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Things I learned while looking up other things...
Didn't know ATCO has 3 patents on GPS technology. Wonder if this could figure in a telematics collaboration with EDIG??
Anyone? Anyone?
2
5,952,959
GPS relative position detection system
3
5,781,150
GPS relative position detection system
4
5,689,269
GPS relative position detection system
Lickily, that would seem to be the case however Easttech has been on fire the last week and a half. Go figure.
cheers
Cksla, can't believe Intel couldn't wait for this market to mature. If anybody thinks streaming audio is ready for prime time they are dreaming. Oh well, less competition for us from someone who could dump flash and undercut the competition.
cheers
Sinkman, my conclusion was based on the fact that a "super integrated combo device" would be more than the simple micro-optical engine writ small. It has not been my impression "that all DataPlay drives were intended to read AND write from the beginning.", just as most portable CD players merely play CDs they do not burn them as well. If DataPlay is seen as a replacement to the CD, then I speculate that a "combo" device may read and write to DataPlay disks in a portable format. No formal proof. Just my hunch and I would be delighted to hear others speculation on this release from ST. You could of course be absolutely correct and this could be just a refinement of the first model. Thanks for the input.
cheers
Why the RIAA owes us all an apology
By David Coursey, AnchorDesk
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) should issue a public apology for its attempt last week to lump music swappers
together with terrorists--criminals worthy of special efforts and restrictions on civil liberties in order to bring them to justice.
What the RIAA did was attempt to get language added to the PATRIOT anti-terrorism law that would have
opened the door for a full-frontal technological attack on music swappers. This despicable action trivializes the
victims of terrorism, as well as the men and women who have placed themselves in harm's way to fight the
terrorist menace.
AT A TIME when our nation must make serious decisions about whether to compromise civil liberties in the
pursuit of evil, the RIAA should've had the good sense to remain on the sidelines. Napster and its ilk, however
illegal, have fallen off our national agenda. Using this dramatic shift in priorities as an occasion to insert selfish
provisions into the anti-terrorism law is almost beyond belief.
Wisely, legislators from both parties stopped the record industry lobbyists in their tracks.
Specifically, the RIAA wanted the ability to attack file-swappers' computers without suffering any civil liability.
The proposed text would have exempted from lawsuits "any impairment of the ability of data, a program,
system or information, resulting from measures taken by an owner of a copyright."
WHAT THIS HAS TO DO with our war on terrorism, I don't know. Given that Congress is prone to stick
unrelated issues into popular bills, I understand that this may have been seen as business as usual by the
RIAA.
Now, people who trade copyrighted music may be many things, including criminals. But they are not terrorists, and the RIAA's attempt to
bludgeon them makes swappers seem more like the freedom fighters they've always claimed to be.
While I understand the need for copyright holders--a group that includes me--to protect their work from illegal copying--which I've also done
on occasion--the RIAA has crossed the line.
THE REASON the recording industry wanted protection from lawsuits is, apparently, a plan to take the battle to the swappers' home turf,
essentially jamming the swapping services themselves. If this sounds an awful lot like a next-generation denial-of-service attack, it should.
Also, the RIAA would have been free to add viruses to copyrighted music that could act directly against the users' machine.
In the end, such direct action against violators may be necessary, as the peer-to-peer services find new and better ways to isolate themselves
from the illegalities they encourage. Just because I am down on the RIAA doesn't mean it's OK for swappers to violate copyrights with
impunity.
BUT THE SWAPPERS have always justified their actions, at least in part, as civil disobedience and as a means of forcing a reexamination
of copyright issues. They have painted the recording industry as a bunch of greedy <fill in your term of derision here> who care only about
making a buck, customers and the public be damned.
And in trying to equate copyright violators with Al Qaeda, the RIAA managed to prove its harshest critics--a group I've never been considered
a part of--absolutely right.
Do you think the RIAA should apologize? And what do you think about them taking their battle to song swappers' PCs?
TalkBack to me.
BARZH, not that I'm aware of. I posted that info from their earnings announcement because it contained a confirmation of their shipment to DataPlay and what seems like the description of a new functionality; that of being able to record and play in the same microoptical engine.
cheers
just realized,"a super integrated power combo device", this means they now have the ability to play AND record in the same DataPlay handheld unit. Great news!
ST confirms DataPlay shipments, MP3 developments...
During the third quarter, ST continued to develop new technologies and applications while strengthening its existing positions across the industry segments. Highlights of the quarter included confirmation of ST's leading position in digital consumer by independent market sources, a pioneering development in the MP3 music industry and the introduction of leading-edge products in all major industry segments.
In digital consumer, independent market analysts Gartner and Cahners In-Stat again confirmed ST as the world's number one supplier of set-top box (STB) and MPEG decoder chips. According to the In-Stat report, ST had the highest MPEG video chip revenues for the third consecutive year, while the Gartner figures showed not only that ST continued to lead the market for STB and MPEG chips, but also that the Company was the leader in non-game digital consumer chips. ST also announced that more than ten million STBs based on ST decoders and OpenTV middleware had been deployed worldwide, confirming ST as the leading supplier within OpenTV's successful interactive Television (iTV) technology with an impressive 60% market share.
Reinforcing its technical and market leadership in digital consumer, ST also introduced new DVD back-end SoC (System-on-Chip) devices that provide fully integrated decoder/host processor solutions for DVD players. Addressing the mainstream DVD market, the STi5519 is a cost-reduced version of ST's popular STi5508, while the STi5580 is an enhanced version of the STi5508 targeting the mid-range DVD market and the emerging audio+DVD combo market.
In addition, ST disclosed details of its cooperation with Coding Technologies, the inventors of mp3PRO, the next generation of the MP3 audio coding standard, which will accelerate the development of DSP-based (Digital Signal Processing) chips destined for portable music players. ST is the first chip manufacturer to develop a working silicon platform for the new mp3PRO technology, which reduces file size and enhances audio quality, yet guarantees both backward and forward compatibility. The new decoder chips are expected to reach the market in early 2002.
Finally, ST delivered to Dataplay, Inc. prototypes of a super integrated power combo device, which will further enhance the compactness and the miniaturization of the Dataplay optical disk drive. This drive will allow up to 500MB of mass storage on a disk that has a one and a quarter inch diameter and is designed to play and record all forms of digital content, including music, images, software, eBooks, games and video.
In the computer peripherals field, ST continued to set the pace in the hard disk drive (HDD) industry, in which it is the world's number one chip supplier. During the quarter, ST introduced a high-performance MEMS-based (Micro-Electro-Mechanical System) rotational accelerometer for PC and consumer HDD applications. The device makes the drive more resistant to vibration, thereby improving overall read/write speed and disk density.
ST also unveiled a prototype rotational microactuator, produced using MEMS technology, which positions the HDD read/write head with unprecedented precision, allowing the storage density of HDDs to be significantly increased.
In the communications arena, details were announced of an agreement between ST and Huawei Technologies, China, for the joint development of a key silicon chip for subscriber line interface cards in telephone networks. Under the terms of the agreement, ST and Huawei engineers will jointly develop the chip; it will be manufactured by ST and used exclusively by Huawei in its telephone switching office equipment. Huawei is the number one telecom equipment manufacturer in China, which is expected to be the fastest growing major market for fixed-line telephone networks in the next decade.
In the mobile phone and wireless terminal arena, in addition to design wins and production orders coming from its strategic alliances, ST gained numerous design wins for audio codecs, production orders for energy management chips from two top-tier manufacturers and a design win for a multimedia processor for a next-generation mobile phone. In addition, a multiple memory product comprising a stacked 32Mbit Flash + 8Mbit SRAM was qualified at a major CDMA phone manufacturer.
In the automotive field, a study by Gartner confirmed ST's increasing worldwide success. During 2000, ST moved from 4th to 3rd in the worldwide automotive ranking and became the number one supplier in the fast growing Asia/Rest of World region and the leading non-Japanese supplier in the Japanese market.
With the launch of XM Satellite Radio's US digital satellite radio, ST confirmed it had received volume orders for the two-chip receiver chipsets from radio manufacturers including Sony, Pioneer and Alpine. ST is the sole supplier of these critical chipsets. Also during the quarter, ST maintained its leading position in automotive memory technology with the commercial release of advanced 32-bit-wide, 16Mbit Flash and 16-bit-wide, 128Kbit SRAM memories optimized for automotive applications. ST also started production of a new family of advanced amplifiers for car radios, for which a major design win has already been achieved at Visteon for the car radio for the new Fiat Stilo.
In the industrial field, ST introduced the world's first DSP System Memory device. Developed in conjunction with a leading supplier of stand-alone DSPs, ST's chip integrates all the essential memory, interface and logic functions required to provide a complete DSP system memory solution.
ST also maintained its momentum in the smart card market by introducing three new products, including a device that combines massive on-chip memory with the world's fastest contact-less communications interface. The Company has also received the first volume production orders for this device for a Japanese governmental card, which is one of the world's first uses of smart cards in this type of application.
ST also maintained its e-Business investments and during the quarter expanded its RosettaNet business-to-business capabilities with several distributors in Europe and America and with OEMs in Europe and Asia Pacific.
Some of the above statements, that are not historical facts or include such words as the Company "believes", "anticipates", "expects" or words of similar impact, are statements of future expectations and other forward looking statements (within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended) that are based on management's current views and assumptions and that involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or performances to differ materially from those in such statements. In particular the following important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations of the Company or its management:
-- the impact of the slowdown in the overall economy and the
uncertainty of the current global political environment
following the recent terrorist attacks; - industry conditions, such as the strength of product demand, the
intensity of competition, pricing pressures and excess
manufacturing capacity; - operating factors, such as the continued success of product
development or inventory risks due to shifts in market
demand; - order rescheduling or cancellations from our customers, as well as
changes in customer orders, patterns and requirements, and - the general business and economic conditions, in the various
markets, business segments and countries in which we and our
customers operate.
Unfavorable changes in any of the above or other factors listed under "Risk Factors" from time to time in the Company's SEC reports including the Form 20F for the year ended December 31, 2000 which was filed with the SEC on May 15, 2001 and in particular the factors listed on page 3 of such Form 20F, could materially affect the Company.
The forward-looking statements included in this release are made only as of the date of this release and the company undertakes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.
Conference Call Information:
The management of STMicroelectronics will conduct a conference call at 4 p.m. CET/10 a.m. ET to discuss operating performance for the third quarter ended September 29, 2001.
