May 2005

Sony K750i: Pre-release Preview: It’s A Beauty
About a month ago I had the chance to spend two days with a pre-release version of the Sony K750i handset and as it’s now closer to the release of the handset, I thought an overview of the product might be timely.
Despite it being a pre-release version of the phone, the couple of bugs that I came across were pretty small and inconsequential and in general it ran very well.
The form of the phone was, for me quite petit, but that�s to be judged against a Nokia N-Gage QD, which isn’t the lightest of fellows. I soon got used to the size and placement of the keys, picking the use of the central joystick up quickly.
The navigation through the menus is very simple and effective, which is heavily aided by the quality of the good-sized display which takes up the same space as the keypad.
One feature I particularly liked was being able to soft-program the joystick “User Controlled Interface” Hurrah! I set it up to start the built-in audio recorder (quality OK, not great) when I pushed the joystick right, and turn on the bright/near-blinding light that is the flash.
Despite its very handy form (~10cm H, 4-5 cm W, 2 cm D from memory), it has some impressive features.
You morph it in to a camera by sliding the lens cover at the back of the device. Using the 2mpx camera you can easily captures clear pictures with vivid colours during light days.
When shooting in low light levels the quality is noticeably degraded, but what do you expect from a 1cm lens? To account for this they’ve provided a flash that can also be selected to flash SOS with retina-burning brightness!
Video recording is OK, given the devices restrictions.
The biggest news I’ve left to last. It’s also an MP3 music player, which having been using the W800 a lot recently, appears to offer the same functions as the much anticipated first Sony Walkman mobile phone.
It has a play/pause button at the top left on the side, and volume controls on the opposite side (the shutter button is also on that side).
I’d just assumed the K750i would have a ‘normal’ headphone jack, letting me choose the headphones that excited me, but the provided headphones had to be connected via a Sony-interface at the bottom of the phone. This brings obvious advantages, like them having a mic, letting to let you use them as a hands-free set.
Connecting a uploading content was relatively straight forward to setup and use. I can’t comment on its information syncing ability as this wasn’t available.
Conclusion (based on two days usage)
Despite having to get used to a new phone interface, I fell for the K750i over the short period of usage I had. Frankly it was a real struggle for me to give it back. I think this is going to sell by the truck-load (and that’s a lot of phones, because they very small :) ).
Summary
Compact, quality, capable music player and camera phone.
Rating
4/5

We understand the k750i will be released in the next month in Europe.
26 May, 2005
Vodafone Rakes in Record Revenues
Vodafone execs spent the morning cackling wildly to themselves, throwing wads of dollar bills in the air and rolling around silk-covered beds covered in cash as record revenues and profits for its full year results were announced to the world.
The mobile operator – the world’s numero uno by revenue – has raked in eye-wateringly large pre-tax profits of £13bn, before write-downs.
With revenues increasing 4.3 per cent year-on-year to £34.1bn, these are champagne cork-launching record figures for a UK company.
Vodafone’s subscriber base rose by 16.3 million to 154.8 million, and the company have announced that it will buy back £4.5bn worth of its own shares, and double its dividend payment to 4.07p.
“We have met or exceeded all of our stated targets and significantly increased returns to shareholders,” purred chief exec Arun Sarin, sounding like the cat who got the cream, the milk float and the dairy that made it.
But in-between triumphant licks of triple-thick Cornish clotted cream, Sarin sounded a cautious note, warning that competition was rising.
“Whilst competitive pressures are increasing, there is clear evidence that our global scale and scope is enabling us to deliver innovative customer propositions and to produce superior results,” he puffed.
The company have experienced organic customer growth of 12 per cent globally, with Vodafone live! active devices increasing to 30.9 million and adoption of 3G services rising to 2.4 million devices at the year end.
“Here in Europe, we are leading the parade on 3G,” Sarin air-punched.
Vodafone performed particularly well in strong markets such as the US and Spain, with revenues growing at more than 20% year on year.
The company also kicked ass in its core European markets, with Italy, Germany and the UK doing especially well, despite fierce competition.
