstein Research. “Universally, people think they pulled it off.”

Though the Walt Disney Co. built its reputation on squeaky clean family entertainment, its brand today is multifaceted. Disney, of course, started as an animation studio in 1923 with characters such as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Steamboat Willie and Mickey Mouse. Over the years, the company ventured into live action movies, opened theme parks, launched a fleet of cruise ships and debuted shows on TV.

By way of acquisitions over the last few decades, it has ballooned into a company with $ 40.9 billion in annual revenue and a market value of $ 88 billion. Disney bought Capital Cities/ABC in 1995 for $ 19 billion, Pixar for $ 7.4 billion in 2006, Marvel for $ 4.2 billion in 2009 and this week, it said it will purchase Lucasfilm and the “Star Wars” franchise for $ 4.05 billion.

Disney’s acquisition of Marvel Entertainment in 2009 offers the best example of how it might treat Lucasfilm and the “Star Wars” universe.

Marvel was in the midst of a storyline that would span several films following the smash hit success of its first self-produced movie, “Iron Man,” in 2008. When Disney bought it a year later, it continued reading from the comic book giant’s playbook, releasing in subsequent years “Iron Man 2,” ”Thor,” ”Captain America” and then this year, “The Avengers,” which brought heroes from those movies together in one giant film that grossed $ 1.5 billion at the box office.

Now, “Avengers” director Joss Whedon is working on the sequel and developing a Marvel-based TV series for Disney-owned ABC.

Rick Marshall, a journalist and blogger who writes about the comic book and movie industries, was skeptical when Disney bought Marvel. But his doubts quickly melted when it was clear Disney wouldn’t taint the Marvel universe by getting too involved.

“I was the first one to say there’s going to be a Goofy-Wolverine crossover,” Marshall said. “We haven’t seen that… Disney was able to step away.”

Recent history ought to assuage “Star Wars” fans who fear the Disney empire. But that hasn’t stopped many of them from posting an array of video and pictorial mash-ups and jokes online as they poke fun at their darkest fears: Luke Skywalker staring into the distance at a mouse-eared sun and Darth Vader telling Donald Duck that he’s his father.

What Disney did with Marvel was merely amplify its presence in theme parks, stores and theaters, observers say.

Disney’s formula for success with Marvel was not to tamper with storylines, but to bring the existing franchise under its corporate umbrella.

Before it was acquired, Marvel paid Paramount Pictures a percentage of movie ticket sales to advertise its movies, make film prints and get them into theaters. Disney has those capabilities, so now that money doesn’t go out the door. Disney also has a worldwide network of staff that help put Marvel toys on store shelves, expanding their reach and saving the money that Marvel used to pay third-party merchandise middlemen.

Owning Marvel also gives Disney a steady flow of super hero cartoons for its pay TV channel, Disney XD. These kind of logistical savings allow Disney to profit from ownership while not interfering in the creative process.

“Marvel does seem like it’s running pretty independently and staying pretty close to its roots,” said Janney Capital Markets analyst Tony Wible.

Disney’s recent acquisitions have also filled gaps in its creative portfolio. CEO Bob Iger has said the company’s $ 7.4 billion purchase of Pixar in 2006 was partly an investment in talent and a way to “grow and improve Disney animation.” The deal brought John Lasseter, a former Disneyland employee, back into the fold as its chief creative officer of both Disney and Pixar’s animation studios.

The purchase of Marvel helped Disney add characters that would resonate with boys at a time when the company was becoming known more for princesses, fairies and its fictional teenage rock star Hannah Montana.

The “Star Wars” franchise fills a hole in Disney’s live-action portfolio, which suffered an embarrassing $ 200 million loss on the sci-fi flick “John Carter” earlier this year. The box-office bomb caused an executive shuffle at the studio that brought in former Warner Bros. president Alan Horn, who oversaw the hugely successful runs of “Harry Potter” and “The Dark Knight” movies.

It’s in Disney’s best interest to maintain the integrity of film franchises that come with a built-in fan base. Disney chief Iger has said the plan is for “Star Wars” live-action movies to replace others that may be in development, and to keep its production slate at a modest 7 to 10 movies per year.

“I think Disney’s intention is that it just doesn’t want to get in the way of a great asset,” said Morningstar analyst Michael Corty.

In a conference call explaining the acquisition, Iger told analysts that “Disney respects and understands, probably better than just about anyone else, the importance of iconic characters and what it takes to protect and leverage them effectively.”

When “Star Wars Episode 7″ hits theaters in 2015, millions of fans will surely hold Iger to his word.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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