A World Gone Wireless

September 21, 2008 · Filed Under Technology · Comment 

Consultancy and Survey firm Nielsen Co. estimates that 17% of all Americans — 50+ million of us — already rely on cell phones to make all their phone calls. They have severed the cord, and are no longer paying for landlines. This shouldn’t be news to those of us who don’t make caves our home, but it seems to be news to landline providers, according to their consistent price hikes and lack of competition. Most people I know who received a 3-6% hike in their phone bills recently came to the same conclusion; why have a landline?

Nielsen believes such wireless substitution will skyrocket in the next few months, as consumers try to cut their spending in the face of worsening economy and higher gas and food prices. The ranks of wireless-only consumers will rise to 20% of the U.S. population by year-end, Nielsen estimates. One in five consumers will not have a home phone line by January. That’s staggering, and could be a crushing blow to those companies who rely on landline service as a mainstay in their bottom lines.

AT&T and local telcos could could be in big trouble, as a good chunk of their business is still landline based (amazing given how phone technology and tech in general has evolved, even in the last 5 years or so).

My own personal guess: Within 25 years, landlines will be extinct. Gone. You heard it here first.

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The Samsung/Sandisk Buyout Offer - corporate cluelessness at its finest

September 17, 2008 · Filed Under Recent News · Comment 

Time was when SanDisk, the world’s biggest supplier of flash storage cards, was one of the hottest tech stocks this side of the Milky Way. Of course, those also were the days when companies like Lehman and Merrill Lynch were considered unstoppable juggernauts and pillars of financial stability.

 

These days SanDisk is hardly the big time company it was a couple of years ago. Against a backdrop of weakening consumer demand and with flash memory prices falling, SanDisk’s stock has reflected the company’s changing fortunes, plummeting from a 52-week high of $55.98 to finish at $15.04 yesterday. It’s not just SanDisk feeling the pinch; five of the seven top flash memory producers suffered declines or flat sales during the second quarter. This is due mostly to plummeting prices (have you seen how cheap flash drives are these days?) and a changing marketplace. Storage is dirt cheap nowadays.

But after the close of trading Tuesday, Samsung Electronics confirmed earlier rumors and disclosed it had made a $5.8 billion cash offer to buy SanDisk after what it said were four months of flat and inconclusive talks. SanDisk was quick to reject the offer as inadequate. Interesting strategy, given the stock has lost 70% of its value in the past year or so.

In after-hours trading, shares of SanDisk soared to nearly $23 a share. SanDisk stated it rejected the $26 a share offer, arguing that it undervalues the company. That’s pretty much standard operating procedure in any negotiation, though SanDisk also charged Samsung with “an opportunistic attempt” to exploit a depressed stock price, as well as “the uncertainty resulting from the unresolved patent cross license agreement renewal with Samsung, and general equity market conditions.” That’s corporate lingo for: We want more money.

The rejection of the offer also served as an opportunity for SanDisk to air dirty laundry, suggesting that Samsung’s offer might be “a calculated negotiating ploy or an attempt to gain leverage in the ongoing licensing negotiations between the companies, particularly in light of the fact that the parties have met over 10 times on this issue since June 2007.” Not a company i’d be in a big rush to do business with, but then again, that’s why i’m not in the corporate business world.

SanDisk is not closing the door to future talks with Samsung. Irwin Federman, the company’s lead independent director, said SanDisk remains willing to enter into “good-faith discussions” but did not get more specific. The deal is considered still on thin ice, but why in the world would they turn it down? Do they think they’ll get a better offer in this marketplace?

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Windows 7 in official closed beta, on track for wider beta by December?

September 12, 2008 · Filed Under Recent News · Comment 

Microsoft is on tap to talk publicly about and show off Windows 7 at two of its upcoming tech conferences this fall. But that does not mean the Windows team necessarily will be distributing bits at those shows.

A small and select group of testers (read: MS supporters more than likely) already have gotten their hands on Windows 7 builds. Microsoft has released two M (or ”milestone”) designated Windows 7 builds (M1 and M2), plus various interim updates, to select customers and partners who have been sworn to secrecy. And the Windows client team is in the midst of putting finishing touches on M3, if you believe the whispers.

But Beta 1? Currently it’s not in the cards for Microsoft to release this code to testers until a week before Christmas, according to folks claiming to be privvy to Microsoft’s Windows 7 schedule.

Might there be some kind of pre-beta — something like a Community Technology Preview (CTP) build — that Microsoft will deliver to a broader set of private testers than those currently getting regular internal builds? Odds are this may happen, but the consensus seems to be not to expect Microsoft to distribute Windows 7 bits more widely until the Windows 7 is  feature-complete or very nearly so. After the Vista incident, this may be a very smart move.

On September 10, Microsoft acknowledged that it plans to use its Connect site to sign up potential Windows 7 testers at some point. Christina Storm, a program manager on the Windows Customer Engineering feature team says: ”When we release the Windows 7 beta, we will also be collecting feedback from this (Windows Feedback) panel and asking for participation from a set of Windows 7 beta users. Our current plans call for signing up for the beta to happen in the standard Microsoft manner on http://connect.microsoft.com. Stay tuned!”

If Microsoft does release Beta 1 of Windows 7 in mid-December, that will mean the company is aiming to deliver the final Windows 7 product less than a year after the official beta begins. (Microsoft has said, publicly and privately,  that late 2009 is their target date for release of Windows 7. The “you can’t claim we’re late” date remains the first part of 2010.)

