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Z, WM9 for OSX announced last September.
MSFT announces WM9 for OSX.
Sept 12th, 2003
Tech industry Goliath Microsoft today announced that a version of it's award winning multimedia standard Windows Media 9 would be coming to Apple's beleaguered Macintosh OSX platform.
Jupiter Research analyst Joe Wilcox said: "Windows Media Player 9 Series for the Mac is a big deal. The player's availability could open up quite a bit of digital content that currently is locked to Mac users; that would mean DRM-protected content on CDs and DVDs, too," Wilcox added. Microsoft's Jason Reindorp denied the strategy shift had anything to do with Apple's DRM success. "I think it's actually the opposite. Our DRM has been proven and is well liked and well used. As the music industry has been looking for ways to expand Internet distribution,[/v] I think that has put some pressure on Apple to come up with a solution," Reindorp said in an interview with internetnews.com.
He dismissed Apple as a serious rival in the DRM space, arguing that the "closed system" plays to Microsoft's advantage. "Apple's DRM works on a closed system. You have no option but to use a Mac or an iPod," Reindorp said.
Microsoft's newest Windows Media DRM 9 Series, launched in January this year, features real-time encryption (Live DRM) to allow for the immediate protection of live streams. "One of the most recognized strengths of our DRM is the flexible business rules. We let the content provider assign the usage rights so it puts the power in the hands of the providers.
"It's important to understand we have a well established DRM solution that works across many different types of devices and services. For example, all five major music labels use it, as do many of the online video distribution companies. Apple's, by contrast, only works in a 'closed system' and is much more basic than a flexible DRM system that can tailor usage rules to different applications," he argued.
Steve Vonder Haar, an analyst at Interactive Media Strategies sees the latest move as simply Microsoft expanding its already huge digital media footprint.
"The [digital media] platform war is now a three-way battle between Windows Media 9 Series, RealNetworks' Helix and the open MPEG-4 standard. At the end of the day, Microsoft will be there," Vonder Haar said.
"When it becomes a two-horse race, it'll be a fight between RealNetworks and the MPEG-4 crowd to to be the viable alternative. If you're Microsoft and you want to make sure that you're relevant across a broad number of platforms with Windows Media 9, developing a version for Mac is a way to take some of the wind out of the MPEG-4 sails," he argued. Apple's own QuickTime player uses MPEG-4.
"This is just a good old fashioned war for the hearts and minds of developers. if you make WM9 available and viable on the Mac platform, there will be some percentages of developers who won't bother with MPEG-4. Developers can now reach the Apple audience with Microsoft," Vonder Haar added.
"I would assume other music distributors depending on Windows Media DRM might want a crack at that market, too. Granted the Mac's paltry compared to Windows, but it's also a market primed for digital music," he added.
It has been a busy week for Microsoft's digital media division, which also submitted the video compression technology in Windows Media 9 to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) in a bid to make it an industry standard.
That move, which surprised industry watchers, could eventually lead to the WMV 9 codec becoming an international standard and would remove barriers to adoption, a company spokesman explained.
"It means companies can adopt Windows media without having to contact Microsoft directly," the spokesman said, noting that licensing fees would still be applicable if the codecs are used in set top boxes and other consumer electronic devices.
Check the tachometer on that spin!
"And another thing to remember in music formats: AAC is available to ALL who want it, as Apple has made it so,"
And Yet, NO ONE has decided to license AAC from Apple. I guess NOBODY wants it, Despite this supposed availablity.
"to say the least. WMA isn't."
Hmmm If WMA (Which has over 25 million products out there supporting it,) isn't "available to all who want it" , How did these MILLIONS of products license the WMA codecs?
"Which one is the standard?'
The one that over 70% of the people buying Portable Media Players selected.... WMA
"Who cares if those other (opinionated expletive deleted)players don't play AAC, YET?
You should, as it's going to stifle AAC's adoption. Along with Apple's overpriced codec license.
"AAC is now cross platform. WMA isn't."
I'm astounded at the blatant ignorance of this statement. WMA has been cross platform for YEARS.
Here, Zstar: feel free to download the current version of Windows Media Player for Macintosh Operating System X.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=25ca4358-4cda-4dc5-a5ec-c459958be0ac&di....
Overview
Introducing Windows Media Player Mac OS X, Carbonized for version 10.1 of Apple’s newest operating system. Sporting a new Aqua interface and with full support for the industry-leading Windows Media Technologies, this new version of our player opens the world of Windows Media content to Macintosh users, enabling them to access the best audio and video on the web. Optimized specifically for the Macintosh, the player provides intuitive design, reliable performance, and compatibility with most popular Macintosh models and system software.
System Requirements
Supported Operating Systems: Macintosh
Apple Mac OS version 10.1
Any computer supported by Mac OS X version 10.1 with a processor that is 233 MHz or higher
128 megabytes (MB) or higher
10 MB of free hard disk space
Monitor color depth of 256 colors (Millions of colors recommended)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.1 for Mac, or America Online for Mac OS X
IGNORANCE IS NO EXCUSE.
[Suppressed Sound Link]
Z: Promise???
"I have exhausted this subject. I am no longer repeating myself."
[Suppressed Sound Link]
HAHAHA
"None of the other services have this real good individual rights wise DRM."
None of them NEED "individual" DRM technologies. Just about every other digital content delivery service on the Net, along with over 28 million different products are using the DRM technologies integrated into Microsoft's Windows Media Player.
Microsoft patents, Nos. 6,330,670 and 6,327,652, are entitled “Digital Rights Management Operating System” and “Loading and Identifying a Digital Rights Management Operating System.” They were issued in December 2001 but were filed by Microsoft in October 1998.
HMMM... Will the industry as a whole go with someone who's been working the DRM issue since at least 1997, or some "Stevie Come Lately" who in less than a year has changed his tune from "It's fun to be a pirate, let's rip, mix & burn" to "We want to sell YOUR music,please?"
Geee...it's a no-brainer which way the industry went...
"DRM might be the critical issue. "The question is, what are the music labels actively supporting ? Because if digital rights management isn't a part of it, then it's certainly not the direction that the music industry's going. In fact, [open-source developers] are proponents of unprotected codecs."
