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The American version pitted two teams of aspiring moguls against Donald Trump, the New York property tycoon.
BBC2 confirmed yesterday that it had won the rights to screen the show and revealed that it will give Sir Alan the right to run roughshod over 14 hopeful business magnates before rewarding one of them with a job working for one of his companies and a six-figure salary.Sir Alan, the founder of Amstrad, is renowned for having one of the business world’s more abrasive personalities. Sir Alan Sugar freely admits he comes from the “John Blunt” school of management. The group includes Alcatel, Ericsson and Motorola.Although Vodafone could lose some of its mobile subscribers to a service such as BluePhone, it has chosen to enter the market early to try to grab market share, ahead of rivals such as mmO2 and Orange.Mr Danon said: “If you accept it’s going to happen because it is good for the consumer then if you are Vodafone you would prefer to lead it and gain market share against your rivals.”Bill Morrow, Vodafone’s UK chief executive, said: “As the mobile partner in BT’s convergence strategy, this enables Vodafone to maximise its network and service assets while generating additional revenue from a new source.”. It uses Bluetooth radio technology to transfer mobile calls on to a fixed-line network without the need for cables.As well as the Vodafone partnership, a seven-company consortium was announced yesterday to provide BT with the technical expertise to launch the service. BT believes BluePhone will be 30 per cent cheaper than using a mobile phone in the home or at work.Pierre Danon, the chief executive of BT Retail, said: “We think this has the potential to at least ignite a revolution. It will not be the last move as competitors will enter the market but it is a major step in integrating fixed and mobile services.”BluePhone will be Europe’s first fully converged fixed-mobile communication service. It will start with a Motorola handset that will act as a normal mobile when customers are out and about but revert to using BT’s much cheaper fixed-line network at home or at work.BT said it was in talks with 10 handset manufacturers to eventually supply phones for its service, in order to offer consumers choice.

There has been a very positive reaction to the [EU] initiative.”. Equitable Life members are set to lose their bid to secure a £2m fighting fund to sue the Government, with proxy votes believed to have fallen a long way short of the necessary 50 per cent. However, the majority of the thousands of proxy votes already received are believed to have voted against the motion.Emag tabled the motion after Vanni Treves, the chairman of Equitable, announced last month that the society would not be pursuing its own legal action against the Government.After once again advising those on the floor to vote against the Emag motion today, Mr Treves is expected to lay out the case for the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Ann Abraham, to reopen her inquiry into the regulation of Equitable Life.Last month, Ms Abraham wrote to MPs to ask whether they believed there was a good enough case for reopening her inquiry into the troubled mutual. BT Group yesterday unveiled details of its new BluePhone initiative, a telecoms service that combines mobile and fixed-line operations in one product.
The company announced that it had signed up with Vodafone as its mobile partner in the project and that Vodafone would supply BT’s mobile services for all its internal and external requirements through a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) arrangement.BluePhone, a working name at the moment, will be launched this summer with 1,000 customers, with a nationwide launch later in the year.

Our position remains unchanged.” He added that its poor backing at the first EGM was because it had been denied direct access to a large number of shareholders who held their shares through nominee accounts.. However, Baltimore pointed out that, excluding the 8.6 million shares which Acquisitor voted in favour of its own candidate, Mr Khezri’s margin of support was nine to one.Baltimore bitterly attacked the demand for a fresh vote, claiming that the previous one had cost shareholders between £500,000 and £1m. The company is valued at £24.7m, which compares almost exactly with the size of its cash resources.Baltimore said a meeting had been arranged with Acquisitor this week “to explore a mutually acceptable way forward”.”Acquisitor has chosen to disregard this and requisition a further EGM instead of waiting for the AGM, at great disruption and significant additional cost to the company and its other shareholders,” Mr Khezri said.A spokesman for Acquisitor said yesterday: “We can confirm that we have asked for another EGM. Tilman Lueder, a spokesman for the organisation, said: “We welcome consolidation but also have the adequate remedies in place to facilitate new entries.”He added that 94 take-off slots were made available to new entrants as part of the approval. “We think it is a very pro-competitive and pro-consumer result and we stick by that,” Mr Lueder said.. The battle for control of Baltimore Technologies, the cash shell that is planning to transform itself into a green energy company, erupted into life again yesterday after the company’s largest shareholder demanded a fresh vote to oust the current directors. But it said remedies proposed by Air France and KLM to maintain competition on routes where their services overlap were inadequate.

It said the Commission failed to consider the impact of the merger on the “impregnable dominance” of Air France and KLM at their hubs in Paris and Amsterdam.Ray Webster, easyJet’s chief executive, said: “It [the Commission] is allowing the two airlines to hand over a few slots on a miniscule number of routes. Any airline trying to compete on the Paris-to-Amsterdam route between the hub airports of these two national airlines without a much wider presence in the market is likely to fail.”EasyJet, which serves at least six French airports, has been campaigning for greater liberalisation of the French air market. It claims Air France and the French airline industry are stifling its attempts to set up a bigger presence in the country.The Commission insisted its clearance of the merger provided sufficient safeguards. “French consumers, particularly in Paris, already have to suffer less choice of airlines and higher air fares than elsewhere in Europe, so it was vital that the European Commission did not take any steps that would have resulted in a further drop in competition. Unfortunately, the Commission got it wrong,” the airline said.EasyJet claimed the Commission had failed to assess the merger in accordance with established case-law and precedent. The combined company will have an annual revenue of £13bn and would be the world’s third largest in passenger numbers, behind American Airlines and United.EasyJet said it was “wholeheartedly” in favour of consolidation as long as it did not hurt consumer interests, which it said should come first.