Would a less-than-year-long beta be unprecedented? Not really. Short betas of products pretty much cast in stone aren’t unusual from the Office team. But looking at MS’s early track record with bugs in initial releases, I can’t say it makes me feel better that its on track this “quickly”. I’d much prefer they take their time, and get it right.

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Music Download Services: Choices for 2008

January 31, 2008 · Filed Under Product Reviews, Technology · 1 Comment 

As little as 8 years ago if you said the words “Music Download Service” to most people they would have looked at you with a puzzled expression on their face.

Not any more!

Today downloading music over the internet is one of the chief reasons many people want to get connected to the World Wide Web in the first place. Portable Music Players and then the advent of the Music Downloading Service in the past decade have vastly changed how music is made and marketed by it’s producers, and then distributed to it’s consumers.

If you’ve spent any time doing much of anything on the internet in the past year or two, chances are you’ve come across one of the growing Music Downloading Services that are now available.

The growth of this particular industry has actually led to a marriage of sight and sound; many popular PC video players available over the internet, such as RealPlayer or Window Media Player, now automatically provide connectivity to music downloading services. When RealPlayer is installed on a new computer it will also install a secondary program which offers music downloads from Rhapsody Unlimited, which also happens to be owned Real Networks, the creators of the Real Player.

Like many Music Downloading Services (MDS), Rhapsody offers a free trial period where prospective customers can download music for free until that trial period ends and a membership must be purchased for the service to continue.

Not all MDS’s are alike. Many of them have a different model of doing business.

Some MDS’s let you download as much music as you want, just as long as you pay your monthly subscription fee. Others charge you a small fee per each track downloaded from the service. And still others charge you a monthly subscription fee AND a per track downloaded fee.

Also, very few Music Download Services seem to still be using MP3’s (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3) as their main format for downloading. Many of the services have now switched over to the Windows Media Audio format (WMA).

Most of the top MDS’s will have a song database of almost 2,000,000 to choose from.

E-Music and Wal-Mart have less, but unless you consider 500,000 to 1 million songs to be pretty small, that shouldn’t matter.

Even after you’ve downloaded the songs from their service, the MDS’s can still maintain control over them. Copy technology named DRM built into the files downloaded can limit the number of times a song can be burned to a CD, or if it can be burned at all. Microsoft has been a big supporter of DRM and has built support into Windows Media player to download the appropriate licenses and play DRM tunes. If the license is not found, the song cannot be played at all, nor copied or moved. In recent months an anti-DRM sentiment has risen through the music consumers and industry has begun to respond with non-DRM song downloads.

Some services will let you burn CD’s from whatever songs you downloaded from them. Others will only let you burn songs that you purchased individually for that purpose.

Many of the MDS’s require you to download an application to play their tracks. Tracks from those services are usually configured to ONLY run on that particular application. Other MDS’s will let you play their tracks on any media/audio player.

Rhapsody Music Service:

http://www.rhapsody.com/home.html

Subscription is $12.99 monthly plus 99 cents for each track downloaded / Must have Rhapsody application to play tracks / Number of songs: 1,000,000 / File Format: WMA / 99 cents for each track burned to CD.

Napster Music Service:

http://www.napster.com/choose/index_control_2.html

Subscription is $12.95 monthly for service, 99 cents per song for purchase./ Must have Napster application to play tracks / Number of songs: 5,000,000 / File Format: WMA - DRM / Only purchased tracks can be burned. ‘To-go service’ for additional cost allows you to take music with you on your portable device.

iTunes Music Service:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/

No subscription, but does have a 99 cent per track download fee / Must have iTunes application to play tracks / Number of songs: 5,000,000 / File Format: AAC - DRM(Advanced Audio Coding - specific to Apple iPods) / All tracks can be burned to CD’s but same playlist can only be burned up to 7 times / Tracks will only work on an iPod and no other portable players. Itunes has a 60% market share. TV Shows and Movies are now available as well.

Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/MP3-Music-Download

Amazon is the upstart in the industry. Offering single song and album downloads at a price that undercuts itunes. Single songs are 89 cents each, albums are $9.99. The songs are mp3 format – and no drm. These means that the you can take your music and play it anywhere, copy it to a portable device or burn it to Cds. With the ease of use and the Amazon brand name this store is gaining momentum quickly. As it does so does the movement to offer DRM free tunes.

eMusic:

http://www.emusic.com/

Charges a flat fee of $10 for up to 40 downloaded tracks / Requires eMusic Download Manager to access the songs, but they can played on any media/audio player / Number of songs: 500,000 / File Format: MP3 / Any track can be burned to a CD.

Yahoo Music (MusicMatch:

http://music.yahoo.com/ymu/

Subscription is $9.95 a month plus 99 cents per each track downloaded ($74 for a 2 year contract) / Requires Yahoo Jukebox application / Number of songs: 2 Million / File Format: WMA - DRM / All tracks can be burned to CD’s but the same playlist can only be burned up to seven times.

Virgin Music Service:

http://www.virgin.com/companies/virgindigitaluk/virgindigitaluk.aspx

Subscription is $7.95 monthly plus 99 cents for each downloaded track / Requires Virgin Music application / Number of songs: 1,000,000 / File Format: WMA - DRM / All purchased tracks can be burned to CD.

Wal-Mart Music Service:

http://musicdownloads.walmart.com/catalog/servlet/MainServlet

No subscription, just a fee of 88 cents for each track downloaded / Requires no application / Number of songs: 1,000,000 / File Format: WMA - DRM / Purchased tracks can be burned to a CD up to 10 times.

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Almost all of these MDS’s offer a free trial period, so you can test the waters before purchasing anything.

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