Vodafone didn’t get it all their own way though, with disappointing figures from Japan prompting a business improvement plan in the year ahead (the company currently lags in third place with around 16 per cent market share behind NTT DoCoMo and KDDI.).
Vodafone
Vodafone Group Fiscal Year Pretax, Pre-Items Profit GBP10.3 Billion
25 May, 2005
Orange And Virgin Top UK Customer Satisfaction Survey
Orange has triumphed in a study rating customer satisfaction among mobile phone contract providers, with Virgin Mobile coming in top in the pre-pay sector, according to the 2005 UK Mobile Telephone Customer Satisfaction Study, run by J.D. Power and Associates.
Orange romped home with an overall index satisfaction score of 746 points (out of 1,000), with the company’s 22-point increase reflecting improved performances in areas such as billing, image and customer service.
Vodafone shuffles behind Orange with an index score of 738, while Virgin Mobile, which has been included in the study for the last two years, retained their crown as the highest ranking provider within the pre-pay sector, notching up an overall index satisfaction score of 753.
Virgin Mobile earned customer plaudits for their cost of service and customer service factor, with Vodafone once again consigned to a close second place with an index score of 742.
T-Mobile, on the other hand, slumped below the industry average for both its pre- and post-pay offerings which registered just 708 overall. O2 just scraped in, matching the industry average rating of 733.
The authors of the study claim that the results reflect the positive impact of increasing competition and lower tariffs.
Customer loyalty has also been encouraged by companies offering existing customers new tariffs rather than just new customers.
It would appear that mobile users are a happier bunch, with overall customer satisfaction increasing to 723 index points from 711 in 2004 in the pre-pay segment.
The contract segment seemed a well-chuffed bunch too, with satisfaction levels rising to 733 index points from 720 index points in 2004.
“It pays to satisfy your customers, because those most satisfied will give the highest number of recommendations, thereby increasing sales,” advised Gunda Lapski, director of European telecommunications and utilities services at J.D. Power and Associates. “A good reputation can have a positive impact on the number of customers held by a provider.”
The study asked consumers what had been their main reason for selecting their network provider. Fifteen percent of customers were influenced by having friends, families or colleagues on the same network, while a further eight percent made their decision after having a network recommended to them.
Virgin’s network clearly contains a host of happy bunnies, with nearly 50 percent of its pre-pay customers ready to recommend their current network provider, while 45 percent of Orange contract customers were prepared to do the same.
The phones themselves were the only factor not to achieve an increase in customer satisfaction, with nearly half of all customers having replacing their handsets in the past 12 months.
Mobile technology and photo messaging is still a hot potato, with 35 percent of all mobile owners snapping on camera phones and 21 percent sending photos from their mobiles.
Accessing the Internet to check mobile accounts has also grown in popularity, with 16 percent visiting their provider’s Web site in the past 12 months to do so, compared to 13 percent in 2004.
J.D. Power and Associates
25 May, 2005
Bluetooth Units Hit 5 Million A Week
Like the spotty geek who turns up in the pub with a stunner on his arm, Bluetooth has confounded critics by reaching the significant milestone of five million Bluetooth units shipping per week.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced the growing consumer demand for Bluetooth, citing the wide acceptance of Bluetooth technology in a multitude of applications such as mobile phones, cars, portable computers, mp3 players, mice and keyboards.
“Five million units shipped validates the sizeable market for Bluetooth technology,” roared Michael Foley, Ph.D., executive director of the Bluetooth SIG before weirdly adding, “every time you blink an eye, another ten Bluetooth chipsets see the world.”
“When you couple that with the recently announced collaboration between the Bluetooth SIG and UWB,” Foley continued, “Bluetooth technology will further reinforce its leading position far into the future. Even today, we expect this will have a positive impact in Bluetooth uptake.”
Quick as a flash, Harish Naidu, Microsoft’s general manager of the Windows Device Experience Group was on hand to shove a congratulatory oar in: “The five million per week mark proves that Bluetooth technology has strong marketplace traction. Microsoft is committed to ensuring that the platform support in Windows meets the needs of the marketplace.”