However, said Kevorkian, the major record labels are experimenting more actively with CD content protection technologies that include both a protected set of Red Book audio files -- the standard audio CD file format -- plus Windows Media Audio files, which are protected so that you'd be able to transfer them to your PC's hard drive but not distribute them online."
"Also," she said, "as the music industry supports paid music services more actively, we expect the majority of paid music services to support Windows Media Audio because the codec and the DRM are closely integrated, so every music service provider doesn't have to think about combining the two like Apple did."
Whether or not open-source audio standards will threaten the dominance of MP3 and WMA remains to be seen. Open-source audio developers -- opposed by aggressive commercial giants, ideologically committed to nonprofit but needing development capital -- seem to face unbeatable odds."
There you have it... The industry has made it's choice...
"Windows Media Audio because the codec and the DRM are closely integrated".
Over 1,600 OSX Security Problems found
in under 2 seconds.
"How many times have Mac users had any ...security problems?"
Wow, that wasn't so tough to find...
http://lists.insecure.org/lists/bugtraq/2001/Oct/0152.html
http://lists.insecure.org/lists/bugtraq/2001/Sep/0154.html
http://librenix.com/?inode=3369
http://www.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/securityfocus/bugtraq/2001-10/0143.html
http://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread/t-3136.html
http://www.computercops.biz/article2536.html
I do love this one.... "A REPORT claimed there's a way to circumvent security on the machines running the latest version of Mac OSX, by crashing a locked screensaver and recovering the desktop.
According to the filing, if you leave a key pressed for five minutes or more and then press the Return key, that crashes the screensaver and gives you access to the desktop.
The person who filed the report claimed that he's notified Apple of the hole but hasn't had a reply from the firm.
http://www.movesinstitute.org/~mcgredo/ osx/lectures/osxOverview.ppt -
And many, many, more....
New Patch Speed record.
from our neighbors 97 degrees south of us.
Will Apple just patch Panther?
Last modified: October 29, 2003, 12:59 PM PST
By Robert Lemos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Apple Computer's latest version of its Mac OS X operating system, Panther, patches security flaws that affect previous versions of the operating system, leaving security experts wondering if users will have to pay the $129 upgrade fee to be secure.
However, Apple apparently doesn't intend to fix the flaws in previous versions of the software: Apple's Security Updates Web page doesn't list fixes for the flaws in Mac OS X 10.2 and earlier.
"It is not a friendly thing to tell your customers to shell out a lot of money to stay secure," said Thor Larholm, senior researcher for software security firm PivX Solutions. "It would be a dangerous precedent, if they did."
Apple declined comment.
David Goldsmith, director of research for @stake, a security company that found four of the vulnerabilities, confirmed that Apple said it wasn't going to patch the flaws in earlier versions of the software.
"In my initial conversations with them, they said they weren't going to fix 10.2, but I wouldn't be surprised if they change that," he said.
Typically, companies that charge for software provide security updates for the software for a certain period of time. Microsoft provides support for its products for about five years and releases service packs every year that include all the enhancements to the software. Microsoft doesn't charge for the service packs.
"Imagine if Microsoft tried to charge for security fixes--people would go crazy," Larholm said.
Linux vendors typically work things a bit differently, as so much of the software they distribute is produced by developers outside the companies. Red Hat, for example, charges about $40 for its desktop edition and provides a year of easily accessible updates for free through its Red Hat Network. After that, users either have to pay $60 a year for the service, manually install each update or subscribe to a free service, such as Ximian's basic Red Carpet service. (Ximian is now owned by Novell.)
Apple's plan falls between the two models, offering bug fixes for free but charging $129 for the update to the operating system. Panther is the third update the company has released since Mac OS X debuted in March 2001.
The current set of vulnerabilities include a flaw in the operating system that causes applications to be installed with insecure file permissions. Other vulnerabilities could let a local or remote user crash the system.
@stake's advisories say that users should either upgrade to Panther or turn off the affected software component.
But PivX's Larholm said that Apple would have to release some patches to previous versions of its OS or risk angering its users.
"They have stated that they want to release a new version of OS X every year, but this is the first time they have hinted that they will not be supporting any particular OS X version for more than that year, and that they expect all their customers to upgrade their operating system on a yearly basis," he said.
WOW... Steve's really ripping the Parrots off now. Expecting to charge them the full $130 price for a Security Service Pack every year!
I propose they code name the next "Big Cat" OS upgrade "SYLVESTER" after SJ's plan to extract a "SUFFERIN' SUCKER TAX"....
Th,Th, TH, That's All folks!
[Suppressed Sound Link]
Far be it for me to drag you away from your Kool-Aid.
Facts are facts. ( Except yours, which are fiction.)
No need for a free lunch, already ate yours.
Beyond Z's hyperbole:
there was an interesting tidbit of fact... in the link Zstar provided. Unfortunately for him, It de-bunks everything he stated as fact yesterday.
"I keep seeing people here say that AAC is a free, open standard, but after reading the following it appears to me that AAC is yet another proprietary format that must be licensed: http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/licenseFAQ.html
In the same vein, Microsoft licenses their WMA format: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/create/licensing.aspx
It's also interesting to compare the costs of licensing WMA versus AAC; scroll down to the Audio (2-channel) table and look at the Unit Fees for Decoder. There's no cap for AAC, whereas with WMA if you reach $400,000 you don't pay any more unit fees for that year, and the per unit fees are $0.24 for AAC versus $0.10 for WMA. The costs are similar for encoders.
People have been asking why you don't see any players other than the iPod that can do AAC; I'd guess that the licensing fees for AAC are part of the problem.
sgolds, AGREED.
Especially in light of all the information showing the inferiority of mp3 to both WMP & mp4/AAC. Converting to mp3 is the 21st Century version of duping your CD's to 8-track.
Only the most technologically ignorant would do such a thing.
Right, Z?
Z - pick a position!
You're waffling more than Wesley Clark!