The conference call will be available via the Internet by accessing the following Web address: www.vcall.com
Please go to the website at least fifteen minutes prior to the call to register, download and install any necessary audio software. The webcast will be available until October 26, 2001.
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"Trademark FAQs" from EDIGs trademark lawyer...
"Trademark FAQs"
by Marnie Wright Barnhorst
Here are a few questions you should ask—and answer—about trademarks when forming your
company’s business plan.
What is a trademark?
A trademark is any word, phrase, symbol or device that distinguishes one company’s goods or
services from those of its competitors. A trademark is often referred to as a “brand name”.
Examples of well-known trademarks are the word Windows for Microsoft’s software, the Swoosh
Design for Nike’s athletic gear, and the phrase HAVE IT YOUR WAY for Burger King’s fast food
services. Some more unusual trademarks are the Color Pink for Dow-Corning’s fiberglass
insulation, the Scent of Plumaria for Clarke’s sewing thread and embroidery yarn, the architectural
feature of the Golden Arches for McDonald’s fast food services, and the sound of the Musical
Notes G, E, C for NBC’s broadcasting services. Even the design of signature golf holes and the
exhaust sound of a motorcycle have been registered as trademarks. The only limit is that a
trademark must distinguish your company’s product from your competitors’. Thus, it cannot be a
generic term that your competitors need to use to describe their goods or services, like
“computers” for computers or “food” for fast food. (Both of these words, however, could be valid
trademarks for completely unrelated products such as shoes or hairdryers.)
Once our company is incorporated don’t we “own” the name?
No. Trademarks should not be confused with corporate or trade names. Registration of a
corporate or trade name does not confer any trademark rights in the name. A corporate name is
the legal name of a business, which usually must be registered with local or state authorities. A
corporate name that meets the requirements for trademark protection, i.e. that is used in
commerce to distinguish the company’s goods or services from its competitors’, can also become
a trademark and should be registered as such. Trademark registration is a different process than
trade name registration.
If we have a domain name do we have to do anything else to protect it?
Yes. Unless you own a trademark registration for your domain name, it may not be yours; it may
really belong to someone else. (See article entitled “Trademark’s on the World Wide Web” in Vol.
2, No. 2 of this Journal.) If someone else owns a trademark registration for the domain name
your company chooses, they may be able to have your domain name put on hold so you can’t
use it and eventually have it transferred to them. The best way to prevent this from happening is
to obtain a trademark registration yourself. If your company’s domain name is used to indicate
the source of its goods or services, then the domain name may be registrable as a trademark.
Consult your trademark counsel.
Why should our company register its trademarks?
The best reason to register a trademark is to increase the value of your company, particularly the
goodwill of the business. Accountants have formulas to incorporate the value of trademarks into
the value of the business.
Another reason is to make it easier to go after infringers. There are several advantages courts
give owners of registered marks that are not available to owners of unregistered marks. A
registration also provides your company a defense if it is sued for infringement or if someone
tries to take its domain name. While a company is not required to register a trademark, the
expense of registration is minimal compared to the increased value one obtains in exchange.
Registration also puts the whole world on notice for subsequent database searchers. Simply put,
with all the benefits that come with registration, its not worth trying to get around the registration
requirement.
What does it cost to register a trademark?
It costs approximately $250 to have a trademark lawyer perform a screening search and provide
an opinion on the availability of a proposed trademark. There is a second level of searching that
is highly recommended that costs approximately $750 and provides information regarding
unregistered uses of identical or similar marks that could impact the company’s rights. Once a
mark is cleared at these two levels, an application may safely be filed. The cost of filing a
trademark application is $245 per mark per class for the government filing fee. Applications may
be downloaded from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) web site and
completed by someone at the company. Alternatively, your company may prefer to have a
trademark lawyer handle the application. Legal fees vary from lawyer to lawyer, but a company
should budget approximately $1,000 in legal fees to have a trademark lawyer file an application
and handle it through to registration.
What is the difference between a trademark and a service mark?
A service mark is a type of trademark that is used to refer specifically to the services offered by a
company. Sometimes a mark serves as both a trademark and a service mark. For example,
SEARS serves as both a trademark for a variety of products, i.e. SEARS washers and dryers, and
also as a service mark for SEARS retail store services. It is correct to use the term “trademark” to
refer to both trademarks and service marks.
What does the term trade dress refer to?
Trade dress is another type of trademark. Trade dress is the design of a product, the “look and
feel” that identifies the product as having come from a particular source. The classic shape of the
old Coca-Cola bottle is a good example of a product “trade dress”. Trade dress can be registered
as a trademark, a design patent or even copyrighted as a work of art. However, the design of a
product is not entitled to trade dress protection if it relates in any way to functionality of the
product. In a recent decision, one court determined Pebble Beach’s “Lighthouse Hole” was entitled
to trade dress protection because the design features of the hole, which included a lighthouse,
were not related to its function as a golf course hole. The court found a competitor’s replica of the
hole infringed Pebble Beach’s trade dress.
What do people mean when they say they want to “patent” their trademark?
This is usually a misstatement. Trademarks and patents are two different kinds of intellectual
property. Trademarks are words or symbols used to identify the source of a product or service.
They are “registered” with the USPTO. The USPTO also issues patents, but the subject matter of a
patent is not a word or symbol, it is an invention or a way of making something. The proper
terminology is that trademarks are “registered”, inventions are “patented”. The only time
trademarks are “patented” is when the trademark is in the form of trade dress discussed above.
Trade dress is the non-functional design or configuration of a product that serves to identify its
source. Trade dress can be registered as a trademark and may also be patented under a special
category of patent called a “design” patent.
What should our company consider in selecting a trademark?
The first step is to consider marks that convey an appropriate image for your business and that
are protectable under trademark law. The strongest trademarks and those given the most
protection under trademark law are marks that are distinctive rather than descriptive. Marks that
are made-up words are termed fanciful marks and are considered the most distinctive. Examples
of fanciful marks are: CLOROX for bleach, CUTEX for fingernail polish remover, and KODAK for
photographic supplies. In spite of the heightened protection these marks are given under the law,
many companies don’t like them because they don’t “sell” the product by telling the consumer
something about it.
Real words that have nothing to do with the product category are called arbitrary marks and are
considered the second most distinctive marks. Examples of arbitrary marks are APPLE for
computers, ARROW for shirts and FOX for television broadcasting services. The third strongest
marks are suggestive marks that give a hint about the product, but do not directly describe it.
Examples are BUFFERIN for buffered aspirin, RAISIN-BRAN for a cereal containing raisins and
bran, and TINTZ for a hair tint. In contrast, descriptive marks are not considered to be inherently
distinctive and are the weakest trademarks in the legal sense. From a marketing standpoint,
however, they are often the most popular choice because they tell the consumer something about
the product. A rust remover named RUST AWAY would fall into this category.
If your company plans to establish a brand name and stick with it over time, a fanciful or arbitrary
mark should be chosen. Consumers will come to recognize that name and associate it with the
features and quality of your company’s goods or services. If, however, there is rapid turnover of
your company’s products and they are all short-lived, you may be able to justify choosing weaker
suggestive marks.
Finally, if your company is involved in e-commerce and plans to do a considerable amount of
business on the internet, you should choose a trademark for which the domain name is available.
A good trademark screening search will include this information.
When should our company select a trademark?
Trademark rights in the United States are acquired on a “first to use” basis. The first to use the
mark in a particular geographic location becomes the owner in that location. However, national
rights are awarded to the “first to register” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Therefore, the earlier the mark is chosen and registered, the better. As soon as there is a concept
of the product or service to be offered, several trademarks should be chosen and screened. By
the time initial discussions regarding advertising, packaging and marketing begin to take place
an application should be on file for the chosen mark and perhaps one or two alternatives.
Once our company has a trademark do we have to pursue every infringer?
Trademark owners must take “reasonable steps” to protect their marks against misuse and
infringement. While your company does not have to pursue every infringer, it must take
reasonable steps to insure that the mark is not misused or infringed by others or it risks losing all
rights in the trademark. Misuse of a mark includes third party use of the mark as a noun or verb
rather than as an adjective. For example, saying that you are going to “xerox” something is a
misuse of the trademark XEROX as a verb. Correct use of the mark as an adjective would be to
say that you are going to photocopy something on a XEROX machine. Many companies (like
Xerox) use a large portion of their advertising budget to educate consumers regarding how their
marks should be correctly used. Trademark owners must also take reasonable steps to police
against infringement. Failure to stop knock-offs can lead to loss of rights in the mark. Examples
of marks that were not sufficiently protected by their owners and whose trademark registrations
were revoked are ASPIRIN, FORMICA, SHEETROCK, KEROSENE, STYROFOAM, DRY ICE, MAGIC
MARKER, TRAMPOLINE, DUMPSTER, NYLON, ESCALATOR, PING-PONG and YO-YO.
Lanier is at same show as Dictaphone with large booth...
Sunday, October 14
7 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
Registration
Avoid the Monday morning rush! Pick up your materials today.
8 a.m.–5 p.m.
Long Term Care Section Meeting
8 a.m.–5:45 p.m.
House of Delegates
8–9 a.m.
Opening Session
9 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Issue Forums
12:30–1:30 p.m.
Lunch
1:30–5:45 p.m.
Business Meeting
8 a.m.–6 p.m.
Joint Military Services Special Interest Session
8:15 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Society for Clinical Coding Meeting
9 a.m.–12 noon; 2–5 p.m.
Tutorials
9:30 a.m.–5 p.m.
Vendor Showcase
5–6:30 p.m.
Assembly on Education Student Forum
Vendor Showcase
Our exhibiting partners will share hour-long presentations on their products and services. Be
sure to stop by Sunday and hear their updates. (Confirmed as of October 8.)
9:30-10:30 a.m.
Document Reprocessors
Vertisoft
11 a.m. -12 noon
QuadraMed Corporation
Colorflex
SoftMed Systems, Inc.
Arrendale Associates, Inc.
1-2 p.m.
AHIMA E-Learning
Wise Resolution
Med Plus
2:30-3:30 p.m
Lanier Healthcare
Laguna
3M
IMA Technologies
4-5 p.m.
Impath Medical Services
Eclipsys
Talk Technology
Exhibitor Product Demos
Spend exclusive time Monday evening with these companies and see how their products and
services can benefit you. (Confirmed as of September 17.)
AHIMA
Arrendale Associates, Inc.