Faster than a gabba ringtone, Jyrki Rosenberg, Nokia’s Director of Strategic Technology Marketing was also on hand to join the backslap-fest, “For Nokia, Bluetooth technology is an important element in our optimized mix of radio technologies that enables seamless connectivity and a more wireless lifestyle for customers.”
Seizing a convenient opportunity to squeeze in a bit of PR, Rosenberg added, “Already today, Nokia has introduced state-of-the-art mobile devices that allow data transmission using both high- speed cellular networks, WLAN hot spot access, and Bluetooth technology.”
The first release of the Bluetooth Specification was released in 1998, and despite initial cynicism, over 3400 companies have become members in the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG).
The number of Bluetooth products on the market has soared with volumes doubling from 2003 to 2004, reaching an installed base of over 250 million.
Growth is predicted to reach 500 million units by the close of 2005.
Bluetooth.com
25 May, 2005
Nokia 770: Maemo Linux-powered Wi-Fi Tablet Surprise
Nokia has surprised pundits at the LinuxWorld Summit in New York by announcing their new Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, a handheld Wi-Fi device for accessing the Internet around the home over a wireless broadband connection.
Looking like a chunkier, Darth Vadar-esque version of their Nokia 7710 smartphone, the half-pound tablet measures three-quarters of an inch thick, 5.6 inches wide, and 3.1 inches deep.
Sporting a 4.1 inch 65K colour TFT touch screen display, the PDA-like device is being touted as a cheap alternative to buying an extra personal computer for connecting to the web around the house.
To that end, the 770 boasts 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and a v1.2 Bluetooth system supporting the Dialup Networking, File Transfer, GAP, Serial Port, and SIM Access profiles, with a USB port provided for wired connectivity.
The included 1500mAh battery should keep going for about 3 hours of browsing or 7 days of standby time.
Nokia imagines that consumers will leave the 770 in places like the sofa, by the bed, in the loo etc, providing an ‘instant on’ way to quickly check up on email, football scores, do a quick web search etc.
“We are very excited to introduce our first Nokia Internet Tablet device to the market. With the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet consumers can access broadband Internet services away from their desktop, for example in the backyard or at a cafe within a Wi-Fi hotspot,” spun Janne Jormalainen, Vice President of Convergence Products, Multimedia, Nokia.
Unlike some teensy-weensy mobile displays, Nokia’s sizeable 800×480 pixel screen should make browsing the web and interacting with email a reasonably practical proposition.
Text can be inputted via a virtual keyboard or by stylus using the handwriting recognition system with a hardware interface consisting of a 5-way d-pad controller and buttons for home, menu, escape, zoom, and full screen.
The unit will come with an Opera web browser and email client built in, as well as a RSS news reader, Internet radio, various media players, world clock, a PDF viewer, and Flash v6 compatibility.
Naturally, there’s an orgy of acronyms detailing the zillion and one audio and video formats that the unit supports (deep breath): MP3, Real Audio, MPEG4, AAC, WAV, AMP, MP2 audio support, with MPEG1, MPEG4, Real Video, H263, AVI, 3GP video support and a slew of common graphics formats supported, including Animated GIF JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PNG and SVG-Tiny. Phew!
A user-installable software patch – scheduled for release at the beginning of 2006 – will introduce Voice Over IP (VOIP) and Instant Messaging to the feature set.
The 770’s software is based on Debian Linux (v2.6), with the new platform – derived from the Linux GNOME UI – going under the name “maemo”.
Nokia intends maemo to be an open platform and will provide a SDK in the hope of stimulating software developers into writing customised software.
“Linux is a logical choice for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet as Linux and the Open Source development platform provide us with fast and efficient solutions to build products for this new Nokia product category,” added Janne Jormalainen.
Powering the Nokia will be a TI 1710 OMAP (ARM based) processor, offering 64MB of DDR RAM and 128MB of internal FLASH memory. Around 64MB of this should be available to the user.
There’s a RS-MMS card expansion slot onboard and the unit will ship with a 64MB card.