First, you're told that AAPL's version of AAC is proprietary, & that we're talking about the ability to listen to downloaded music on the 70% of the digital media players that aren't iPods,
and you say, "Again, playing MP3s makes anything BUT proprietary. Load MP3s into your players."
So we remind you that we're talking about playing the downloaded files in their STANDARD DEFAULT FORMAT, (e.g. "without conversion, as they are delivered" )
And you waffle back to the other side of the fence with "Standard based on what? All of AOL's users are now on iTunes listening and downloading AAC sound. Remember ..AOL?"
SO, One last time: If iToons AAC isn't proprietary,(which it is.) How are the users of the 70% of Portable Media Players that don't support iToons proprietary file format supposed to use these files without having to convert them.
SIMPLE ANSWER- THEY CAN'T.
HENCE, They are PROPRIETARY. PERIOD.
End of subject.
[Suppressed Sound Link]
Z,I'll type slow so you can understand
What part of "standard, default format" still eludes you?
Z- And this brings revenue HOW?
P.S. Best look at the people sited..You converted no one. the commentary was from a Mac User. I'll be sure to let you know when I've met someone on the PC side who's actually using iToons.
Spin On, Z
Z, Ever read the links you post?
"But many Columbia students who use iTunes do not buy music from its online store--they simply use iTunes to organize and play the songs they download via other, less controlled programs. Jeff Engler, CC '05, said he is a Macintosh user who runs iTunes but does not buy music from the online store."
Resume your use of reality blinders.
Good Link Sgolds-
Here's the paragraphs that you mentioned.
"Both Dell and HP were buoyed by stronger unit sales. Dell saw shipments grow by 27.9 percent worldwide, while HP saw sales grow 28 percent, according to IDC.
Dell’s worldwide market share was 15.3 percent, compared with 15.1 percent for HP, according to Gartner. In the United States, Dell owns 27.4 percent of the market, while HP has 19.4 percent.
Before the third-quarter results came out, Dell had been on top for three of the past five quarters. HP took the top spot in the second quarter of 2002 and the fourth quarter of 2002.
As is often the case, IBM was a distant third with a worldwide market share of 5.3 percent and a U.S. market share of 4.6 percent, according to Gartner. Still, IBM saw shipments grow by around 16 percent worldwide and by nearly 10 percent in the United States, both research firms said.
Fujitsu Siemens Computers and Toshiba were the fourth and fifth in worldwide market share, the two research firms said. In the United States, Gateway and Apple Computer rounded out the top five. Gateway saw its market share decline to 3.3 percent in the United States, as its shipments went down by 28.6 percent, according to Gartner. Apple, meanwhile, saw shipments rise, but not as fast as the market. The company's U.S. market share is now 3 percent, while its worldwide share is below 3 percent. "
Let's hope that settles this.
Sorry Z, You're wrong.
When music downloaded from iTMS in it's standard, default format can't be played on the 70% of portable media players that weren't built by Apple, THAT MAKES IT PROPRIETARY.
Sgolds is right on this issue.
Also, the market share numbers you're sighting are from 2000-2001.
Wake up, Apple's share has been sliced in half again since then.
Note to ankle-biters
Sgolds, you said: "I recall reading that in Q3, 2.9% of PC sales were Macintosh and 2.8% of sales were Linux. The remaining 94.2% were Windows PCs. This is the first time Apple slipped under 3%, and it looks like soon Linux will pass Apple."
Applications built by outside developers for Windows have long been crucial to the success of Microsoft's flagship software, which runs on more than 95 percent of the world's personal computers.
http://money.cnn.com/2003/10/27/technology/microsoft_windows.reut/index.htm
Oh. And the most current numbers I saw for Mac were 2.3% & 2.1% for Linux , NOT 2.9% & 2.8% you stated.
( I'll look up the specifics of it for you, if you're insistant on embarrassing both of them.)
But you are correct in one aspect. Linux will soon pass up Apple.
Linux at least continues to slowly increase it's share.
Apple on the other hand, has been decreasing for years.
Now THIS is a brilliant move!
This makes it so easy to send gifts of digital music. A system much like pre-paid phone cards.
LOS ANGELES, Oct 27 - Online music swapping service Napster will offer prepaid cards at retail stores soon after it re-emerges as a commercial platform next week, allowing teenagers without credit cards to buy music on the Web, the company said.
The Napster Card will cost $14.85, entitling the user to 15 downloads -- in line with prices of newer rivals -- and will be available at 14,000 locations mid-November at major retail chains like Best Buy, CompUSA, Safeway, Rite Aid and Duane Reade.
"We feel confident this is the right first move," Mike Bebel, president and chief operating officer of Napster, told Reuters. He said Napster may eventually experiment with other price points for the card.
Roxio Inc. acquired bankrupt Napster's assets after the free sharing service was forced to shut down amid a torrent of copyright lawsuits. Roxio will launch Napster version 2.0 on Wednesday. Users will pay 99 cent per song and $9.95 for an album or a monthly subscription.
The company is aiming the card at teenagers without credit cards and parents who want to give the gift of legal music downloads. The card features the familiar Napster "kitty" logo and is activated at the point of purchase.
The Napster relaunch, pairing what is essentially a brand-new service with perhaps the best-known name in digital music, will compete with a number of other for-pay digital music systems.
Bootz, Must we do all the work for ya?
And after Burpzilla was kind enough to stick the link to it right up in this board's blue headliner box.
Although I understand Linux has gained 1 percent, While the Mac has lost 1 %.
Next, I suppose you'll be whining to have some links to some specific music posted for you...
Sheesh.
Ingrates...
Z, obviously you've never used ProTools
"There will be other cards that do.
5.5 V is old crap."
That much is plainly obvious, that you don't know "thing one" about the product. There are no "other cards that do" . For a product like digi001, the card is an integrated part of the product, a product that is still currently available, I might add.
Tell ya what: YOU go tell someone who shelled out over a grand 3 to 6 months ago, that they can't use their expensive studio stuff if they buy a new machine. See what kind of brand loyalty that gets you.
