Month: May 2004

Apple’s iPod dissenters continue. Are they right?

It is no surprise to see a rise of articles questioning whether Apple can hold onto their storming lead in selling MP3 player and the music that goes on them. They currently have, by most estimates, around 50% of the MP3 player market to themselves and 70% of song sales. Many companies, technology, consumer electronics and content owning, are now waking up to how far they have let Apple go.

Some people are starting to raise the possible ghosts of Macintosh – where Apple foretold the rise of windowed interfaces for computers, only to be overtaken by the growth of Microsoft. Apple’s response then was to pursue niche markets, originally DeskTop Publishing (as it was known then) and latterly Desktop Video. It is arguable that this is the approach they have taken again with music

Last time around they made mistakes. Steve Jobs bringing John Sculley onboard to run the company, and Sculley subsequently persuading Apple to remove Jobs, being the biggest. Sculley then went on to make many, many mistakes of his own. Who knows how different it might have been if Jobs had stayed in charge.

Many have drawn comparisons between the recent attempt to ‘open up’ iPod to other music services and Microsoft’s similar, and ultimately doomed attempt to open up Macintosh.

We feel it is important to not forget Apple had a 909 percent increase (not a misprint) in iPod sales in the first quarter of 2004 over the same period the year before. Equally let us also not forget that this is the start of media becoming digital and Jobs hasn’t even started on either music devices for home use or and type of video device.

Reuters – Apple’s iPod Lead Creates New Challenges, Analysts Say

AMD outsells Intel-equiped Desktops claims analyst

Intel has had an enormously aggressive period where they have attempted to out Ghz their competition. We now learn that desktop computers fitted with their processors from the competitor, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) have outsold those equipped with Intel.

It is important to get this into perspective. The figures claimed by Current Analysis were only for the week ending April 24 and Current Analysis have only been studying this particular market since November last year. The figures were also just for desktop computers, not portables, where most of the market growth is. Intel currently hold 81 percent of that market.

The analyst, Toni Duboise from Current Analysis appears to not see the AMD-equipped desktop continuing in the same way, citing Intel’s new-this-quarter Grantsdale chipset to return them to dominance. Grantsdale will have faster memory (DDR2 -double data rate 2) and importantly an integrated wireless access point. We feel this is the killer feature, enabling the normal, non-technical user to easily setup their own home network, for file sharing and importantly media sharing.

Current Analysis

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Jens of Sweden release MP130, complete with mirror

The latest MP3 Flash-memory music player from Jens of Sweden has just been announced (so recently that they don’t have English details available). The stylish devices has all you would expect from a mini-MP3 player, currently up to 512Mb of storage, record function dictaphone and FM-radio. Amazingly this little beauty weighs the same as eight sheets of A4 paper.

The unexpected features start with a mirror finish for use when it’s not on. When it is on, the multi-coloured organic LED display shines through the mirror and interestingly it has a clock and alarm built into it. The other surprise is the addition of support for Ogg Vorbis, the open, patent-free audio encoding format that is the preference of the tech-savvy. Jens have improved the battery time over the MP-100 to 18 hours and can drive big headphones.

We’ve spoke to Jens and they tell us that there is a 1Gb version coming out in June. The recommended ex-VAT UK prices are 128Mb £105, 256Mb £145 and 512Mb £190, which should be slightly cheaper in store.

Sadly they are only supporting USB1.1, not USB2.0, which would significantly reduce the speed music could be exchanged with it.

We at Digital Lifestyles office are fans of Flash MP3 players, given their unnoticeable weight during commutes. Longer journeys demand hard-drive-based players.

Jens of Sweden MP-130

Ogg Vorbis

EU challenges EU-wide music royalty structure

The European Commission has sent a shot across the bows of the EU royalty collection agencies, saying they fear by them working closely together across the EU, but bound within their own territories, they will extended the national monopolies the societies current hold in the off-line world, to the Internet, potentially in breach of EU competition rules.

The EU executive said it sent a ‘statement of objections’ detailing its regulatory concerns to the organisations over their so-called ‘Santiago Agreement’ – a pan-EU system that allows national organisations to collect music authors’ copyright proceeds.

In 2001 the collecting societies of the UK (PRS), France (SACEM), Germany (GEMA) and the Netherlands (BUMA) notified the Commission of the ‘Santiago Agreement’. Since then, all other societies from the European Economic Area, with the exception of the Portuguese society (SPA), have signed up. They were also joing by the Swiss society (SUISA).

While strongly supporting the “one-stop shop” portion of the Agreement, and acknowledging adequate copyright protection and enforcement, the Commission “considers that such crucial developments in online-related activities must be accompanied by an increasing freedom of choice by consumers and commercial users throughout Europe as regards their service providers, such as to achieve a genuine European single market. “. The EU wants to encourage competition between the agencies, not consolidation, in their words,

“The Commission considers that the territorial exclusivity afforded by the Santiago Agreement to each of the participating societies is not justified by technical reasons and is irreconcilable with the world-wide reach of the Internet”.

Coming on the heels of the EU record fine of Microsoft Media player, we feel this shows that the EU Commission is serious about protecting the rights of the public to the fair and reasonable access to media in a digital age.

The collecting societies have two and a half months to reply to the Commission’s objections.

EU Press release – Commission opens proceedings into collective licensing of music copyrights for online use

Nokia becomes the Official Mobile Phone of the NBA and WNBA

Nokia US have signed a cross-marketing deal with the US NBA (National Basket Association). The NBA will promote Nokia phones in the wide range of media under their control – NBA and WNBA media and game telecasts including NBA TV, themed TV commercials, grassroots events, a customized content section on NBA.com, team alliances, and a presence within the NBA’s Hispanic-focused television, Internet and event initiatives.

The big push is the video capabilities of their phones. NAB video content will be available to Nokia phone owners including game highlights and special behind-the-scenes pieces. Additional NBA nuggets delivered, probably using text and information services will be news, scores, and NBA logos as wallpapers.

We think is an interesting deal, taking Nokia further into bypassing the network operators by taking their relationship directly to the mobile phone owner through content the love and care about. Financial terms haven’t been disclosed but we suspect the deal feature a number with a lot of zeros after it.

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Vodafone to power consumer focused Live! service with 3G

As expected, Vodafone announced this morning that it will enhance its Live! consumer content offering by making it available over 3G. It will be immediately available in Germany and Portugal on the Samsung Z105, with other countries around Europe following in the coming months.
As well as taking advantage of the enhanced resolution and colours that are constantly evolving with each iteration of handsets released, the less than catching named “Vodafone live!TM with 3G” will speed the delivery of content and widely-enable the streaming of audio and video content. They, like rival operator 3, are hoping that high bandwidth video calling and messaging will grab the imagination of their users, bringing them far higher revenues that standard SMS text messaging currently do.
The number of Vodafone-approved handsets available will increase. Following the Z105 will be the Sony Ericsson Z1010, a clamshell-design with two displays and two cameras that was announced over a year ago. Availability of Nokia handsets was not mentioned.

Peter Bamford, Vodafone’s Chief Marketing Officer said “Extensive consumer trials of Vodafone live!TM with 3G indicate that early adopters are keen to try this technology and so we are giving them a taste of it prior to the full launch of enhanced services later in the year.” We suspect the trialist were not paying their own phone bills so were pretty liberal with usage, it remains to be seen if the bill-paying consumers are quite so free and easy in the months following their first video-enhanced bill.