Cerner
Code Remote
Dictaphone
FYI Health Serve
Healthcare Technologies
HSS, Inc
In Record Time
Laguna
Lanier Healthcare
MedQuist
QuadraMed Corporation
SoftMed Systems, Inc.
The SSI Group
Talk Technologies
Tenet Health
United Audit Systems Inc
For a complete listing of exhibitors, click here.
Dictaphone Signs Agreement to License L&H Speech Recognition Software and to Acquire PowerScribe Assets
Business/Hi-Tech Editors & Health/Medical Writers
MIAMI--(BW HealthWire)--Oct. 17, 2001--
Access to Critical Technology Underpinning Dictaphone's Growing
Speech Recognition Product Line for Healthcare
American Health Information Management Assoc. (AHIMA) Convention--Dictaphone Corporation ("Dictaphone") announced today that it has concluded an agreement with Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V., L&H Holdings USA, Inc. and certain of their related subsidiaries (collectively, "L&H") to license key speech recognition technology, and to acquire L&H's PowerScribe(R) for Radiology speech recognition product line, which Dictaphone has been co-marketing for the past year.
The appropriate bankruptcy courts have approved this agreement, and it represents a significant step for Dictaphone in advance of its expected emergence by year-end from Chapter 11 and independence from parent L&H.
The contract calls for Dictaphone to license one of L&H's core speech recognition engines, called MREC, which is used in PowerScribe(R) and will be used in Dictaphone's EXSpeech(TM) product lines. Dictaphone will have access to key MREC software development tools, giving Dictaphone the ability to provide on-going technical support to existing platforms, and to develop new applications and solutions upon this speech recognition engine. Additionally, Dictaphone will have a special team of L&H software engineers assigned to provide on-going support and development in connection with the contract. These L&H employees will complement Dictaphone's own internal speech recognition engineering staff. Under the agreement, Dictaphone has also licensed important data needed to develop and expand language models used in the speech recognition process.
PowerScribe(R) is a leading speech recognition system for the radiology market and part of Dictaphone's current product portfolio marketed by its national sales organization. Dictaphone is acquiring the PowerScribe line of products, including its software source code. The agreement also calls for L&H to transfer to Dictaphone certain L&H employees directly involved in the development and support of the PowerScribe(R)-based speech technology as well as the company's Clinical Language Understanding products, which are under development, a move that will significantly increase the size of Dictaphone's speech recognition engineering force.
"Speech recognition is core to Dictaphone's mission and strategy," stated Rob Schwager, president and COO of Dictaphone. "This technology will allow Dictaphone to deliver to the market solutions that offer tremendous improvements in terms of cost saving and productivity, where currently $6 billion is spent annually in the transcription of medical documentation.
Our agreement with L&H provides Dictaphone with long-term access to this leading technology, which will assure our customers on-going support of their present systems, and access to software enhancements and developments made by Dictaphone in the future."
Under the agreement, Dictaphone has also licensed and acquired from L&H software intended to be used by Dictaphone in its Clinical Language Understanding products as well as natural language processing (NLP) technology components. Dictaphone has made a significant investment in NLP with an internal advanced linguistics staff, which is developing practical healthcare applications such as automatic coding products.
About Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions Group
Dictaphone currently deploys dictation, transcription and report management system solutions in some of the world's premier healthcare organizations. Its solutions automate and integrate critical elements in the creation and management of health information, helping healthcare organizations improve productivity and the quality of patient care. Dictaphone's flagship Enterprise Express(R) dictation, transcription and report management system is an integral part of the creation and flow of patient information in a substantial number of U.S. hospitals. It currently supports several hundred thousand physicians who use Dictaphone systems to generate an estimated one million reports and 100,000 hours of dictation a day. Dictaphone is also actively deploying its EXSpeech(TM) and PowerScribe(R) speech recognition solutions, designed to dramatically reduce transcription costs and speed report turnaround. Dictaphone has also introduced the ichart(TM) family of Internet subscription-based solutions that integrate existing systems with new coding, natural language and data mining technologies, which can significantly reduce the costs of managing patient information. For sales and product information visit Dictaphone at www.dictaphone.com or call 1-888-350-4836.
The foregoing projections are "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities Laws. Because such statements include risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ from the estimates provided. The company undertakes no duty to update such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ from these forward looking statements include, but are not limited to, those disclosed previously and from time to time in any of the company's public filings. In addition, readers are cautioned that forward looking statements include known and unknown risks, such as the uncertainties associated with Chapter 11 filings in the United States and the risk that newly introduced products may contain undetected errors or defects or otherwise not perform as anticipated.
--30--ah/ny*
CONTACT: Dictaphone Corporation
Don Fallati, 203/381-7218
dfal@dictaphone.com
or
Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products
Investor/Financial:
Tim Ledwick, 203/381-7333
tim.ledwick@lhsl.com
KEYWORD: FLORIDA CONNECTICUT
INDUSTRY KEYWORD: MEDICAL SOFTWARE TELECOMMUNICATIONS
MARKETING AGREEMENTS
SOURCE: Dictaphone Corporation
Transmeta fires CEO after its stock plunges
Crusoe chip has not lured big U.S. customers
BY THERESE POLETTI
Mercury News
Transmeta, an upstart developer of low-power-consuming computer chips, fired its chief executive Tuesday following the collapse of its stock, another earnings shortfall and a late product.
The Santa Clara chip developer named Chairman Murray Goldman, a former Motorola executive, as the company's new CEO, replacing Mark Allen, who had been CEO since March.
``This was a very difficult decision made after considerable deliberation,'' Goldman said in a statement.
The company said the decision was made after a careful review of Transmeta's recent performance by its board of directors.
Transmeta said it named Hugh Barnes president and chief operating officer. Barnes joined Transmeta's board in November 1998 after retiring from Compaq Computer, where he had been chief technical officer.
Transmeta said it will further discuss the management changes in its third-quarter earnings conference call with investors Thursday afternoon.
Allen joined Transmeta in January 2000 as president and chief operating officer, when the company made its official debut in Silicon Valley after five years in stealth mode.
Transmeta was one of the most closely watched semiconductor start-ups in recent years. It had a highly respected leadership team, including chip designer David Ditzel, and offered a novel technology to reduce power consumption in PC processors.
But after peaking at nearly $51 a share in its initial public offering in November, the company's shares have tumbled, closing Tuesday at $2.37, up 12 cents.
A major problem is that Transmeta has not yet won any large U.S. customers for its Crusoe chips, and its Japanese customers have been hit by the general slump in technology demand. Meanwhile, chip giant Intel is now aggressively marketing its own line of power-conserving chips.
For the third quarter, ended Sept. 30, analysts are expecting Transmeta to report a loss of about 15 cents a share. Last week, the company said that high-volume production of its TM5800 chip would be delayed until the fourth quarter.
The three-month product delay and the weakening economy in Japan hurt sales, which Transmeta said would be about $5 million in the third quarter, a little less than half of the $10.5 million it reported last quarter.
Brian Alger, an analyst with Pacific Growth Equities, said investors shouldn't hold Allen accountable for the general economic slump. ``But a lot of times at smaller companies . . . there is a need for a change in direction. Transmeta has a very experienced board and they wanted to indicate that they are paying attention to the shareholder.''
Transmeta made a strong presentation of its new chips and how they compare against Intel's mobile processors Monday at the Microprocessor Forum, a technical conference taking place this week in San Jose.
``That presentation and going toe-to-toe with Intel, going on the offensive, has been helping in the short term,'' Alger said.
Goldman joined Transmeta's board in November 1998, after retiring from Motorola, where he held various management positions from 1969 to 1997, most recently as executive vice president and assistant general manager of its semiconductor-products business.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact Therese Poletti at tpoletti@sjmercury.com or at (415) 477-2510.
OT 'Era of constrained power' dawns
By Jerry Ascierto
EE Times
(10/16/01, 5:21 p.m. EST)
SAN JOSE, Calif. — In the ongoing battle over low-power mobile performance, Transmeta Corp. took the wraps off of its TM6000 system-on-chip (SoC), while Intel hinted at the direction of its mobile road map, at the Microprocessor Forum Monday (Oct. 15).
Indeed, the concern over power constraints dominated much of the talk on the opening day of the San Jose show. (See EE Times' full coverage of the conference.) In his keynote, Intel fellow and director Justin Rattner expressed concern over the power consumption implications of Moore's Law, saying that processor speeds cannot continue to grow at the expense of power concerns.
"In mobile, the pressure mounts every day to control the power, extend battery life, be thinner and lighter while giving performance capabilities," Rattner said. "Power is a wall. Power is becoming an overriding consideration. We are entering an era of constrained power.
"That's not to say that performance is going to go away," Rattner said. "What we're suggesting is that power will have to be balanced with performance. New kinds of architectures and new techniques will be required to deliver better performance that stays within the power budget."
Rattner referred to the upcoming mobile processor code-named "Banias" as an example of Intel's concern in this area. "The Banias processor was designed from the get-go with the power budget squirreling right in front of the design team."
Transmeta then used the podium to unveil its latest incarnation of the Crusoe, a system-on-chip (SoC) expected to reach 1 GHz when it's released in the second half of next year. Dave Ditzel, Transmeta's chief technology officer, also said that the TM5500 and TM5800, manufactured in 0.13-micron and reaching 800 MHz, will begin shipping this quarter.
"Our customers are saying, 'We want to go into new markets, but we have horrible problems in thermal limits, going to smaller sizes, weight and cost,' " Ditzel said. "Smaller-form-factor PCs, ultradense servers, convergent, embedded systems . . . all of these need reduced pc-board space, fan-less operation and good x86 performance."
To that end, Ditzel took the wraps off of the TM6000, which integrates a northbridge and southbridge, and graphics and should begin sampling in the first half of next year. The CPU will be 1 GHz, and the chip will feature an integrated DDR memory controller, a 166-MHz DDR with ECC. The chip's graphics controller features 24-bit digital and LVDS interfaces and DVD playback support. A PCI interface, IDE disk controller, USB port, system management bus and eight general-purpose I/Os are among the features of the new SoC.
For the ultradense server market, the chip will feature 72-bit SECDED ECC memory, up to 2 Gbytes of registered DIMMS, two independent IDE disk channels for overlapped I/O, and a special version of Transmeta's code-morphing software optimized for server workloads.
Ditzel also used the podium to chide Intel's method of measuring power consumption. "This will be the first time we're doing an apples to apples comparison. Measuring a CPU to a CPU is misleading. What you have to do is compare the CPU and core logic power as close as you can: measure the CPU, northbridge, southbridge, buses and memory." Ditzel said. "We need to measure chips in real systems."