This is one of the few areas where Apple still has a viable niche, & every time they make these processor shifts, they make the same mistake. It happened with the switch from B/W G3 towers to Grey G4 towers too. Ticking off some of their most loyal customers in the process. No wonder Apple's market share is on a continual down hill slide. It's just bad business, and a really stupid decision.
Digidesign PCI Cards Will Not Be Supported with Power Mac G5
As previously announced on our website, all Digidesign manufactured or distributed PCI cards using 5-volt signaling are electronically and physically incompatible with the Power Mac G5, which only allows cards with 3.3 volt signaling.
The incompatible cards include:
Digi 001
Pro Tools/24 system cards, (in Pro Tools/24 or Pro Tools/24 MIX systems):
- d24 Core card
- DSP Farm
Pro Tools/24 MIX system card:
- MIX I/O (Note: this is different than the MIX Core and MIX Farm cards)
Audiomedia III (ToolBox)
SCSI/64 Kit (ATTO Express PCI-DC)
For the latest information regarding Power Mac G5 compatibility and Mac OS X 10.3 compatibility with Pro Tools systems, please refer to the compatibility section of the Digidesign website at
http://www.digidesign.com/compato.
Genius move there, Steve. Way to go.
Point taken W-L-D:
I'll take non compressed CD over any compression technology.
Main point would be the 162kbps rip...
I stand corrected: "near CD Quality" .
FYI - MusicMatch Music Store up & running.
Just so you know, MUSICMATCH 8.1 Music Store launched.
Musicmatch's Service offers CD Quality 162K WMA files, and is compatible with over 40 different portable media devices (but not Apple's iPod, which does not support WMA )
http://www.musicmatch.com
He's not the only one!
"Posted by: IH Admin [Matt]
Date:10/21/2003 2:34:05 PM
Post #31209 of 31371
I recommend WinXP without hesitation. The best OS Microsoft has ever made. I run it on all of my Windows machines. I actually prefer it over MacOSX, even."
98% of computer users have given the same testimonial...
Voting how it counts, with their wallets.
Microsoft Profit Rises Amid Strong Consumer Demand
Thursday, October 23, 2003
SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Thursday said its quarterly profit rose on strong consumer sales of Windows and other products and raised its outlook for personal computer demand, but said corporate technology spending was lagging consumer demand.
The world's largest software maker also raised its forecast for sales in the current fiscal year, although within the range expected by Wall Street.
Shares in Microsoft slipped about 3 percent in after-hours trade to $28.08 from a Nasdaq (search) close of $28.91.
For the fiscal first quarter ended Sept. 30, Microsoft reported a net profit of $2.6 billion, or 24 cents per share, compared with a profit of $2 billion, or 19 cents per share, a year earlier.
First quarter results, as well as last years numbers, reflected a 6 cent per share charge for stock-based compensation.
In July, Microsoft said it would begin expensing stock-based compensation (search). At that time, it had forecast a first-quarter profit of 23 cents per share, including 6 cents in costs for that move. It said it would also adjust past results accordingly.
Revenue rose 6 percent to 8.2 billion from $7.75 billion a year earlier.
Because of the accounting change to reflect the expense of awarding stock options (search) in previous quarters, analysts have said that it would be difficult to compare forecasts to actual results in the third quarter.
Analysts polled by Reuters Research had projected, on average, per-share earnings of 29 cents, which excludes the equity compensation.
Microsoft had forecast first quarter revenue of between $7.9 billion and $8.1 billion, while analysts, on average, had called for a result at the top of that range.
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft is now expecting personal computer unit sales for its current fiscal year to post upper single-digit percentage growth instead of its previous outlook for mid-single digit growth, Chief Financial Officer John Connors said.
"Our expectation is that PC demand and consumer demand is actually improving," Connors told Reuters.
Chipmaker Intel Corp. and PC maker Dell Inc. have also given signs recently that demand for personal computers, 90 percent of which run Microsoft's Windows operating system, are recovering.
Microsoft projected earnings 23 cents or 24 cents in the fiscal second quarter, including equity compensation expense of about 6 cents. Revenue was forecast to be between $9.7 billion and $9.8 billion.
For the fiscal year to June 2004, Microsoft raised its outlook for earnings by a penny to be between 86 cents and 88 cents, including equity compensation of 24 cents.
Full fiscal year revenue was projected in a range of $34.8 billion to $35.3 billion, up from July's forecast range of $34.2 billion to $34.9 billion.
Pretty Sweet...
Thank you Pete.
"If you are asking which players can play the MPEG4 AAC with Fairplay, which is the same format, just with a DMP scramble, then the iPod is currently the only one. "
THANK YOU, Pete. That's the answer to the question I was looking for.
Dilleet, You misunderstood:
I said: "in the 16 MONTHS since that article was published, Apple has been unable to convince ANY other media player manufacturer to use AAC?"
UNLESS you care to specify exactly which of those players will play the files ITMS provides? (in whichever flavor of AAC that ITMS uses.)
If you can't answer either the format question or tell me which player, besides the iPod will play ITMS downloaded tunes, I'm going to have to assume my statement about Apple's inability to sign up any other portable media player to use their proprietary brand of AAC is correct.
It's a simple question. Name ONE.
dilleet, thanks for the list.
Just so you know, I was out of the U.S. last Friday & Saturday, and last month too... I don't plan on being out of the country again til December 2003, But thanks for asking.
Now please answer one more question:
exactly WHICH AAC format do those iTooons files download as?
I ask because it seems alot of the players you linked to won't play certain types of AAC files:
MORE SPECIFIC, WHICH ones WILL iPod actually play?
"With all these portables it's unlikely that they can play plain MPEG-2 AAC files encoded with PsyTEL or Nero, because most of the time they will use a proprietary AAC codec with an encrypting software to "download" the audio files to their memory. This is true e.g. for the Panasonic, Toshiba and the Nokia players."
.mp4 files ?
.m4a files?
.mp3PRO files?
