In a Spanish-Italian deal Pirelli is selling its Telecom Italia shares to Telefonica, who will own the largest stake, totalling 43%.

Other - primarily US - investor groups, such as AT&T, won't get access to the Italian incumbent.

As Repubblica reports today, Telefonica is joined by the banks Intesa-Sanpaolo and Mediobanca (each 10.6%), Benetton (8.4%) and the insurance company Generali (28.1%).

Telefonica brings the operational expertise, while the other owners seem to fulfill the requirement to keep the majority ownership in Italian hands while having no idea how to run a telecom operator.

Today, existing insulin pumps are about the size of a pager. The new STM-enabled Debiotech miniaturized MEMS device is about one quarter the size of these existing pumps and can be worn as a nearly invisible patch on the skin. The small size frees the patient from concerns about holding the pump in place and concealing it under clothing.

Swiss Debiotech has now been working for many years on this technology and has teamed up with French/Italien STM as a high-volume manufacturing partner. The device is awaiting regulatory approval but if granted promises to make the lives of diabetic patients a bit more friendly. Not to mention the commercial potential for such a technology leadership.

We were just discussing this week that maybe MSN would soon see some more trouble due to Vista's deficiencies and the fact that Dell and others decided to also offer Linux. But as if Bill overheard our discussion and wanted to show us differently MSN announced a 65% jump in fiscal third-quarter earnings thanks also to some Vista coupons that they distributed back in 2006. As the WSJ (subscription required) writes:

Trade shows are a great places to network, see new products, talk a lot about technology and trends. The Infosecurity Europe in London this week is probably one of the biggest such security event in Europe and was no different in terms of networking. What we noticed though was the absence of - we guess - 50 or so companies that we saw still last year on the upper floor. This year that space was empty. Now you might deduce - as we did - that the market is not as much growing as it used to be any longer. But that might be too quick. Although the event is called "Europe" there are events in 6 other locations in Europe now (Moscow, Utrecht, Paris, Milano, Madrid and Brussels) so maybe it is simply too much. This event is - although its name implies otherwise - mostly a UK event and I guess some US and Israeli companies mistake it as a European wide show but slowly start understanding that London is not all of the EMEA markets.

Now what were some of the things that could be seen on the show floor? Francis Turner will comment...

Unlike the US, where the number and volume of IPOs is still far behind the 2002 boom year, things have looked pretty good in Europe in the last few years. Compared with the US, Europe has many more - but also much smaller-sized - IPOs. While this quarter the total IPO volume was around 10bln EUR, Europe has seen 137 while only 64 have happened in the US. The technology sector is well represented with its 12% share, as you can see below.