Ditzel then showed comparisons of the TM5800 Crusoe at 800 Mhz with a Pentium-III ULV (ultralow voltage) running at 600 MHz. Adding core logic to the power equation, Ditzel said that in a Ziff-Davis BatteryMark Comparison, the PIII chip burns 2.12 watts, where the Crusoe burns 0.91 watt, both running at full speed.
"When Intel announced a new 0.13-micron ULV, we went straight to the data sheets and as far as we can tell, the power is actually higher on the 0.13 part than on the 0.18-micron part," Ditzel said. "Why was the power up? The only thing it could be is increased leakage on the chip.
"As we go to deep-submicron, leakage becomes a big deal," he said. "The only way to avoid that is to have fewer transistors, and that's where Crusoe excels."
Bob Jackson, a principal engineer in Intel's mobile group, quickly followed Ditzel's presentation with a glimpse at Intel's mobile processor road map. Next year, the Pentium 4 will come to the notebook realm, he said, for mainstream mobile PCs. The chip will include Intel's NetBurst architecture, a 400-MHz processor system bus, streaming SIMD extension 2, an enhanced version of Intel's SpeedStep technology and a deeper sleep-alert state. The chip will be accompanied by the 845MP chip set, which features support for AGP 1x, 2x and 4x configurations, and features Intel's hub architecture and internal clock gating.
"We'll address the next generation of mobile computing with Banias: high-performance, long battery life and seamless connectivity for thinner and lighter form factors," Jackson said. "It will consist of two parts: a mobile-specific processor and a mobile chip set, fundamentally designed for mobile from the ground up."
Banias will implement a new design methodology and incorporate a series of new architectural, circuit and logic techniques. While he was mum on details, Jackson provided examples of some of the techniques Banias may employ, including micro Ops fusion, aggressive clock gating and device sizing techniques for lower power and less leakage.
Intel will introduce a 1.5-GHz mobile processor in the first half of next year, followed by a 2-GHz chip in the second half, he said.
Consumer electronics industry projects busy holiday season
BY DON SHERON
San Antonio Express-News
Posted at 5:44 p.m. PDT Monday, Oct. 15, 2001
The consumer electronics industry is looking for consumers.
If projections hold up, this holiday season may be good for the consumer electronics market, despite the nation's economic woes and fears of terrorism.
``Consumers' concerns over the economy and safety are leading them to recognize that consumer electronics products allow families to stay connected and share time in the home,'' said Gary Shapiro, president and chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Association.
The industry trade organization said Friday that its survey shows that 77 percent of consumers plan to buy at least one consumer electronic device this holiday season.
And the CEA says the hot products this year appear to be portable CD players with headsets, DVD players, digital cameras and wireless phones.
``We've seen an increase of consumers going to portable CD headset devices and portable boom boxes,'' said CEA spokesman Tim McNamara.
CD players are making a comeback after concerns over copyright infringement hit the market for MP3 players.
MP3 is a technology that allows computer users to download songs from the Internet and share them with other computer users.
Some songs were free to be distributed, but other copyrighted material created a storm of controversy by the music recording industry.
``Last year, we saw the MP3 devices really skyrocket, because that was the peak of media attention and popularity,'' McNamara said.
But since then, things have cooled off.[We'll see about that]
``People are a little concerned about making sure that they're doing things proper'' to avoid misusing copyrighted material, McNamara said.
Overall projections for this year's sales of consumer electronics appear to be a little ahead of last year's expectations which, by the way, fell short of reality, McNamara said.
``People were projecting big things last year'' because of a booming economy, he said. ``Last holiday season was still pretty good, but it wasn't as successful as we thought it might be.''
Projections are one thing, but actual consumer spending is another. Retailers traditionally bank on the holiday shopping season for their year's profits.
The CEA survey found that consumers plan to spend about the same this year on gifts as they did last year. That's despite 70 percent of consumers expressing concerns that the U.S. economy is worse now than at the same time last year.
It may be too early to say how much retailers are expecting for the electronics market. Minnesota-based Best Buy Co. Inc. and Virginia-based Circuit City Stores Inc. could not be reached for comment.
The CEA survey showed that almost three-fourths of consumers plan to buy through a traditional retailer, while a third plan to shop online.
IBM lowers power 10x on PowerPC 405
By R. Colin Johnson
EE Times
(10/15/01, 9:17 a.m. EST)
EAST FISHKILL, N.Y. — IBM Corp. will announce a new family
of PowerPCs with "smart" power management at the
Microprocessor Forum conference next week (October 15-19,
San Jose, Calif).
The first member of the new family, the PowerPC 405LP, not
only reduces power 10x over previous PowerPCs, but also
sports hardware accelerators for speech recognition and
encryption. The device is aimed at energy-constrained
wireless devices such as cell phones, as well as
power-sensitive wired devices such as DSL modems,
communications routers and switches.
"There are a number of innovations to reduce the low power
of both the active and the standby modes of the 405LP
device, which is based on an optimized version of the
PowerPC 405 core — a highly-integrated system-on-chip that
utilizes the IBM Core Connect internal bus to provide high
bandwidth to key peripherals on the chip including a touch
panel controller, LCD controller and memory controller, as
well as new hardware accelerator cores for speech recognition
and encryption. IBM already has over three dozen uniquely
manufactured design wins that are based on the 405 core," said IBM's Power PC
marketing manager, Dean Parker.
The new 405LP can crunch numbers at over 500 million instructions per second
(Mips) while running at 380 MHz on a 1.8-volt power supply and consuming half a
watt, but the power drops to just over 50 milliwatts when the clock frequency is
dropped to 150 MHz and the voltage to 1 volt, while still crunching numbers at over
200 Mips. The standby power can likewise be reduced 10x using the same
intelligent "frequency and voltage scaling" techniques.
"The only other time I've seen this much intelligence is in components that are not
commercially available, [namely chips] in satellites, where it actually turns sections
of itself on and off, but those chips are all custom. This is the first commercially
available chip with this level of intelligence . . . this chip will become a benchmark
for competitors in the future," said analyst Frank Dzubeck, president of
Communications Network Architects Inc.
Under the hood
The 405LP bases its power savings on "smart" power management techniques,
such as the ability to scale the clock frequency and supply voltage up and down to
affect low power consumption over the entire chip.
In addition, the "smart" power management routines enable nearly any part of the
IBM PowerPC 405LP to be temporarily turned off by making extensive use of clock
gating. Many other commercially available low-power microprocessors use clock
gating, but IBM claims to extend the principle to finer granularity than ever,
enabling not only entire cores to be turned on and off, but also zooming down to
finer scales, such as powering down a single register that is not currently being
used.
"The entire chip basically has the capability of clock gating, which is much more
extensive use [than previously]," said Parker.
In addition, the chip combines voltage reduction with clock freezing in standby
modes, thereby enabling the PowerPC 405LP to reduce power to an absolute
minimum. In fact, two different standby modes, hibernation and "cryo" mode,
enable the device to reduce power nearly to zero, while simultaneously enabling the
device to retain "instant response" to outside stimuli, such as depressing a key or
touchpad.
"It's critical for handheld and mobile devices to use as little power as possible when
not being used. In addition to typical hibernate states, and reducing the voltage to
devices, there is a unique mode called cryo-mode in which clocks as well as power
to logic are both shut off. Basically the software and registers are scanned out and
very little power is dissipated in the device, like a hibernation mode on a PC, but at
the same time the cryo-mode enables the device to come on instantly," said
Parker.
In cryo-mode, the state of the registers and software can be quickly scanned back
into the device, typically with under 200 milliseconds response time, according to
Parker. IBM also promises many versions of the 405LP, not only for
power-constrained wireless devices, but also for wired devices where power density
and the resultant heat generated need to be minimized. Those specialized versions
will aim at networking switches, routers and server farms.
IBM will be sampling the new device in the first quarter of 2002.
An audio recording of reporter R. Colin Johnson's full interview with IBM's Dean
Parker can be found online at www.mp3.com/RColinJohnson.
Repost: Iomega making 1 Gig IBM Microdrive...
Ten O'Clock Tech: Iomega Goes Micro
By Arik Hesseldahl
In simpler days, if you purchased a storage product from Iomega , it was safe to assume the unit was
manufactured by Iomega. But, in this industry especially, times change--quickly.
The company that brought you the Zip disk and the Jaz cartridge now sells a whole line of data storage
products, some it cooked up in-house, but others are licensed from other companies. The latest to join the
Iomega family is a 1-gigabyte version of the IBM -made Microdrive.
ADVERTISEMENT
It comes with a PC-card adapter, making it ideal for laptop computers, and is compatible with laptops from
most major manufacturers, including Apple Computer . But it also fits into nearly any CompactFlash Type II slot
on devices like digital cameras and audio players. Inside there's a tiny spinning hard drive that holds up to 1
gigabyte of data. That's a lot of music or pictures. But the drive itself weighs only 16 grams and measures less
than two inches wide by less than two inches long.
Iomega's been playing the percentages lately. Having beat out most of its original competitors in the removable
storage space contest, the company found it couldn't make enough money just selling Zip drives and hoping
that customers buy lots of the disks. So it's been diversifying into other areas where its storage technologies
can be useful. It now makes an MP3 audio player and another product that displays digital photos on a TV
screen.
But the company has also started selling nonproprietary storage products under its own brand, including CD-R
and CD-RW drives, and removable flash memory. Since there are so many choices available for storage
products, Iomega is playing it smart by dabbling its hand in many different areas to see which consumers
respond to with the most enthusiasm.
This is its second move with the IBM Microdrive technology. It first announced plans to sell a 340-megabyte
version of the Microdrive in November 2000.
And if a gigabyte in such a small a package doesn't impress you, then consider this: The first gigabyte-capacity
hard drive debuted in 1980. It was the size of a refrigerator, weighed more than 500 pounds and cost $40,000.
This one packs the same capacity into a package smaller than a matchbook for $500. How's that for progress?
Create speech-driven applications for mobile devices and Internet
appliances
PR Newswire (June 18, 2001)
REDMOND, Wash., Jun 18, 2001 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Conversay, a global
leader in speech technology solutions for both mobile and traditional Internet access
devices, today unveiled the Mobile Conversay(TM) Software Development Kit (SDK).
