Linktone (LTON) has announced the appointments of Richard Xu and Liaoyuan Du to the newly created positions of Senior Vice President, Operation and Senior Vice President, Sales, respectively, in order to further strengthen the management team.

Xu comes from an extensive background in the telecommunications industry with over 16 years of business operations and executive management experience. He will be responsible for business integration and operation.

He joins Linktone from China Netcom where he was Vice President of China Netcom's International Corporation where he reported directly to China Netcom's CEO.

Du has over 20 years of sales and marketing experience. Du's responsibilities include sales and local marketing. Prior to joining Linktone, Du was Deputy General Manager of the wireless value-added services unit of AsiaInfo.

Linktone also reported that, Michael Li, has resigned as Chief Operating Officer and will leave the company effective January 3, 2006 in order to pursue other career options.