MPEG-2 AAC LC / Low Complexity
MPEG-2 AAC Main
MPEG-2 AAC SSR / Scalable Sampling Rate
MPEG-4 AAC LC
MPEG-4 AAC Main
MPEG-4 AAC SSR
MPEG-4 AAC LTP / Long Term Prediction
MPEG-4 AAC Version 2
MPEG-4 AAC Version 3 including HE AAC
inquiring minds wanna know...
Roni, You mean to say
that in the 16 MONTHS since that article was published, Apple has been unable to convince ANY other media player manufacturer to use AAC?
That doesn't bode too well for a format that aspires to have the user numbers WM9 already has.....and growing, now does it?
Altaire, Something from within the last year please..
Article Info
2U4U DMR-300 WMA Player
Created:
July 12, 2002
Gee... You mean you actually had to delve THAT FAR BACK to find something that showed AAC to be superior.
You are aware that that article was published about 3 months before WM9
(you know, the format that's whupping AAC's butt in the marketplace) was even released?
Feel free to try again, since it pains you so much to admit the obvious.
By the way,care to confirm this one line from your article?:
"As the time from AAC inception grows, so does the number of its supporters. Various software and hardware companies are jumping on the bandwagon to develop and manufacture products that support AAC. "
Can you name a single portable audio media player manufacturer, besides Apple, that's supporting AAC?
I sure can't.
Looking forward to you finding an article from 2003 supporting your position.
Happy hunting.
It's a tune that some never get tired of playing...
titled "MSFT Stomped us in the marketplace, I think we'll sue"...
As long as the lyrics to the first verse stay the same.
C'Est La Vie'
Watch MSFT's earnings later this week to see how a truly successful company does it.
They can squeeze revenue like a dermatologist squishes a pimple.
There is only one Microsoft
I agree, Same old song.
Microsoft is so successful in a particular genre' some competitor feels they must sue, because thier competing product isn't as good or as successful.
Same as it ever was.
Lucifer's Grub DENIED!
Lucifer's Grub wasted on Loser from Luchenbach. Film At 11
Uncle Steve ain't gonna be happy about this...
[Suppressed Sound Link]
Microsoft dominance of OS market grows, IDC study says
Despite increasing pressure from Linux, Microsoft Corp. dominated the worldwide market in 2002 for operating systems used on servers and, less surprisingly, the OS market on the client side. It will continue to defend its market position for at least the next four years, according to a research report released Wednesday by IDC.
Microsoft's Windows accounted for 55.1 percent of new shipments of server operating systems in 2002, up from 50.5 percent in 2001, while paid versions of Linux accounted for 23.1 percent of new shipments in 2002, up from 22.4 percent in 2002, the Framingham, Massachusetts, market research company said in its report.
The IDC report did not take into account the free versions of Linux available.
According to the report, license shipments by Microsoft, on the client side, increased to 93.8 percent of the worldwide market in 2002, up from 93.2 percent in 2001. In 2002, paid Linux client license shipments accounted for 2.8 percent of the market total. Combined, vendors generated nearly US$10.4 billion in COE (client operating environment) sales in 2002, IDC said.
Microsoft's volume licensing programs, aimed at converting its customers to long-term volume licensing plans, have and will continue to play a large part in increasing the Redmond, Washington, software company's share of the COE market, IDC said.
The Mac OS, from Apple Computer, accounted for 2.2 percent of the COE market in 2002, to take the second place position after Microsoft. By 2004, the Mac OS will concede that place to Linux, IDC forecasted.
On the server side, which IDC defined as the server operating environment (SOE) market, there were 5.7 million new license shipments in 2002, an overall decline of 5.1 percent compared to 2001, with sales of $7.8 billion in 2002, IDC said.
Between 2001 and 2002, only OS server software from Microsoft and Linux experienced market growth. The gains were 8.6 percent and 17.2 percent respectively, giving Microsoft a 16.7 percent share of the SOE market in terms of revenue and Linux a 0.6 percent share. Combined, all companies selling Unix server software earned 31.1 percent of 2002 market revenue (a decline of 8.9 percent from 2001), while Novell Inc.'s NetWare software carved out 4.3 percent (a decline of 12.4 percent).
About 47 percent of revenue in the SOE market, or $3.7 billion, came from sales of mainframes, midrange computers and other large host-centric operating environments, the report said.
But sales of OS sever software running over mainframes and other large systems declined sharply when comparing 2002 to 2001. According to IDC estimates, vendors shipped 50,000 copies of these large datacenter SOEs in 2002, a decline of 58 percent over 2001.
IDC attributed the decline to the phasing-out of older network operating systems such as OS/2 from IBM Corp. IBM has said that it will end support of its aging OS/2 operating system after 2006, and has recommended that OS/2 customers migrate to Linux rather than Windows.
It is this support of Linux from large systems vendors, IBM in particular but also Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) and Sun Microsystems Inc., that will propel Linux in the SOE market, as the large vendors have the capital and the will to refine the Linux software and market it, IDC said.
The report singled out The SCO Group Inc.'s copyright infringement lawsuit against IBM as "the only dark clouds on the Linux horizon," though IDC said it does not foresee the litigation as having the ability to cripple the Linux market as it currently stands.
"Even if the litigation is resolved, the incident may forever put to rest the notion that Linux is 'free' software that can be deployed on any machine without any accountability for ownership and licensing," IDC said in the report. "This weakens a major area of differentiation between Linux and more commercialized operating environments."
IDC predicted that the litigation "will be resolved in such a way that Linux can continue on in the current source tree." At worst, should a court side with SCO, "the offending code will be removed and replaced by the open source developer community without any significant setback in the functionality, reliability and scalability of the Linux kernel."
IDC projected that Linux platform revenue will increase at more than four times the overall industry average for all platforms through 2007. In the SOE market, paid Linux OS software will comprise 32.3 percent of all server shipments by 2007, IDC forecasted, with 2.8 million new Linux paid SOEs being shipped each year.
Regardless of the market gains made by Linux, its revenue is dwarfed by Microsoft's earning power. Microsoft generates about the same amount of OS revenue in three days as the entire Linux industry generates in one year, IDC said.
Windows Gains Market Share, Despite Linux Threat
Microsoft Corp.'s Windows grabbed a bigger share of the market for server operating systems, despite the widely held perception that open source Linux threatens its dominant position, according to a report released Wednesday by market researcher IDC.