Compatible with Linux, e-Linux and Pocket PC platforms, Mobile Conversay SDK allows
developers to create speech-driven applications for mobile devices and Internet
appliances.
The SDK is designed to overcome small form factor and processing constraints of
mobile' devices and Internet appliances. Gaming, email, calendar and telematics
applications exemplify a few of the areas where a speech-interface can be utilized to
access information and interact with applications. A speech-interface can be added to
any gaming, enterprise, telematics or other application.
"We are excited to offer developers a comprehensive toolkit to speech-enable their
applications for the Linux, e-Linux, and Pocket PC environments," said Matt Scheuing,
president and CEO, Conversay. "Back in March, we responded to customer demand by
releasing the Mobile Conversay SDK on limited platforms and received such
tremendous feedback that we decided to market the toolkit more broadly. We also plan to
release a Korean version of the SDK for Linux and Handheld PC platforms in the next
thirty days."
Applications built using the SDK, run in the Mobile Conversay speech environment that
includes speech processing and other voice services, enabling mobile device users to
easily navigate through applications. Mobile Conversay is included in the SDK as a
complete development runtime package.
About Conversay
Founded in 1994, Conversay provides solutions that enable voice interaction with
network information, including the Internet, when other interfaces are difficult or
impossible. Built on an innovative speech engine, Conversay(TM) technology is
speaker-independent, modular, scalable and accommodates unlimited vocabulary,
making it ideally suited for embedded applications. It also drives the award-winning line
of Conversation(TM) products including a voice browser, a server, and developer tools for
the web, desktop, server, and embedded markets. Conversay headquarters are in
Redmond, Wash., and is located on the web at www.conversay.com.
NOTE: Conversay, Conversation, and Mobile Conversay are trademarks of
Conversational Computing Corporation (d.b.a. "Conversay"). All other trademarks are
property of their respective owners.
MAKE YOUR OPINION COUNT - Click Here
http://tbutton.prnewswire.com/prn/11690X93653718
SOURCE Conversay
CONTACT: Kimberly Fishburn of Conversay, 425-636-1856, or
kfishburn@conversay.com
OT Best article yet IMO...Oil, Israel, terror
FRIDAY OCTOBER 12 2001
Leading article: Oil, Israel, terror
The trouble when two priorities become three
Tony Blair’s latest foray into the Arab world reflects his conviction that the West must fight and win the battle for Muslim public opinion. Britain, he believes, is particularly well suited to the task of explaining, to audiences that will often be both anti-American and uninformed, why terrorists have to be confronted and quashed.
His theme is that Islamic terrorism must be thwarted in its goal of erecting a barrier of hate and fear between the Muslim and Western worlds, and that this conflict should be understood not as a war of religion but as a power struggle launched by enemies of prosperity and civil peace in their own societies as well as those of the West. He is anxious in particular to assure both rulers and publics of British and American good faith, of their determination to bring good out of evil in return for their co-operation in pursuing and grinding down the networks of terror.
This is the sort of thing Mr Blair does very well. But it is stony ground. The Saudi decision not even to receive a British Prime Minister was a small victory for Osama bin Laden — a victory timidly, unwisely and unnecessarily handed to their most implacable enemy by the House of Saud. The appeasement of al-Qaeda or any of its allied networks, most especially by Muslim rulers fearful of being branded “traitors” to Islam, will prolong the conflict unleashed on September 11 and add to its dangers for Muslims as well as the West. That ought by now to be apparent even to the most self-deluding of Arab elites. But it is not.
Saudi Arabia’s caution is in line with its long habit of giving a free hand to religious militancy, at home and abroad. That habit has come home to haunt it — and to haunt the West. The authority of the House of Saud rests on two main pillars and one assumption. The pillars are Western political and military support and the loyalty of the deeply puritanical Wahhabi tribe; the assumption is that they are owed respect as the hereditary guardians of two of Islam’s three holiest shrines. Bin Laden has declared the assumption to be invalid and many Arabs agree. He will not rest until the “infidel” US troops are driven from Arabian soil and, without Western protection, the regime would be gravely at risk. Its overthrow and replacement by a Taleban-like medieval caliphate is a primary and explicit bin Laden aim.
The traditional Saudi response, which is to purchase loyalty, is no longer sustainable because the kingdom is deeply in debt. That gives the West some modest leverage, at least on the question of depriving Islamist terrorism of funds. Of the 369 terrorist organisations that, on American estimates, exist worldwide, 126 are in the Islamic world and most of them are active mainly against their own governments. “Private” Saudi foundations, mostly royal, have for many years bankrolled a disturbingly high proportion of them. They have also financed religious schools which are often the only education available to the poor. Many of these “schools” are indoctrination centres from which jobless youths emerge brimming with religious hatred. Some are terrorist boot camps; Saudi money financed al-Qaeda and Taleban camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan; some 10,000 Saudi graduates of these camps, volunteers for jihad, are now thought to have returned to the kingdom. They mix with unemployed and increasingly radicalised youths for whom bin Laden is a hero.
State toleration of terror, which is what this pattern of patronage has amounted to, can be as dangerous as state sponsorship. Saudi Arabia has to be told that September 11 has left them no choice; they can no longer hope to buy these people off for the sake of a quiet life. It will not be excused; and it will not work. It must stop. If that can be phrased in terms of a common interest, so much the better. But the Saudis do not want to be told the truth.
The West’s dilemmas over Riyadh illustrate in particularly acute form a wider problem. The West may be fighting the good fight, but it is forced to court as allies in this struggle some of the most reactionary and unpopular regimes around, regimes which give terrorists purchase by their failures to provide proper education, skills and economic opportunities. The West’s long-term goals must be to persuade these governments to lower the barriers of privilege and to curb the bad behaviour of their elites, both Islamic and “unIslamic”. Both Britain and America are acutely aware that if they are to crush the roots of terrorism, they must deal with the political and cultural troubles that blight the Arab world. That was Mr Blair’s message this week.
Yet in the short term, the priorities are quite different. The West may find itself demanding that already repressive regimes become more repressive, more ruthless in rooting out networks which, in the Saudi case, they have fostered to their now considerable peril. The Saudi snub to Mr Blair was an indication that in the coming months America and Britain will have a rough time in the Middle East. They may also find themselves more hated in the region than they have ever been. Western and Arab short-term goals may not mesh and in the course of heated disputes, long-term interests may appear to diverge. The allies may win over Muslim intellectuals but stay on the losing side in the battle for the streets; it is even possible that they are mistaken in believing that the great mass of Muslims would be horrified if they knew what al-Qaeda’s real goals were.
Above all, and particularly if this unavoidable struggle continues for years without clear-cut results, it may expose the unspoken difficulties of reconciling the West’s two fundamental priorities in the Middle East, secure access to the Gulf’s oil, and Israel’s existence within secure borders. In Israel, deterioration is almost inevitable at this phase; terrorist groups such as Hamas — supported by Riyadh — will be at their most confident; no diplomatic initiative has much hope of surviving their sabotage. In the medium term, the West may find itself giving Yassir Arafat active military support against these groups — in return for putting enormous pressure on Israel to withdraw from virtually all the West Bank and its settlements there in a revival of some version of the Oslo process that reached a dead end last year at Camp David.
But first the West has to get to the point where it can deal with these things. They are not for phase one. The US presence in the region, far from being reduced, is going to be increased. Its influence will be less, not more, discreet. Regimes such as Saudi Arabia’s will be more nervous, not less. The attacks on America aimed not just to kill thousands of people but to provoke war between the West and Islam, drive the US out of the Middle East and destroy Israel. The West can defeat all these threats; it cannot fight on every front at once.
Hmmmm...Microsoft gets into the 'Groove'
BY JENNIFER DISABATINO
(October 10, 2001)
Microsoft Corp. today announced it would put up approximately $51 million to
fund the ongoing operations of Groove Networks Inc., a peer-to-peer collaborative
application software company.
Groove, in Beverly, Mass.,
will remain independent
after the deal, with
Microsoft holding a
minority equity stake.
According to Groove,
previous investors,
including Accel Partners,
also participated in
Groove's $54 million
financing.
Almost a year ago, Groove
was launched with great
fanfare, including a
videotaped testimonial
from Microsoft Chairman
Bill Gates.
"There's a great deal of
mutual respect here," said
analyst Dana Gardner at
Aberdeen Group Inc. in Boston. "This is a natural fit."
Groove uses a peer-to-peer model to initiate and maintain work spaces where
users exchange text sessions with instant messaging software, applications, voice
and video in real time through various panes within one frame. The data is stored
on each user's hard drive. Off-line users download updated information from
ongoing Groove sessions when they log on.
"It certainly fits well with the Microsoft vision of a fat client, or a fully-enabled PC
on every desktop that can work through an Internet infrastructure," Gardner said.
Ray Ozzie, Groove's CEO, also created the Notes e-mail and collaboration software
through his company Iris Associates, which he founded in 1984. Ten years later,
Lotus Development Corp. in Cambridge, Mass., purchased Notes from Iris, after
spending hundreds of millions of dollars in development costs. Now IBM owns
Lotus, which is the main competitor to Microsoft's Exchange platform for
messaging and collaboration.
Yet again, Ozzie has found a large backer to fund his development costs.
"Groove is independent but has a sugar daddy," Gardner said.
"When Groove was first introduced about a year ago, we indicated how excited we
were about the technology, not only because of its advanced use of our .Net tools
and infrastructure, but also because it represented a new breed of innovative
software that takes full advantage of the PC and the rich communication aspects
of the Internet," said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft.
In the same statement, Ozzie said, "For nearly a year, we have been working with
Microsoft on several initiatives, as our early customers have asked for tighter
integration with Office applications, interoperability with Windows Messenger and
an understanding of how we will employ .Net technologies and services. We've
made significant progress on these and other initiatives and now look forward to
working even more closely with Microsoft to ensure that we capitalize on the
strengths of our respective technologies to deliver cross-enterprise collaboration
solutions for our customers."
RPT-Pfizer, IBM, Microsoft set up new company for doctors
NEW YORK, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Pfizer, the world's largest drugs company said on Wednesday it formed
an alliance with two of the biggest technology companies, Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news)
and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - news) to set up a new software and services
company for doctors.
The companies said the new venture, called Amicore, was designed to ``reduce the administrative workload and paperwork for
physicians,'' enabling them to better focus on patient care.
Amicore, headquartered in New York City, has acquired the PenChart Corp, a Connecticut-based software developer whose healthcare
application will form the basis of the company's initial product offering, IBM, Microsoft and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE - news) said in a joint
statement.