Rounding off the package is a USB cable, travel charger, carry pouch and a desk stand. Sadly, the meanies at Nokia have not included a stereo handset but at least they’ve had the courtesy to include a regular 3.5mm stereo headset jack instead of the usual proprietary rubbish.
The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is planned to start shipping in the third quarter of 2005 in selected countries in the Americas and Europe, retailing for $350 (~£191, €277).
Nokia
Maemo
25 May, 2005
WiFi Kit Revenues Hit Record Levels: Infonetics Research
Despite prices being pushed downwards by fierce price competition, worldwide wireless LAN equipment revenue rose 20% to US$767.6 million (~£420m ~€610m) between the fourth quarter of 2004 and the first quarter of 2005.
During that period, a grand total of 12.2 million units were shipped, the highest quarterly volume to date, according to a report from Infonetics Research.
With wireless LAN products continuing to grow in popularity across product categories and geographic regions, revenue is expected to rise another 2% to $779.6 million (£426m, €620m) by 1Q06, hitting $3.6 billion (~£173m~€251m) by 2008.
Wireless LAN switch ports have been shifting faster than a Ritalin-assisted rabbit, rising 44% to 112,000 as revenue grew 13% to $52.2 million (~£285m~€41.53m), with a leap to $699.2 million (~£381~€556) predicted for 2008.
As the world goes bonkers for broadband, the demand for wireless broadband routers has soared accordingly, registering a hefty 34% increase in revenue between 4Q04 and 1Q05 generating $328 million (~£173.8m~€253m).
That’s a thumping great 37% increase in unit shipments, representing not-to-be-scoffed-at sales of 6 million.
Naturally, the manufacturers want to keep the cash flowing in their direction, so have been busily slapping on new product features to generate replacement purchasing.
“The demand for wireless broadband routers continues unabated, driven by the possibilities of wireless home networking,” said Richard Webb, lead analyst of the Infonetics report.
“As more and more users explore the possibilities of media download and file sharing applications they are finding that this easy-to-use device uncovers the true potential of their broadband connection. And with 802.11n and even faster throughput speeds on the horizon, the wireless router segment will ride the crest of the global broadband wave.”
Cisco continues as the worldwide wireless LAN revenue leader, hogging 17% of the market share following four consecutive $100-million-plus (~£53.7m~€79.5m) quarters.
D-Link barged ahead of Cisco-Linksys to grab second place, with NETGEAR in fourth position.
Just in case you, dear reader, haven’t had quite enough facts yet, allow me to inform you that the report revealed that access points account for 71% of wireless LAN equipment revenue, NICs account for 13%, and infrastructure products, including wireless LAN switches, appliances, controllers, and mesh networking gear, account for 16%
SOHOs and consumers make up just over half of wireless LAN equipment revenue (51%), down from 53% in 4Q04 while service providers and enterprises make up the rest.
Finally, a little geographic fact flurry to end with: North America accounts for 45% of wireless LAN equipment revenue; Europe, Middle East and Africa for 30%, Asia Pacific for 21%, and Central America / Latin America for 4%.
So now you know.
WiFi Hit Record Volume in 1Q05; Revenue Up 20%
24 May, 2005
Skype Affiliate Programme Becomes Official
Here at VON Europe in Stockholm, Sweden, Niklas Zennstrom, CEO of Skype, has just announced the official launch of the Skype affiliate scheme. The scheme has been running as a trial for a few weeks, gaining 1,800 members.
Working with affiliate site Commission Junction, they plan to reward Skype users who promote their pay for services. In return, affiliates will get a varying percentage of the value of the purchase, depending on the service and the number of people that they sign up each month.
They do this by simply by placing a link on their site or by sending the links through via an email.
Speaking to Niklas yesterday (audio interview with Niklas Zennstrom 20mins, 19Mb), he told Digital-Lifestyles, “We’re creating a structure where Skype users who promote us, can start to make a buck out of it,” while he acknowledged that they also benefit.
There will also be “super affiliates” that will have their own Skype account manager – a first for them. The first two announced are Luna Storm in Sweden and SuperAva in Italy. Luna Storm is a online phenomenon in Sweden, having over 2m members, which in a country of 9m in total is pretty impressive.
