It’s been all about posturing and spending this week, with manufacturers, developers and carriers all jostling for headlines.  Biggest news has to be the conclusion of the FCC’s 700MHz wireless spectrum auction, which has netted the Commission almost $20bn, Verizon Wireless the lion’s share of the coveted Block C, and AT&T yet more licences to add to its “700 cellular areas covered”.  Of course, conspicuous by their absence was open-access cheerleaders Google, who played true to expectations and failed to put up too much of a fight once the Android-friendly provisos were in place. 

Now we just have to wait and see what sort of network Verizon build (although we know a little about their open-access criteria), and while nothing on this scale is ever fast, with the FCC breathing down their neck – courtesy of another clause pushing for a speedy development timescale rather than sitting on the spectrum as an investment – we should see some results sooner rather than later.  Manufacturers would probably be relatively happy with a few hints, actually; the week has been punctuated by reports from both Nokia and Sony Ericsson that the Western cellular market is slowing, while Motorola have axed half of their Birmingham, UK, design team in an attempt to staunch the flow of money from their corporate purse.  Palm seem equally cautious: their Windows Mobile-powered 800w has been delayed, purposefully or otherwise, meaning CDMA customers will have to wait until Summer for their EV-DO Rev.A Treo.

Meanwhile, rumors in the wings about rivals setting their sights on the market, with HTC’s Android-powered Dream prompting more speculation while Dell is back in the news with supposed manufacturing sources pointing to a partnership with Foxconn Electronics.  Frankly it’d be good to get some new blood in the smartphone ecosystem: RIM could be accused of crying wolf lately, expecting fanfares over every slight colour change and carrier, and their latest flurry of BlackBerry handsets is less than wowing.  I’ve still got high hopes for the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 (though not, you’d assume, as high as their own hopes given current sales), the white paper for which emerged this week.

We also saw the CDMA version of HTC’s Shift UMPC – with Amazon helpfully breaking the embargo that should’ve kept it out of sight until tomorrow – priced at a whopping $1,499 but lacking, madly, Rev.A for its EV-DO connection, while AT&T’s Vu showed up in two versions.  Current thinking is that MediaFLO mobile TV is the differentiating factor.  Helio, meanwhile, signed up the Opera browser for their Ocean smartphone, making it the first deal the software firm have made with a major US carrier.

Speaking of mobile entertainment, Microsoft and Adobe have made further play for the small screen; while the former announced their Silverlight video streaming software would finally make it to Windows Mobile in Q2, the latter hit two sets of headlines in a single week.  Adobe’s CEO first prompted speculation that the company was working with Apple’s official SDK to bring Flash to the iPhone, then they were forced to clarify that, as the SDK rules stand, they in fact can’t do the technology justice.  It seems Apple’s refusal to allow background-processes, together with their limits on creating plugins for Safari on the iPhone, mean Adobe will have to wait for special treatment before we’ll see native Flash support.  Thing is, Apple may be too busy right now pushing the studios for unlimited music subscriptions and downloads.

Finally, I think new player Celio deserves some applause for not only braving the mobile industry but by doing so with a device – the Redfly – that seems to have missed Palm’s backtrack from the Folio project.  Initial hands-on feedback seems to suggest the companion device is a real productivity boon, but I just can’t get past that predicted $500 price tag.