Nevertheless, Windows' share of new license shipments is not expected to go up a "whole lot higher," than the 55.1 percent it held in 2002, compared to 50.5 percent the prior year, IDC analyst Al Gillen said.
"It's going to go up somewhat higher than you see today, but at this point, we're not predicting that Microsoft is going to continue on an unrelenting march to a 90 percent-plus of the server operating environment market," Gillen said.
Holding Microsoft back will be the combination of Unix and Linux operating systems, with the former favored by companies looking for more scalability than the average Windows system, and the latter providing an alternative to Windows for companies looking for a low-end server, Gillen said.
Linux's share of new paid license shipments in 2002 increased to 23.1 percent from 22.4 percent in 2001. Unix systems accounted for 11 percent of the 5.7 million total shipments in 2002. Novell Inc.'s NetWare captured 9.9 percent and other products the remaining 1 percent.
On the desktop, Windows's market share in new license shipments inched up to 93.8 percent in 2002 from 93.2 percent. Linux's share of the desktop also increased slightly to 2.8 percent from 2.3 percent. Apple Computer Inc.'s Mac OS accounted for 2.9 percent of the total shipments of 121 million client-operating environments.
The server market gains of Windows and Linux were attributed to their use of inexpensive Intel Corp. processors. For Microsoft, the release of Windows 2000 and later Windows XP also contributed to the company's growth in sever and client operating environments.
"As Microsoft has brought in these new products, there's been a lot of good reasons for customers to go out and buy brand new operating systems," Gillen said.
Even though 2002 was a slow year for IT spending, overall revenues from operating systems and subsystems grew by 4.3 percent to $18.6 billion, led by a 12.4 percent increase in revenues aboard the Windows platform. With the exception of the paid Linux environment, all other operating systems experienced negative revenue growth in 2002.
Although Linux is available for free, many companies prefer paid versions from distributors such as Red Hat Inc. and SuSE Linux AG, so they can also get support and regular product fixes and upgrades.
Through 2007, IDC predicts annual shipment totals for all server operating environments will grow by a compound annual growth rate of 9.1 percent, while client operating environments is expected to have a CAGR of 7.5 percent.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20031008S0013
Interesting...Both Windows & Linux taking more market share away from the already obliterated Mac OS.
Looks like people truly are switching... Away from Apple.
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WM9 vs. AAC
Since the resident AAC cheerleader seems to be begging to be publicly swatted, Here ya go:
http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/archive/macosx-talk/2002-November/001020.html
"One problem in discussing MPEG-4, as opposed to codecs tied to actual product, is there is a lot of variety in the MPEG-4 space. We all know what Sorenson 3.1 Pro is, exactly, but when we talk about MPEG-4 it's much more variable as there are dozens of vendors, and several currently common (and many more) compression profiles and levels.
For instance, Apple's MPEG-4 encoder is a Simple Profile only encoder, though it is supposedly both a Simple Profile and an Advanced Simple Profile decoder. Likewise the encoder and decoder both handle AAC audio, but not ACELP, another audio codec part of the Simple profiles.
Apple's MPEG-4 encoder is barely modern, it is a very simple (and Simple) encoder, more comparable to several year old codecs like Sorenson 3 Basic, or Sorenson 2, or even H.263.
However, other companies ship much more powerful encoders, more competitive on an output quality basis with Sorenson 3 Pro or even some of the new Real and Microsoft video codecs. Likewise, there are much better AAC encoders than the basic one Apple licenses.
MPEG-4 isn't designed primarily to provide a quality benefit over proprietary solutions; it's designed to spurn a competitive market of interoperable, but wide-ranging encoders and decoders, just like the current MPEG-2 world. In MPEG-2, we have the range from very fast, mid-quality software encoders like Apple's, to very slow but much better quality encoders like Heuris Pro, to high-end, faster than realtime, hardware assisted encoders. All these produce vastly different output streams for a given input, but they should all playback on decoders that meet their profile requirements. There will be very high-end, very efficient MPEG-4 Advanced Simple and Advanced Scalable encoders, and there will be fast, cheap consumer oriented encoders like Apple's... they are all MPEG-4, but they will all produce greatly different output.
Right now, there are very few encoders that could come close to competing with WM9 on quality per bit, and even if there were, there are probably even few decoders that could take advantage of it. For instance, even if you managed to build an MPEG-4 stream as efficient as one of WM9, Quicktime 6 would likely not be able play it, it simply doesn't support the features of the MPEG-4 spec necessary to compete.
For these reasons, it's easy to expect proprietary solutions, funded by behemoths with R&D budgets much larger than their competition's entire operational budgets, to at least keep pace with - if not outrun - offerings in the standards space. Microsoft has the advantage, in that they can not only keep pace with all the developments done which are standards-adherent, they can also do things (break compatibility for
instance) where people adhering to technical standards may not. But for the very reason that they are proprietary, it will also be a fault preventing adoption by some markets - consumer electronics, for instance, don't like to rely on short-lived formats as a general rule. MPEG-2 is hardly the most efficient scheme that could be found these days for compressing for DVD, yet it is enormously popular.
Just like open source vs closed, there will also be place for both - standards (mpeg-4) solutions for markets that need long-term forward and backward compatibility, and proprietary solutions for those who need the very best in the current state of the art, and for whom that type of compatibility is much less an issue."
THAT must be why iPod is adding WM9 support. It'd be a pity to spend all that money for a player that is instantly obsolete, due to an irrelevant "mid-quality" file system like Apple's AAC.
Spin on Zstar, I'll be watching you supernova & implode on yourself.
Sun cluster guru joins MS in brain drain
By Ashlee Vance in Chicago
A few bombs have dropped within Sun Microsystems' software division, as employees have departed to potentially greener pastures.
The most prestigious name is Dr. Yousef Khalidi, distinguished engineer and chief technical officer for N1 products at Sun, who has defected to Microsoft. Khalidi was the brains behind Sun Cluster 3.0, much of Solaris 9 and was appointed to provide technical guidance to N1 - Sun's software and hardware management package. A few months back, we have confirmed, Khalidi decided to join the dark side.