Looking at the percentages that are offered, they give guidance as to which Skype services are the most profitable, and it’s no surprise to see that they’re SkypeIn and voicemail. SkypeOut, which connects Skype VoIP user to the public phone network, enabling them to call land-lines. When connecting to the public phone network, Skype has to pay operators for the time the call is connected.
Not surprisingly if people sign up for the normal free Skype service, the affiliate receives no financial reward.
Skype are in a position where they have grown very fast, recently hitting 3m concurrent users, but they are still vulnerable to an alternative service coming along and usupring them.
The larger their installed base of users, the larger the barrier is to competitors. They know that the more people in a Skype users social/family circle that download and sign up for Skype, the more difficult it becomes for a competitor to unseat them. The process of talking you mum, granny and sister-in-law isn’t something you want to repeat.
Skype Affiliate scheme
24 May, 2005
Vodafone 7100v Blackberry Review – In Everyday use
Part syncing a 7100 with a Mac.
I’m writing this review over a few days, using the 7100v instead of my usual phone. Today, I switched the 7100v on in the morning, received and replied to a few emails and set off for the day.
On the bus, I read the PDA edition of the BBC Web site using the built-in Web browser (more fully covered later). After lunch, I pulled it out of my pocket to check over the mail that had arrived. Imagine my horror when I spotted two huge, yellow lines covering the screen. On scrolling, these lines became more pronounced and seemed to spawn more of themselves, until they covered the whole screen. My first thought was that pixels in the screen were damaged, possibly as a result of me sitting on it, as it had been in my back pocket shortly during my lunch break. I tried switching the handset off and back on again, but the lines didn’t disappear. I was already thinking “Oh no, I’ve broken it” when I had the presence of mind to take the battery out. Miraculously, this solved the problem with the screen, suggesting this problem was possibly a software related one, as opposed to a hardware one. I never did track down what caused it but having bugs like this in released software is not a way to reassure customers that a product is beyond the early-adopter stage and while not a major problem. Occurrences like this one do make you slightly wary of purchasing such a device with your own hard-earned money.
Battery life
My initial experience of the battery life was very poor, with the battery dropping from full to empty within about 8 hours. After a few charging cycles, however, this improved dramatically, and the battery now lasts a good two days under relatively heavy use. This discovery came as a very pleasant surprise to me, as with my usage pattern the only other handset that I had managed to keep alive on a single charge for over a day was an ancient Nokia 6210. The one thing that is bad about the battery on this handset, however, is the time it takes to charge up: It takes around 6 hours (!), an unheard of amount of time in my experience of other handsets. This makes my customary “plug it in for an hour before I go out” habit worthless, as the battery doesn’t even come close to full in that time.
Screen
The screen on the 7100 is very impressive in its clarity and brightness – the contrast isn’t bad either. Images viewed on it look very solid, almost as if they are actually colour-printed backlit acetate as opposed to being displayed on an LCD.
The main downfall of the screen is when it is placed in sun-light: The screen is about 5mm below the plastic covering over the screen, and this covering isn’t of particularly high-grade plastic, leading to a badly obscured screen in bright conditions. The cover is also quite reflective, so often you can’t see anything on the screen at all. Indoors however, the screen looks great and everyone I’ve asked about it has been very impressed by it.
Web browsing/access
I have grown accustomed to doing a lot of my Web surfing on the move, or at least not while sitting in front of my computer, as I find it more comfortable that way. To me, it means that the Internet can truly take over from books and newspapers, because you can browse the Net on the sofa, while eating dinner, or anywhere else for that matter and aren’t tied to sitting in a rigid office chair staring at a screen.
As a result of this, the Web browser on the Blackberry was of particular interest to me. RIM seem to have paid particular attention to complying with standards in the design of the Blackberry’s software and this shows in the browser: It supports style sheets and javascript, both features very uncommon for a mobile device. Style sheet support means that, in theory, a Web designer can write one page that will look different when viewed with a small-screen device than when viewed with a full-size computer. This means that it is possible to, for instance, make a small-screen device employ a larger font when rendering a Web page than a computer, to take account of the small screen size. Sadly, sometimes sticking to standards isn’t enough, and this is the case with the Blackberry.