A recent customer study showed that PenChart's software reduced the cost of a doctor's administrative tasks, such as filing and retrieving
paper medical records, by over 80 percent, the companies said.
Jim Fitzsimmons, a healthcare technology veteran who has run technology companies focused on the healthcare industry, has been
named president and chief executive, the companies said.
mp3PRO Format Moves Ahead On Multiple Fronts
By Joseph Palenchar
TWICE
10/8/01
Paris— The mp3PRO compression format advanced its fortunes in recent weeks on multiple developments, including an agreement between Thomson Multimedia and mp3.com to offer mp3PRO content on a joint Web site.
No date has been set for the site's launch, but Thomson said an announcement would be made soon.
Mp3PRO, the enhanced backward-compatible version of mp3, doubles the music-storage capacity of portables, delivering 128kbps MP3 performance at a 64kbps datarate while extending high-frequency response.
In other developments, Thomson announced:
availability of an mp3PRO playback plug-in for the WinAmp music-player application,
availability of a consumer mp3PRO software encoder for PCs,
and licensing of InterTrust's digital rights management technology, signaling Thomson's plans to marry mp3PRO with the copyright-management technology to encourage music company support of the codec.
In separate announcements:
Texas Instruments said it licensed the mp3PRO codec, giving its manufacturer customers the green light to offer mp3PRO upgrades for select firmware-upgradable Internet audio portables. Those portables would have to use programmable TI DSPs that have the memory to accept the upgrade. The portables must also store audio codecs in flash memory rather than in ROM.
TI also said it would ship DSPs that support mp3PRO out of the box by the end of the year.
STMicroelectronics said it is developing a DSP-based mp3PRO decoder chip destined for portable music players expected to reach the market in early 2002.
Under the partnership agreement between Thomson and MP3.com, songs on the joint-venture Web site will include top hits of several genres in 32kbps and 80kbps quality. Both companies also agreed to make available the demonstration version of the mp3PRO encoder and the mp3PRO player plug-in for WinAmp player software.
The WinAmp plug-in is already available from www.thomson-multimedia.com, www.rca.com and the Thomson media search engine, www.singingfish.com. The originator of mp3PRO, Coding Technologies, offers the plug-in at www.codingtechnologies.com.
For consumers who want to rip their own mp3PRO files, Ahead Software of Germany released a new version of its Nero software, now with mp3PRO encoder. The product can be downloaded from www.nero.com.
Future hardware devices supporting mp3PRO will include Thomson's first hard-drive-based headphone portable, the 11-ounce 10GB Lyra Personal Jukebox. It will be launched at a suggested $299 at January's CES, at which time it will encode and decode only MP3 files. A downloadable mp3PRO upgrade will be available next spring.
The device not only stores hundreds of music albums, it also streamlines the ripping and storing process because users can skip the step of transferring music to a portable device after ripping and storing it to their PC's hard drive. The device can also be used as a remote hard drive to back up data files.
Thomson said it is unlikely that its flash-memory-based Lyra portables will be upgradable to mp3PRO but that its matchbox-size Kazoo might be.
Thomson and the Fraunhofer Institute, the co-developers of MP3, are working with a third company, Coding Technologies, to develop the mp3PRO codec. Coding is applying its codec enhancement technologies to the basic MP3 patents owned by Thomson and Fraunhofer.
The mp3PRO codec will support datarates of 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80 and 96 kbps in stereo. A datarate of 128kbps, which MP3 supports, won't be needed because 64kbps will deliver near-CD 128kbps MP3 quality, Thomson said.
SDMI Indefinitely Postpones A Reevaluation Of Its Future
By Joseph Palenchar
TWICE
10/8/01
NEW YORK— The Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) plenary decided against reconvening in September to evaluate the organization's future role, and it's not certain whether the group will ever hold that debate.
A spokeswoman would say only that it would be "premature to meet with the marketplace in flux." She also said the plenary members are "still open" to agreeing on a new date. Additional clarity from the group was not forthcoming.
Last May, the plenary admitted that it hit an impasse over selecting one of multiple proposed Phase 2 screening technologies, which would be used on future packaged media and in authorized downloads to control digital copying. At the time, the group said it would meet sometime in September to decide whether it should try once again to select a Phase II technology and whether it should continue to write copyright-protection specs for additional types of consumer devices. The group previously approved specs for headphone portables, boomboxes, portable voice recorders, and wireless phones.
The Phase II technologies were intended to mark authorized downloadable files and legacy packaged media, including prerecorded CDs, with copying instructions. The instructions could be written to prevent SDMI-compliant player software and devices from copying marked songs or to allow one or more copies.
SDMI's ad hoc committees are still meeting on a variety of topics, the spokeswoman said.
SDMI has contended that its mission hasn't been made obsolete by the proliferation of digital rights management (DRM) technologies, which protect the content of internet download but not content from such legacy sources as CD.
SDMI's efforts have produced a Phase 1 watermark that music companies could apply to downloadable music files and to future packaged media, including news CDs. The watermark would trigger a pop-up notice to users of Phase 1 music-player software that they must upgrade their software to Phase 2 software if they want to download or rip a protected song.
Pocket PC Handhelds Unveiled at Microsoft Launch Audio/Video
Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 Targeted at Corporate Users - (Yahoo! Finance Vision)
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) and major computer companies on Thursday announced a passel of new handheld computers in a marketing blitz aimed at establishing the software giant's new operating system as the dominant platform for portable computing.
Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE:CPQ - news), Casio Computer Co. Ltd. (6952.T), Toshiba Corp. (6502.T), and others unveiled new devices designed to run on Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 operating system. The new handheld computers join models from Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HWP - news) announced last month.
In total, Microsoft said 22 hardware vendors had signed on to support Pocket PC 2002, which the company is touting for both its business functions and its multimedia applications, including a streaming audio and video player.
The new version of the operating system also allows users to connect to corporate networks, control desktop computers remotely, read electronic books, and run a new spellcheck function in the Pocket Word program.
In contrast to the previous generation of Pocket PC handhelds, all of the Pocket PC 2002 devices unveiled on Thursday have uniform display, processor speed, and memory standards.
The units all run on the same processor: Intel Corp.'s (Nasdaq:INTC - news) StrongARM, running at 206 megahertz. They all have reflective thin-film transistor (TFT) screens with 240x320 pixel resolution displays, and 32 megabytes of read-only memory.
Retail prices range from $499 for Compaq's iPaq H3670 to $649 for the iPaq H3870 and the Hewlett-Packard Jornada 568.
No launch date has been set for the new Casio Cassiopeia E-200, but the other devices will all launch sometime between Thursday and the end of the year.
At the San Francisco launch, Compaq unveiled a number of add-on modules for the new iPaq series, including a sleeve that will turn the device into a tri-band GSM cellular phone and wireless Internet terminal. That sleeve is expected to be available in December.
Other Pocket PC manufacturers, including HP and Casio, are planning to follow Compaq's lead from the earlier generation of devices and issue expansion sleeves that will let their handhelds use PC Cards and become cell phones, among other functions.
The launch comes as research firm IDC released a report saying that Pocket PCs were gaining ground in its bid to overtake Palm Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM - news) in the market for handheld devices, which it projected would be worth $6.6 billion by 2005.
IDC said that while Palm devices still accounted for almost 60 percent of purchases by business, the popular iPaq handhelds by Compaq were at 30 percent market share and showing signs of rising.
Among the biggest corporations, IDC said more are leaning toward supporting Pocket PC than Palm OS devices.
``Palm's pervasiveness gives it a default position in the enterprise, but Pocket PC vendors look poised to make gains,'' the research firm said.
AOL chairman feels economy has reached its bottom
(UPDATE: Updates with byline and adds details throughout)
By Reshma Kapadia
NEW YORK, Oct 2 (Reuters) - AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news) chairman Steve Case said
Tuesday he feels that the Internet sector, the economy and the country have reached a bottom
following the September attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
``I can't predict that it is an absolute bottom, but it feels like it will be up from
here,'' Case said at a Goldman Sachs conference in New York. ``I'm taking a
little bit of comfort in that things got difficult, that people are taking a step back
and people are reassessing.''
The world's largest Internet and media giant, which is home to cable networks,
such as CNN and HBO, and magazines, such as Time and People, said last
week that its 2001 and 2002 earnings would fall short of expectations, citing the
advertising climate and the Sept. 11 hijacked jetliner attacks.
The devastating events have heightened economic uncertainty and worsened
an already dismal advertising picture as companies curtail spending. Many
media companies have also incurred additional expenses in the wake of the
attacks as they try to provide comprehensive coverage of new developments.
Case said AOL ``reluctantly'' had had to reset its financial targets because,
despite its hopes, the advertising market was not coming back in the fall, or any
time soon. He said one of the company's top priorities had been to instill
discipline about making its predicted numbers.
``Even though it was getting more difficult, we were really trying to hold our numbers,'' Case said. ``And only recently it became clear that
however hard we tried -- that while it wasn't impossible, it was very difficult. And the price to pay to make the numbers in the short run
would be to limit investments that would fuel growth in the long run.''
Case said he took comfort in the diversified nature of AOL Time Warner's business, however, noting that only 24 percent of the company's
total revenue came from advertising.
He added that, given the current climate, the company, whose fall film releases include ``Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,'' might
benefit from consumers' desire to ``cocoon'' by staying close to home and watching more television, or going to the movies.
At the conference, Case outlined several other priorities, including AOL Time Warner's desire to expand its footprint globally, so that
international revenues contribute 50 percent of total revenues over the next decade, up from 20 percent currently.
NOT AN A+, BUT MAYBE AN A-
``Overall, we didn't get an A+, but certainly a B+, or maybe an A-,'' Case said, evaluating the performance of AOL Time Warner in the last
nine months since the completion of its merger. ``We are off to a good start and, obviously, it's more difficult to do with this kind of difficult
economy.''
He said the company had done a good job in integrating the two companies' cultures and employees, with relatively few changes to the
overall team. The company, which employs nearly 90,000 people, cut 2,400 jobs in January and cut another 1,000 people at its flagship
Internet unit.
In reviewing the period since the completion of AOL's $106.2 billion purchase of Time Warner, Case said he had expected the company to
be further along in the development of digital music.
He said, however, that development had been slowed largely because of the litigation involving song-swapping firm Napster and the need
for companies to collaborate on common standards.
Case also said he expected high-speed services, or broadband, to come together in the next five years. He added that the difficulty was
more about building bridges between different devices than the technology itself.