Khalidi's defection to Microsoft comes as a huge shock given his apparent devotion to Sun. For years, he has extolled the virtues of Unix and Sun's systems company approach to computing. He closely guarded company secrets but now is no doubt coughing them up to Sun's bitter enemy. Khalidi joins former colleague Jim Hebert, Microsoft's General Manager for the Windows Server Product Management Group but formerly in charge of Sun's gwana-gwana mine.
"Obviously you never like to lose bright people who have been important to you in the past," said Gordon Haff, an analyst at Illuminata. "But I think you can overstate, in a lot of cases, the importance of a single person."
Haff is right, but Khalidi is not the only departure. Steve MacKay, the former vice president of N1 at Sun has retired, to be replaced by David Nelson-Gal - an old Solaris hand. MacKay brought the N1 vision to life at Sun. He launched the strategy that is key to Sun's future as a competitor to HP's Adaptive Enterprise and IBM's On-Demand Computing programs. The two managers most directly in charge of N1 are no longer at Sun.
Nineteen members of of Sun's N1 team have also departed to software start-up Cassatt. Cassatt is going along the N1, Adaptive Enterprise, On-Demand route in its own way. The company is not talking too much about how its products will work, but it is saying that it hired 19 of Sun's N1 engineers away from the company.
Sun insiders, however, say that Cassatt is being overzealous in its characterization of the 19 workers. They are reported to have come from a Sun division in Broomfield, Colorado that handled some remote monitoring services. The insiders say these were not R&D type folks.
Cassatt is run by BEA co-founder Bill Coleman and has hefty backing from Warburg Pincus and a little more cash from HP. Coleman, also an ex-Sun employee, has hired an impressive list of executives and talent to back up the new company. Cray was gutted along with Sun and a number of ex-IBMers, HP folks and you name it are on board.
Given this level of talent and the relatively muddled plans of Sun, HP and IBM, Haff gives Cassatt a fighting chance in the virtualization software market.
"Certainly a grand plan to manage the datacenter of the future is a tough undertaking -especially for a startup," Haff said. "On the other hand, I'm not sure that any of the biggies - HP, IBM, Sun, etc. - really have a well-defined plan on how to usefully implement their various grand visions in detail. So a startup may have an outside chance to slip in and make it big with an unconventional approach. But it won't be easy."
Apparently Cassatt's approach is compelling enough to draw 19 of Sun's staff away from their fairly secure positions at the company. Sun is being pressured by analysts to trim its workforce, but it's unlikely that the N1 team working a product key to Sun's future would be cut en masse.
This raises the question as to why they left.
Maybe the acquisitions of companies such as Pirus, Terraspring and CenterRun by Sun created a glut of virtualization gurus.
Word on the street is that Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's head of software, flew out to Colorado to pay the N1 engineers a personal visit and offer up cushy retention packages but to no avail. First 14 Sun workers jumped ship, and then another five followed.
Sun was not prepared to comment at press time.
Sorry if this is yesterday's news, I was searching for just the right sound byte to NOT include, so Dookie wouldn't be P.O. 'd
Just enjoy the nice SUNW~down.
First Look: Napster 2.0
Big launch party hypes tons of new and familiar features in revamped music service.
Thursday marked the much-heralded return of Napster, with a media blowout that looked a lot like the over-hyped product launches from 1999.
Ahh, 1999: the good old days of stealing music. It was then that Napster made its biggest impact -- the year it sparked a file-swapping revolution and drew fire from the recording industry. We all know what happened after that: The company effectively went out of business, and the RIAA declared war on file swappers everywhere.
But today's a new day. People seem genuinely interested in paying a small fee for music, though unabated swapping continues on P2P networks such as KaZaA. Moreover, the music industry is amenable to letting companies such as Napster and Apple distribute songs for a price.
No 'half-ass sound'
Rapper Ludacris attended the Napster 2.0 event and vouched for the benefits of paying for decent tunes.
"It's not like going to another website and illegally downloading and getting some half-ass recording sound," he said. "Basically, sometimes you don't even get the whole song, so this is the right way of doing it."
Another benefit to Napster: It offers the largest catalog of music available yet: 500,000 songs. Apple's iTunes Music Store set the bar high for usability, selection, and price, but Napster's looking to outdo the Mac-only service. Two weeks ago Musicmatch launched its own PC-centric music service, which has impressed critics and reviewers so far.
At Thursday's launch party in New York, Roxio CEO Chris Gorog gave reporters the first tour of Napster 2.0. Roxio, the Silicon Valley-based consumer software company, bought all rights to Napster in a fire sale last year.
"With Napster 2.0 you are going to be able to email your favorite songs to your friends," he said. "You'll be able to share playlists back and forth. It really is quite similar, in that respect, to the original Napster."
Similar indeed, but also very different. How does Napster stack up? Let's take a look.
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Under Napster's Skin
Our first impression of the interface is positive. Napster is easy to download and install. (It automatically detected and uninstalled a previous version of pressplay on our system.) We easily navigated through the first few clicks on a familiar yet reworked interface. Smooth buttons and aesthetically pleasing artist photos, album art, and of course the smirking Napster icon adorn the uncluttered site.
The new Napster interface features three primary buttons.
Home
Similar to iTunes Music Store, the top page includes a rotating featured-artists section with new album releases and a "Just Added to Napster" area. You can access genre pages such as alternative, classical, country, and dance. The homepage also features radio, magazine, and message board tabs.
Browse
There's plenty of information in this section, including tabs for artists/albums, Just Added, Now Streaming, Charts, and Members' Collections. Napster gets points for conveniences such as artist bio info, members' favorites, and of course the option to buy a track at any time using a single click. Bonus points go to the Browse Members' Collections section, which was a key element of the original Napster. Here you can even browse and download others' playlists (premium service only).
Library
A simple Explorer-style interface includes your own imported MP3 collection and your WMA downloads. A fire icon indicates that you've purchased the track (so it's burnable). A download icon indicates the file has restrictions (this applies only to the premium service).
