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| | | January 11, 2004
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Sunday, January 11, 2004 |
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Gates and Jobs whistle digital media tunes
The heads of computing giants Microsoft Corp. and Apple Computer Inc. reaffirmed this week their visions of digital entertainment as a major driving force for the IT industry in the years to come.
At the Macworld Expo, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a smaller version of the hugely popular iPod digital music player and a range of new and updated software. The new half-inch-thick iPod, called iPod Mini, costs $249 and comes with a 4 GB hard drive, capable of storing about 1,000 songs. Mini will be available in the United States in February and worldwide in April.
Driven by the astounding success of the device and the strong performance of Apple's iTunes Music Store, computer giant Hewlett-Packard announced a deal with the company, which will enable it to resell Apple-made iPods specifically manufactured for HP. HP will also preinstall the iTunes Music Store application and place a desktop shortcut to the store's web site on all consumer PCs and notebooks sold by the company. Financial details about the deal were not disclosed.
In addition, Apple showed off the updated iLife suite of media creation tools. Experts praised the company's newest application, GarageBand, oriented towards home audio recording, but packed with features available in costly professional products. Apple, however, decided to cease providing free downloads of its iMovie and iPhoto software, citing interest in recouping invested funds for future software development. The iLife package will be available for $49 or for free with newly purchased Macintosh computers.
As Steve Jobs and his company touted increasing market share in the digital marketplace, Microsoft's Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates presented new Redmond technology for home entertainment at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Gates demonstrated the Windows Media Center Extender, which allows for TVs and other devices to display content from personal computers, and underscored Microsoft's efforts to enable "seamless computing" at work and at home by enabling PCs, notebooks and other mobile and stationary devices to link together.
Concurrently, another major factor in the digital media market, RealNetworks, emerged as a growing competitor of both Apple and Microsoft. RealNetworks debuted its 99-cent-per-download music store and a new media player at Las Vegas' Consumer Electronics Show. RealPlayer 10 touts smooth integration with the company's music and other services and plays audio file formats from all of its competitors, including Apple's Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format, with which the company protects songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store. Real also announced a deal with IBM to jointly develop a digital media content management system, which will pit the two companies against their common adversary -- Microsoft.
More from: CNET News.com 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | E-Commerce Times | InternetNews.com 1 2 3 | The Mercury News | PC World | Reuters 1 2
Pew survey: file-swapping cut in half
A newly released survey shows U.S. usage of file-swapping services has dramatically dropped since the recording industry launched its legal assault on illegal sharing of digital music files.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project found U.S. file-traders fell to 14 percent, or 18 million, of all Internet users, compared to 29 percent, or 35 million, in the spring of 2003. Pew surveyed 1,358 Internet users and recorded steep drops in usage of file-sharing services by students, broadband users and young adults. In addition, the survey discovered the popularity of file-swapping platforms had severely declined. Usage of Grokster fell with 59 percent, while WinMX saw a 25 percent decline. At the same time, the leader, Kazaa, suffered a 15 percent drop in popularity among U.S. users.
Analysts indicated the significant decline of illegal file-trading coming from U.S.-based Internet users appeared to be a direct result from the ongoing litigation campaign, headed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a trade group representing all major record labels. Since September 2003, RIAA has filed nearly 400 lawsuits against individual file-swappers claiming up to $150,000 of damages per illegally shared song, but has settled with half of them for about $3,000 a user.
More from: ElectricNews.net | InternetNews.com | PC World | Reuters | VNUNET.com
Rivals AOL and MSN launch new services
With subscriber numbers plummeting as more and more users turn to high-speed Internet connections, rivals America Online (AOL) and MSN unveiled new services aimed at retaining current dial-up customers and luring broadband access users with software and content.
AOL launched its anticipated Netscape Internet service, which charges $9.95 a month for unlimited dial-up access without the extra services offered to standard-plan customers.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's Chairman Bill Gates unveiled the redesigned family of MSN web sites during his keynote speech at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Gates also offered a tour of the MSN Premium service targeting broadband subscribers with photo editing and sharing software, antivirus and firewall products from McAfee, parental controls, sophisticated pop-up blocker, spyware detector and efficient e-mail client with spam filtering capabilities. The service costs $9.95 a month or $99.95 a year.
More from: AP (via InformationWeek) | CNET News.com 1 2 | E-Commerce Times | InternetNews.com 1 2
In Other News...
 Microsoft launched a major, long-term advertising campaign, aimed businesses considering moving to the increasingly popular Linux open-source operating system. The software giant will publish print and online ads, driving users to a Microsoft web site, titled "Get the Facts on Windows and Linux", which discusses the total cost of ownership (TCO) and other aspects of Linux, in comparison with Redmond's Windows Server platform.
Merely a year after unveiling with excitement its Smart Display technology, Microsoft decided to freeze future work on the software that supported the hardware devices. The company announced it reevaluated the current market conditions and decided to dump the project after receiving lackluster interest from customers.
AOL said it will begin offering its customers anti-spyware software as part of its AOL 9.0 Optimized package. The new software will run weekly and offer Internet users the ability to disable programs that surreptitiously track their online activities.
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