Although it sounded weird, he said, given current stock prices, he believed the difficult economic climate might prove to be helpful because
it was forcing more cross-divisional collaboration.
``Whatever fluctuations the market may experience in the coming days, weeks and months and whatever challenges we face in the
coming conflict to rid our world of terrorism, these trends toward convergence are irreversible and they will shape the future of media and
communication and reshape our lives,'' Case said.
Referring to the company's well-publicized rivalry with Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news), Case said the software giant was
getting more traction on some of its Internet services.
Meanwhile, he said, he believed a government solution was necessary to handle any problems with Microsoft's operating system and he
would prefer a settlement to litigation, which would likely prolong a resolution.
Shares of AOL Time Warner fell 1 percent, or 34 cents, to $32.44, down about 5.7 percent from pre-attack levels.
Copy protection bill divides industry, Hollywood
By Junko Yoshida and George Leopold
EE Times
(09/28/01, 3:28 p.m. EST)
WASHINGTON — A draft copy-protection bill backed by Hollywood heavyweights is triggering an outcry from PC and consumer electronics companies who say the legislation would force them to relinquish control of key system design technologies.
Written by Sen. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, the proposed Security Systems Standards and Certification Act calls for interactive digital devices to include security technologies certified by the U.S. secretary of commerce. If approved, the law would be enforceable under federal regulations and could dramatically alter the way system OEMs design and develop PCs, TVs, set-tops or other digital appliances with embedded microprocessors, according to industry sources familiar with the Hollings proposal.
The motion-picture industry, with the Disney and Fox studios in the lead, backs the legislation.
"This is the best way to protect America's valuable creative works, which in turn will expand broadband access and Internet use," said Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
But the PC and consumer electronics OEMs are lining up in opposition to the legislation, which is expected to be the subject of a hearing in late October before a Senate committee chaired by Hollings. "The regulatory system is not constructed to deal with digital product design. It only adds an extra layer of complication," said Washington telecommunications attorney James Burger, who works closely with the U.S. computer industry.
The bill's broad definition of applicable devices and its blank-check approach to federal development of the standard are said to be two major concerns.
"This is a big bill, backed by big companies with big properties. This could change forever the way you and I watch TV over the next 25 to 50 years," warned a consumer electronics executive who asked not to be identified.
Vendors fear the bill could hobble system OEMs and consumers by tightly circumscribing the way airwave broadcasts are enabled, watched, recorded and played back. "We are not in the business of making a video recorder to give Disney the authority to turn it on or off," said another consumer electronics executive based in Washington.
Hollings' Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee postponed a hearing on the security legislation until later in October.
The legislation reportedly stems from the studios' frustration with the lack of consensus thus far among content owners, PC makers and consumer electronics vendors on copy protection. Talks have dragged on for several years, and some movie studios blame the slow digital TV rollout on the absence of such an agreement — a problem they now believe Congress should rectify.
Some security technology experts questioned the soundness of the copy protection concept itself. "Copy protection doesn't work, period," said Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer for Counterpane Internet Security Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) and author of Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World. "The only hope the media companies have is to push the protection into the hardware. This works marginally better. Hence, the new bill."
Schneier also conjured the specter of control, saying he believes "the entertainment industry is trying to turn your computer into an Internet entertainment console, where they, not you, have control over your hardware and software."
The bill's draft language would make it "unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies that adhere to the security system standards." It does not specify the types of technologies, or how and where they should be applied. But it does list the criteria to which the technologies should adhere, including "reliability, renewability, resistance to attack, ease of implementation, modularity and applicability to multiple technology platforms."
The bill would give the private sector 12 months to agree on a standard or empower the commerce secretary to step in. If the industry forges an agreement within the deadline, the Commerce Department would turn it into a regulation. If not, the National Institute of Standards and Technology would determine security system standards.
The proposed legislation defines "security system technologies" broadly enough to include almost any security measures, from bit-level and wired-level protection to platform- and environment-level security, according to industry sources.
There is evidence, however, that several Hollywood studios are already considering the insertion of watermarks carrying certain copy control information in content released for digital broadcast over the airwaves. Current digital consumer electronics systems are not under obligation to conform to specific conditional-access approaches, since they are designed to receive free TV broadcasts. But industry sources said the studios want makers of such systems to install mechanisms to recognize these proposed studio watermarks.
In July, Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures Entertainment agreed to use the Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP) spec from the Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator (DTLA). But MPAA members Disney, Fox, Universal, MGM and Paramount complained that the DTCP spec lacked rigor. They sent a proposal to the DTLA asking that a watermark/copy control information recognition mechanism be added, said DTLA president Michael Ayers.
One official familiar with the DTLA activities asserted that, "at a time when we are still sorting out such issues, it is highly inappropriate for the movie studios to take an action to let the Congress steamroll it."
Even if a watermark scheme is introduced, DTLA sources questioned whether the DTCP spec is the right place to implement it. "The DTLA and its member companies are certainly interested in pursuing Congress' goal on interindustry solutions," Ayers said. But he questioned the wisdom of asking technology companies to stretch their already-limited resources for copy protection development all the way to Washington.
Intel Launches Program to Boost Car-Based Devices
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news), the world's
largest chipmaker, on Thursday announced a plan to speed up the adoption of
Internet-based navigation, multimedia, phones and other products in cars.
The new Intel Telematics Design Center will provide free Web-based
development and technical support for designing handheld and wireless
devices in cars using the company's technology.
Intel said it wants to speed up the development of products and services that are
already based on Intel's microprocessor and memory technologies, such as its Strong-ARM chip and forthcoming
XScale processor.
Intel's Strong-ARM chips are made for car-based devices and other handheld computing devices, and are used in
Compaq Computer Corp.'s (NYSE:CPQ - news) iPaq handheld device. The XScale chip, in addition to handhelds,
will also be used in smart phones.
The telematics market, for car-based devices, has been slow to take off, but automakers and technology
companies are still betting that it will ultimately be a profitable one. DaimlerChrysler AG (DCXGn.DE) chose AT&T
Wireless Services Inc. in August to provide data and voice services for devices installed in Chrysler cars in the
United States.
Santa Clara, California-based Intel said the center is part of its Intel personal Internet client architecture developer
network announced in August.
Intel said its personal client architecture accommodates other hardware and software systems, making it easy to
develop wireless Internet devices and applications. This would lead to higher sales of new types of Intel chips, it
said.
Intel shifts gears in auto tech
Updated: Thu, Sep 27 7:54 AM EDT
by Richard Shim, ZDNet News
The chipmaker is trying to entice developers of wireless communications and
navigation systems for cars by offering product blueprints and services.
Intel is shifting its telematics efforts into high gear.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker plans to announce Thursday a new program to help telematics developers get devices to market
faster by offering product blueprints based on its chips and memory. The emerging telematics market focuses on offering services for cars,
such as wireless communications and navigation systems.
Intel has been helping large partners develop custom telematics products for the past five to seven years, but now the company will open
its doors to other smaller developers.
The Intel Telematics Design Center program, which Intel will announce at a trade show in Germany, is aimed at cutting down
development time for those already familiar with Intel's platforms, such as its Personal Internet Client Architecture for mobile devices.
The chipmaker has made similar efforts in the past in hopes of finding new markets for its processors and memory.
"This could cut six to nine months off development time and get products to market faster," said Pat Kerrigan, Intel's director of
telematics. "And that could save a considerable amount of expense, especially these days."
There will be no fee for developers who participate in the program, and Intel will offer tools based on its StrongARM and upcoming
XScale processors. StrongARM processors are found in handheld devices, such as Compaq Computer's iPaq and Hewlett-Packard's Jornada.
XScale processors are slated for use in future handhelds and smart phones.
"We're reusing parts from other areas of our business, so there isn't a lot of uniqueness here," Kerrigan said. This could mean that
developers won't have to create completely new designs for telematics products and instead will only have to make slight tweaks to
existing devices.
Thilo Koslowski, a Gartner analyst, said Intel is making a smart move.
"This is the right time to get in because (telematics) is an emerging market. All the automakers and network carriers are coming up with
their solutions," Koslowski said.
In August, for example, DaimlerChrysler selected AT&T Wireless to provide voice and data services in its Chrysler cars in the United
States. Meanwhile, Toyota's Lexus and Honda's Acura divisions have signed agreements for General Motors' OnStar telematics service.
For Intel, the new program makes entering the telematics market nearly a risk-free proposition.
"Intel doesn't have to maintain anything," Koslowski said. If the program catches on with developers, Intel will "have everyone using their
tools and buying their chips and memory."
Sonicblue Discontinues Rio Car Product
Consumer electronics company Sonicblue has
discontinued production of its car MP3 player,
instead opting to integrate the Rio Car technology
into devices from automakers, car audio
manufacturers and aftermarket brands, according to
a Sonicblue executive. The Rio Car is a rebranded
version of a hard-disk based, in-dash MP3 player
from U.K. car audio company Empeg, which
Sonicblue acquired in February. Current supplies of
the Rio Car, which is available in four versions
ranging in price from $999 to $1,899, will continue
to be sold through Sonicblue's online stores until
inventory runs out. While Sonicblue exits the car
audio market, similar products from Visteon,
Napdeck and Neo are available; SimpleDevices
plans to release a car MP3 player next year that lets
users wirelessly transfer music from the PC to the
car.
Making Room for Music
Portable players can already store hundreds of hours of music, but new hard drives will offer almost unlimited capacity.
By Tech Live staff
September 10, 2001
Storage capacity for portable music devices has been steadily rising over the last couple of years, and it's changing the way people listen to music.
For the first time, people can now carry their entire music collections in the palm of their hands. Today, high-end portable music players can hold up to 20GB, or more than 300 hours of music.
But over the next couple of years, capacity will likely grow again, analysts say, giving people almost unlimited portable storage for music or other digital information.
Some people say that portable players already have enough capacity, and there's no practical reason to offer more storage. But many portable storage companies think that there may never be enough capacity to satisfy some music fanatics, and they are betting on strong demand for increased portable storage.
"There was a time when people said that there has got to be a plateau. There's got to be a capacity limit," said Elvin Low, a spokesman from portable hard drive maker TrekUSA. "But we're not seeing that in the trends. We are seeing, in fact, the reversal of that. People are more and more hungry for capacity."
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But while portable music players become even more advanced, the prices of players are falling.