When Web pages are rendered, there are a lot of unnecessary images which would be represented instead by text. This text is usually shown in the ALT tags of the HTML from which the pages are rendered. On a lot of sites, there are a lot of navigation images, which are not good for render time on a low-powered device like the Blackberry: every time a page is opened containing images, these images are downloaded (this takes a long time with the Internet connection on a 7100v being at dial-up speeds). When downloaded these images are resized individually so as to fit on its screen.
Unless the sites that you wish to visit using your Blackberry are graphically very light with little images on them, you may despair of the slow speeds. Other handhelds get around the image problem by simply not displaying all images, only the ones that they think are vital to the site. While this can lead to problems like the right images not being loaded, these problems are uncommon, and the associated speed increase more than makes up for this.
There is a hotkey in between the answer and hang up buttons on the keypad of the Blackberry which opens the Web browser. This may suit some people more than others. Personally, I found it a bit annoying, and it would have been far better to use it as a selection softkey or at least make it configurable.
Part one of this review, looking at how to enter and retrieve information, was published yesterday. Part three will follow.
24 May, 2005
Music Fans To SMS Bands Onstage
Back in the old days when Glastonbury was a field of medieval mud occupied by confused hippies and LSD travellers, the customary way to show your appreciation of the band was to flash the occasional peace sign or waft a spliff skywards.
Come the punk revolution, and there was no better way to show your love for a band than by propelling copious amounts of phlegm in their direction.
By the 80s, over-excited fans felt the best way to express a heartfelt love for a band was to clamber onstage and then stage dive back into the audience, while the E’d up 90s rave generation couldn’t get it together to work out where the stage was so just swirled fluoro things around their person instead.
In America, it was a somewhat different story, with concert goers traditionally expressing a curious penchant for holding lighters aloft, a craze that never really caught on in Blighty because, frankly, it looks really daft.
For today’s hi-tech toy generation, new ways of bigging up a band have developed.
Mobile phones have ensured that lighters have been replaced by the blue glow of mobile phones, with forests of camera phones springing up and down at concerts like demented flamingos.
Not surprisingly, this swaying sea of interactive technology soon caught the attention of The Man, who quickly saw an opportunity to coin in it from the captive crowd.
Step forward Boomerang Mobile Media who, in partnership with Strategic Artists Management, have come up with the idea of allowing fans to send SMS messages to the band and then see their words appear on a big onstage screen. For a price, naturally.
Fans don’t even have to be at the gig, with sofa loafers stoned at home watching the gig on TV also able to ‘enjoy’ the thrill of seeing their texted mumblings appear onstage.
The concept’s already been tested out on a promotional tour for Anastacia in Europe, where around ten percent of the attendees were happy to hand over 1 euro each (~£0.68 ~US$1.26) for the privilege of blasting inane messages onstage for all to see.
We’re not sure what the remaining 90% of the crowd thought of this pointless onscreen nonsense, but we’d be reaching for our phone zappers in double quick time.
Call us old fashioned if you will, but when we go to gigs we want to see the band and not be distracted by an endless stream of “KT LUVS THE KLRZ 4EVER” and “WIL U MARRY ME THOM?” beaming in our faces.
Simon Renshaw, of Strategic Artists Management, soaked up every cash-till ringing minute of the show: “Fans loved the concept and were sending multiple text messages to our stage front screens in an effort to see their names, talk to their friends, tell Anastacia how much they love her and win prizes.”
“Fans were so excited about it that marriage proposals were proffered onscreen,” he gushed.
But the real profit may come from turning the band’s backdrop into a giant size virtual mall, with audiences able to call in and buy merchandise advertised throughout the gig.
Boomerang Mobile Media founder and CEO Glenn Field rubbed his hands and explained the scheme: “You see something you like, and we deliver it to your home.”
