June 2004 – Page 10 – Digital-Lifestyles

Sony Leaves US/European PDA Market

Sony has decided to leave the US and European PDA markets. The company will continue to develop and sell its popular Clié range in Japan, but will be concentrating on smartphones and its Vaio computer brand in the West.

Sales of conventional PDAs have suffered of late, in the face of increased popularity for smartphones. Smartphones now tend to feature the very same applications and functions that PDAs have traditionally offered, with of course integration with mobile communications and data.

PalmSource, makers of the Clié OS, suffered a 13% drop in their share price when the news that they had lost one of their largest customers was announced. PalmSource’s market share has declined over the past year, and is now level with Microsoft Windows CE, with both holding 40%. PalmSource, however, are optimistic about the smartphone market and their ability to produce a competitive smartphone OS.

At its height, Sony was the second largest seller of PalmOS devices, its success due to innovative support for multimedia such as video and MP3 playback.

ZDNet Reports

Windows Media 10 beta Announced Wednesday

Microsoft will be rolling out the beta programme for their Windows Media Player 10 application today, with the emphasis on portability and DRM.

One of WM10’s new features will be easy synchronisation of media libraries with portable devices – something that iPod users have enjoyed since iTunes was released. WM10 needs to be able to see portable devices as a disk drive in order to perform synchronisation, but many modern players behave like this when connected to a Windows machine.

For devices that run Windows Media Centre Portable OS, such as the Creative Lab’s offering detailed yesterday, Microsoft have developed the Media Transfer Protocol to automatically synchronise files between the two.

Synchronisation is not straightforward for Microsoft as many different manufacturers provide a range of disparate hardware – something that Apple, with two basic iPods, does not have to worry about.

WM10 will also feature the new Janus DRM technology, allowing subscription music sites like Napster to employ seamless licensing across devices.

Many of the new features of WM10 will of course be dormant until portable devices supporting them start to appear later in 2004.

Windows Media

Creative Lab’s Portable Multimedia Centre

We can look forward to yet another entrant to the growing portable media jukebox market – this time from Creative. The Zen Portable Multimedia Centre has a 3.8” TFT screen, 20gb hard drive and Windows Portable Media Centre installed.

The Portable Multimedia centre is compatible with Windows Media versions 7 to 9, will also play MP3 files and display JPG and TIFF images.

The unit can record video directly from a television tuner, as well as import files from Windows XP. Using Microsoft’s implementation of MPEG4 means that content providers will have full control over how movies are watched and stored with the device.

Creative are being tight-lipped about the unit’s battery life and weight, instead concentrating on it’s media playback and synchronisation features.

Creative Labs on the Zen Portable Multimedia Centre

iTunes and Sony Connect Launched This Month; Napster UK High Pricing Explained

Although Apple is yet to make an official statement, many sources believe the European version of their iTunes music store will launch in the middle of June. Although Euro iTunes is expected to be more expensive than its American cousin, the price difference is not expected to be as dramatic as the one demonstrated between US and UK Napster.

Sony has just completed deals with European independent labels, adding another 75,000 tracks to its catalogue. The Connect store uses Sony’s SonicStage software to protect the ATRAC-encoded tracks, and does not serve MP3s. On future developments, Sony US lead Howard Stringer hinted that Connect might feature video content too – which, considering Sony’s huge range of capable hardware, is probably a very smart idea.

We’re grateful to Napster UK for getting back to us on our query regarding the remarkable disparity in pricing between its US, CA and UK stores. The reason? Greedy labels. Adam Howorth, Communications director at Napter UK told us: “it’s simply down to the higher wholesale price we get from the record companies in the UK. If they would reduce their prices, so would we.”

Connect Europe

iTunes

Napster UK

Broadband is Killing Television

A survey from Wanadoo has revealed that people’s TV viewing and Internet habits are changing as broadband becomes more popular.

The Fishbowl 2 survey asked 1000 people to keep a diary of their media use over a two week period.

Broadband subscribers spend 45% more time online than narrowband users, and cite entertainment as their use after 6pm – making the Internet the second most popular media in the prime time slot. Broadband users also claimed that the Internet was the only medium that satisfied all of their media needs (i.e. news, music, information, entertainment etc.) all at one time.

Key findings from Fishbow 2:

TV has declined by 12% (almost 3 hours) in viewing time
Broadband users take a higher share of media time at 16%, compared to average Internet share at 12%
Broadband users spend 11% less time watching TV than Narrowband users, and 45% more time online
This equates to 2.1 hours less time watching TV per week, but 2.1 hours more time online – indicating Broadband’s direct cannibalisation of TV consumption
After 6pm weekdays and 2pm weekends, the Internet is the number 2 medium behind TV for all demographic groups
TV cannibalisation is occurring at the above times for Broadband users. Weekday evening for example, Narrowband Internet share is 10% and 77% for TV; Broadband Internet share grows to 18% but is only 68% for TV
Needs fulfilled online are changing from ‘traditional’ Internet needs. Searching specific information and communication has decreased as a need fulfilled online whereas entertainment is growing
Entertainment is the top need fulfilled online after 6pm, as with TV
The Internet is the number 2 “prime time” entertainment medium, with Broadband eroding time spent watching TV

Wanadoo on the report

Coming Soon: Ringtone Top 20

Now that the market is worth over UK£70 million (€105 million), KPMG are compiling a fortnightly chart listing the top 20 ringtones downloaded to the UK’s 45 million mobile phones. The chart will be officially recognised by the British Phonographic Industry and published in the trade news paper Music Week.

Even scarier, some sources report that ringtones now account for 10% of the global music market – or US$3,000,000,000 (€2.45 billion). There an interesting contradiction here. On the one hand, the music industry say that it’s customers are quite happy to pay for a ringtone sample from a single, yet on the other hand the same labels claim that the public won’t pay to download an actual music track, instead preferring to rob artists. Could this have been because of the easy availability of licensed ringtones to buy as opposed to a complete lack of legitimate music services in some markets, such as Europe?

Incidentally, it’s a race between Eamon’s “I Don’t Want You Back” and Britney Spear’s “Everytime” to be the top spot on the first chart. Contrast this to Al Martino’s “Here in My Heart” which topped the first singles chart in 1952.

Too bad panda-headed Digital Lifestyle’s favourites Super Smart don’t really have a look in.

Music Week