The blending of the new (iTunes-style), old (pressplay), and older (original Napster) is clearly evident. The interface has a universal search box (search by album, artist, track, or member). A Now Playing column graces the right side, which includes the software player, album art, and the playlist area.
Simple as it is to navigate, the interface has so many elements, so many twists and turns, that it can be difficult to figure out the rules that govern Napster 2.0. (Unlike the first Napster, for which there were no rules.) Users will have plenty of options for purchasing music a la carte, previewing tracks, or joining as a premium member.
Napster members
Becoming a member simply means you've downloaded and installed the Napster application and signed up with a member name, password, and email account -- just like the old days. Here's what membership gets you.
Shop online and purchase albums or individual tracks at 99 cents per track or $9.95 per album. This isn't much different from iTunes or Musicmatch.
Search a catalog of more than 500,000 WMA tracks. We're impressed so far with the general selection and categorization of music.
Check out what other users are streaming.
Burn purchased music to CD, transfer an unlimited number of tracks to a portable device, and download to three computers (very much like iTunes or Musicmatch).
Manage your music library and create playlists. Napster assumes you'll abandon your existing jukebox software for an all-inclusive experience. You can import your existing MP3s and WMAs to the new Napster.
Premium service
For about $10 a month you'll get extra features, including some elements of Musicmatch 8.1's RadioMX as well as pressplay's "renting" songs. Having these options makes sense -- and cents for the music industry.
Download unlimited files to your computer and listen as long as your premium service remains active.
Stream all tracks at any time.
Stream preprogrammed Napster radio stations or customize your own.
Participate in community features such as browsing other members' collections and meeting other Napster members on the message boards.
Activate an inbox so you can receive track lists and notes from other users.
Ways to Burn, Transfer, and Play Tunes
Portable players
You can transfer and play music on most WMA-compatible players. The only caveat: You must use Windows Media Player 9 Series to transfer tracks between player and computer, unless you use the Samsung Napster Player (YP-910), which is fully supported by Napster. This product, set for release Oct. 19, sounds like an attempt by Roxio to re-create the iPod/iTunes relationship. It will be sold exclusively through Best Buy stores.
Burning songs
The built-in burning software is from Roxio, of course. Download the Napster Label Creator for free. Not all burning software is supported.
All-inclusive?
Roxio CEO Chris Gorog said in a statement, "Napster 2.0 is unequivocally the most complete and comprehensive music service in the world." But you won't be able to use Napster 2.0 to rip CDs.
Building bridges
Early adopters using living room media center PCs will enjoy the fruits of Napster 2.0. It's already specially configured for the new Microsoft XP Media Center 2004 and will also come loaded on Gateway media center devices and Gateway PCs.
Summary: Napster 2.0's official launch on Oct. 29 will further broaden the digital-audio field for the PC audience. The combination of a music store, extra premium features, a sweet interface, community features, and its recognizable name should spell success for a grown-up Napster.
Gene Munster, senior research analyst with US Bancorp Piper Jaffray, thinks so too.
"If you look at the brand, the Napster brand dwarfs all others," Munster said. "So I think this is a situation where the dark horse is going to actually win."
Microsoft Receives IM Patent
Microsoft received a patent recently regarding technology that lets you know when other participants in instant messaging (IM) conversations are typing a message. Not coincidentally, after Microsoft launched this feature in MSN Messenger a few years back, competitors such as AOL and Yahoo! added it to their own products. But don't feel bad for the competition, which are no doubt scurrying as I write this to challenge Microsoft's patent.
Bootz, Pardon me if I doubt every word you say.
I read your character assasinations on the 3%er board.
Do me a favor, Don't waste my time.
And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
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New Napster Powered by Windows Media 9 Series
9 October 2003, 10:30am ET
Launch of Napster 2.0 Offers Music Fans Entirely New Experiences Through Microsoft Windows XP Media Center 2004 PCs and Windows Media Player 9 Series
Microsoft Corp. today announced that the long-awaited Napster 2.0 online music service, unveiled today, will be powered by Windows Media 9 Series. Napster 2.0 takes full advantage of the leading digital media platform available today to deliver an entirely new and innovative experience to music fans.
Napster 2.0 will be accessible via the Premium Services tab in Windows Media Player 9 Series, which provides users with the ability to seamlessly manage and enjoy content in one easy-to-use place: They can search, browse, download and organize their music before playback and download it to portable music devices or burn it to a CD. 100 million copies of Windows Media Player 9 Series have been downloaded since its launch in January, helping ensure broad reach for the Napster 2.0 service.
Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 PC features Napster 2.0, making it the first online music service that allows consumers to enjoy their digital music wherever they want and provides customers with an entirely new, innovative way to access more than half a million songs directly from their televisions or Windows-based PCs using the convenience of a remote control. Napster will also be available via http://www.napster.com/ .
Napster users will enjoy virtually "instant-on" playback experiences with high-quality music samples and full-screen video made possible with Windows Media 9 Series and Windows Server(TM) 2003 Fast Streaming technology. Fast Streaming makes it possible for music fans to listen to audio and watch video on Windows with nearly instantaneous delivery of their selected content.
"At a pivotal time in the evolution of digital music, Napster 2.0 delivers the right service at the right time," said Dave Fester, general manager of the Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft. "Music fans can now enjoy high-quality digital music wherever they want, from the comfort of their living rooms to a myriad of portable devices."
"We have an extensive relationship with Microsoft," said Mike Bebel, president of Napster. "Napster 2.0 utilizes the Windows Media platform and will also be available to millions of music fans through the Windows Media Player 9 Series. In addition, through Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 PCs, music fans will be able to take their digital music beyond the PC so they can access and enjoy Napster in their living rooms, using just a remote control."
Napster 2.0 also provides music fans with access to the quality and innovative compression of Windows Media Audio 9, which provides higher-quality music content in half the file size of MP3. This allows consumers to download music more quickly, store more music on their PCs, burn more music onto CDs and transfer twice the music to their favorite digital music player, with more than 40 devices supporting music transferred from Napster's music service.