As Sid Vicious and the ghost of Rock’n’Roll reached maximum RPM in their graves, he continued, “These are exclusive items purchased through the security of your phone, and the day it should have arrived you’ll get a follow-up phone call to confirm you received it.”
Boomerang Mobile Media and Strategic Artists Management are already dreaming up additional e-commerce opportunities, including the ability to allow fans to send camera-phone pictures to the venue screens along with their text messages
No interactive stone is being left unturned in their attempts to fleece, sorry, offer maximum interactive retail opportunities, to the hapless punter.
The first time a consumer buys from Boomerang via a mobile, a live operator will jump into action and invite the user to register a personal PIN for future purchases and other products.
This can then be used to milk fans dry with subsequent mobile-only ‘exclusive’ offers, pre-orders and a myriad of other pocket-draining merchandising discounts.
Boomerang are applying the marketing experience they gained last year when working with Def Jam Recordings artist Ghostface on a festival bill.
“We allowed Ghostface to connect with fans who either were fans or who heard his music that day and became fans,” Field enthused.
“We projected a number inviting people to interact – to meet him, visit him on the tour bus, things like that – and when you called you heard a recorded message from Ghostface. People got to hear their favourite artist talk to them on their most personal device.”
Cash from chaos, anyone?
Boomerang Mobile Media
24 May, 2005
Time Warner Ponders AOL float
Time Warner is considering “spinning off” its AOL division to help finance acquisitions in the future, said chief executive Richard D. Parsons on Friday.
“If we get to the point where consolidation is happening in the Internet space…the possibility of an IPO is out there,” he commented, with the Wall Street Journal citing sources as saying that Time Warner would continue to hold a majority stake in the Internet company.
Parsons told investors at the company’s annual meeting in New York that Time Warner had discussed the possibility of selling AOL shares in an initial public offering but had decided not to go ahead with such a plan “at this point.”
Critical to the spin-off decision will be the success of AOL chief executive Jonathan Miller’s strategy which aims to attract more Internet users and advertisers to AOL’s site to compensate for the slump in dial-up subscribers.
Time Warner acquired AOL for US$112bn (~£61.2bn ~€89bn) in January 2001 just as the dotcom bubble began to wobble like a dancing jelly on three wheeled roller skates.
The acquisition led to a record US$98.7 billion (~£54bn~€78.6) loss in 2002, plunging shares into catastrophic freefall as the promised cash-fest and sales growth never emerged.
With Time Warner’s pockets already considerably lightened, transatlantic regulators then accused them of overstating advertising and subscriber numbers from mid-2000, with the company settling all charges with thumping great payments of US$510 million (~£279m ~€406.6m) in the States and US$300m (~£164~€239m) in the EU.
Time Warner has announced that it plans to start paying the company’s first dividend since the America Online merger four years ago, representing “the beginning of a commitment we hope will grow over time,” according to Parsons.
The upturn in the company’s profitability has been engineered by Parsons, who has slashed debt, driven sales growth, settled government investigations into the AOL unit and shelled out for cable-television assets from Adelphia Communications – the company’s biggest deal since the merger.
“The turnaround is complete. We are moving forward and picking up speed,” purred a pleased Parsons.
AOL is now trying to find new revenue sources to compensate for the loss of U.S. subscribers to its dial-up Web access service, which has declined by 5 million users in three years, to 21.7 million.
In response, Miller has unveiled a series of customer-attracting new Web products, including a local search engine, a travel site, a free e-mail service and the first upgrade to AOL’s Netscape browser for five years.
And he’s not finished yet, with a revamped version of the Aol.com site in the bag that that promises to look like a mix of the phenomenally successful Yahoo and Google sites.
Miller aims to attract more heavyweight advertisers and regain a bigger share of the US$9.6 billion U.S. online ad market, currently hogged by Google.
So far, things are looking rosy for Miller with ad sales zippily moving up 45 percent to US$311 million, although he’s still miles short of compensating for the loss in subscriber revenue, with AOL first-quarter revenue falling 3 percent to US$2.13 billion (~£1.16bn~€1.69bn).
Time Warner May Consider AOL Spinoff
Time Warner
23 May, 2005