One reason behind the price cuts, analysts say, are the growing number of low-end music players on the market that use cheap flash storage. Compared to music players that have hard drives, flash memory players have less capacity but are more durable and less likely to skip during playback.
For consumers, the choice between the two types of music storage should depend on their habits and intended use for the player, said Susan Kevorkian, a consumer device analyst with research firm IDC.
"I think it's really a matter of value and convenience and portability," Kevorkian said. "For example, somebody who goes to the gym a lot might prefer the Nike's PSA Play, which is less fragile because it's solid-state flash-based, instead of... another device which is hard-drive based," making it more fragile but higher-capacity.
But a couple of years down the line, analysts say they believe that hard drives will become the storage medium of choice. Hardware makers such as IBM and Maxtor are developing hard drives with the durability and speed of flash memory, but with much more capacity.
"I think in general high capacity at the right price point is going to be absolutely essential in terms of reaching consumers," Kevorkian said. "So it's going to come down to capacity vs. cost."
SDMI Cancels September Meeting
Monday, September 10, 2001
02:36 PM ET
The Secure Digital Music Initiative has postponed its September meeting, the latest sign that the consortium's three-year-old attempt to create a standard Internet music security system has faltered. An SDMI spokeswoman said that members, which represent music, computer and electronics companies, decided in August that a meeting would be "premature" because "identification of needs and demands of consumers in the areas of music content delivery continue to emerge." She said members still use a private listserv to discuss ideas, and the group's finance committee continues to meet. SDMI has not replaced its former chairman Leonardo Chiariglione, who announced his resignation in January. In May, SDMI's members decided to go on hiatus after they couldn't agree on a security technology and consumer usage rights for portable devices and CDs. Since then, the group reported a net loss of 18 companies; the spokeswoman couldn't provide a membership count, but said between 150 and 200 firms still belong. In August, Princeton researcher Edward Felten publicly demonstrated how his team was able to hack several security systems that SDMI had evaluated, including a patented echo-hiding watermark developed by Verance.
Speech By Hilary Rosen At NAB Xstream Conference
Thursday, September 6, 2001
Thank you for that kind introduction. Eddie, it is my honor to repay the compliment. The NAB and the entire broadcasting community are lucky to have Eddie and his team including Jim May and others on your side. Eddie is a universally respected figure in Washington. He is a most effective advocate, a real visionary about our changing times and our changing roles and he is a charming pleasure to work with.
And how lucky for us all that this conference is in New Orleans, the home of the truest and most American of music—jazz. You can find artists and musicians in the halls and clubs of this town who are among the finest anywhere, who have played everywhere and still prefer to come home to a unique appreciation in New Orleans.
These artists and their music are emblematic of what drives my colleagues and me in the recording industry everyday. We are the luckiest people in the world to be in a business that is about the essence of what moves people and the expression of their passion. Music is the world's uniter and that's why I wanted to be here with you today at this conference.
I want to demonstrate to you how important it is for us in the recording industry and you in the radio, streaming and webcast industries to be united in our goals in the coming months and the coming years.
"Xstream" is the name of this conference, and "extreme" is a fitting description of the times. Never have the opportunities for all of our businesses—more importantly the music fans we serve—been as thrilling as they are right now.
Today, I want to talk about what must happen to keep our industries thriving in the Internet Age. I will share some of our basic philosophies that have been driving our activities in the digital space; update you on how far we've already come; and discuss our view on some of our mutual "hot button" issues. And, I hope to leave you with some ideas for going forward from here. When I am finished with my remarks I would be pleased to take your questions and I am assured we will have some time to do that.
Let me begin frankly. Some people say you and we are through. That labels will be supplanted by direct digital transmissions from artists to consumers. That broadcasters will give way to user-controlled programming.
To them I reply: There you go again.
Each of our industries has withstood the test of time. And the test of time is the ultimate test of technology. Any industry with staying power must prove its agility in the face of technological progress.
And we have. Your business began with the tabletop radio—evolved to the transistor—and today it races around the world over fiber-optic lines.
Our medium was born in the days of the phonograph and grew up with the vinyl LP. Then came cassettes. And CD's. And digital transmissions today.
Actually, there were eight-tracks in there somewhere as well. But I just hated that packaging.
We survived these changes—make that "soared" through them—because we seized them as opportunities rather than seeing them as obstacles.
Because we understood what so many others in this business have yet to grasp.
Technology is not the point.
Don't get me wrong. Technology means everything to us. But it is a tool—a means to an end—and it is that end, not the route taken to get there, that consumers care about.
Nobody calls a deejay during request hour and says: "Could you move your signal to change the megahertz levels?" They just expect to be able to hear it clearly.
Fans don't generally stroll into a record store and demand to know precisely what kind of amplifier the guitarist was using on the CD they're about to buy. They're just looking for great music.
And great music—or whatever form of entertainment they seek—is exactly what consumers want today, on the radio or in their homes, downloaded or streamed, online or off.
I envision a day—one not far off—when the consumer experience transcends technology altogether—when digital music is a seamless experience for fans—from the tops of their desks to the palms of their hands to the dashboards of their cars and beyond. It has been a somewhat bumpy road these last two years but I am more optimistic about the future than ever.
And I came here today to carry a simple, straightforward message from America's record labels to America's broadcasters.
Let's get it done.
Let's get online music out of the courtrooms and into people's living rooms. Let's kick the lawyers out and invite the listeners in. Let's pair your delivery with our content to create what our partnership has built for the last several decades: a great music experience for the fan.
America's broadcasters understand that respect for intellectual property and a framework for protecting it will enable technology, not encumber it.
But that opinion is not universally held. Some players in the online market disagree. Especially in our case, there are those who insist that there is nothing wrong with making money off copyrighted music without compensating those who create it. I heard that Walt Mossberg, a man I respect, and have enjoyed many passionate discussions with, repeated old charges against us yesterday. That somehow as we are building a legitimate on-line music business, we should all let the Napsters and their progeny alone because we risk alienating our consumers. This is a silly charge frankly, one that has been debunked by the marketplace.
I would like someone to name me a legitimate on-line music service that did respect intellectual property over the last two years whose traffic, and ultimately the faith in their business model, was not hurt by services like Napster.
I offer this unsolicited advice to others in the entertainment industry: You can't afford to wait. In our case, the recording industry started serious investment in digital music perhaps a year or 18 months too late. Now, of course, we are spending millions of dollars to bring music online.
If there is a vacuum in the marketplace, pirates will step in. Then legitimate businesses won't be able to make money, but consumers develop expectations that are hard to change
For new media to flourish, we have to pay attention to the value of intellectual property.
Let me state that more broadly—because Eddie Fritts and Jack Valenti would be disappointed if I didn't—for our economy to flourish, we have to protect intellectual property.
Intellectual property lies at the core of American competitiveness and economic growth. In fact, it's our number one export.
Foreign sales and exports of intellectual property are bigger than automobiles, aircraft and other manufacturing.
In 1999, U.S. copyright industries achieved foreign sales and exports of more than $79 billion. The same year, these industries accounted for nearly 5 percent of GDP -- adding more than $450 billion to our economy.
Intellectual property is a foundation of the U.S. economy. And copyright law is the foundation for intellectual property.
A fundamental linchpin of this framework is the idea—now embodied in law—that a particular recording of a song deserves protection the same way the music and lyrics do.
For decades, people who write lyrics and music have been compensated for performances of their creations. Performers animate the words and bring the sounds to life. They carry different meanings to different ears. And they, and those who invest in their work, deserve reward.
But until recently, those who owned the copyrights to recordings had no right to be compensated for performances even though writers of lyrics and music were.
It is common knowledge that the absence of a performance right for broadcast media was, in essence, a historical accident. It's a relic of the days when artists dropped by radio stations and were paid to perform. Copyrights weren't extended to sound recordings until the early 70's. By that time the radio industry was up and running and creating new obligations for a mature business made little sense to Congress.
Many would argue that the analog world and its business models have served both of our industries extremely well. And there is truth to that view.
But this digital world isn't about us just selling cassettes or CD's in the stores. It is about music serving fans everywhere. Marketing niches and targeting are the buzzwords today. Creating more efficient promotions that combine with specific revenue opportunities are what is necessary for the future and possible for new artists on the horizon or older artists who have lost track of their fans. And when we have superstars, the possibilities are endless with the new vehicles to combine revenue and marketing.
Of course Congress had to create a Digital Public Performance Right! It was a critical component in the necessary growth of the digital entertainment age. The Internet and other successor digital transmission mediums are fundamentally different from broadcast. It's internationally available to listeners around the world. And, it will provide a level of customer choice previously unmatched.
Finally, and most important, multiple revenue streams as a return on an investment in an artist, guarantees a steady stream of content for all of your new services. You can't have one without the other. No one should expect the record industry to keep investing in new artists, and taking the huge financial risks that those investments require, while the rest of the technology and broadcast world reaps the benefit of the new distribution systems for their businesses while we are stuck selling physical goods in stores. It wouldn't happen. That is why working together is the best option.
The opportunities are mutual and expansive. I recently read a quote from Kevin Mayer from Clear Channel in the Wall Street journal that I remember (of course I listen carefully to everything that Kevin says). He said that Clear Channel and it competitors are looking at many new ways to leverage their existing listening and consumer base in the interactive world. I know all of you are working on this. And it is a most worthy goal.
I can't resist since I am in a room full of programmers suggesting that one of the beauties of the digital world is the enhanced ability to front and back announce songs. Consumers want this information. I urge you to do it on your analog stations and have made the same plea for 15 years. Song and artist information is a given in the on-line world and I urge analog and digital broadcasters to compete with their offerings and look for innovative ways to serve consumers desire for information.
In the world of radio and webcast transmission on the Internet, you have become our customers and we aim to serve you well. Through Sound Exchange - the organization of artist and record company representatives that was formed to administer some of the licenses under the new system - we're negotiating licenses for digital performance rights. For the last two years, we've poured enormous energy and relentless resources into that effort. More than 2,000 labels have joined us in this cause by joining Sound Exchange.
And I can tell you; it's been an exciting time.
It's been a productive time too. In the last 18 to 24 months, we have signed licenses that will make it possible to bring more than 2 billion performances online legitimately.
These deals range from startups like musicmusicmusic.com to large players like Yahoo and the stations of Broadcast.com.
Most of you know that broadcasters asserted that they/you should be exempt from paying digital performance rights when simulcasting their signals on the web.
We disagreed.
But, perhaps you would expect me to criticize NAB for taking your case on digital performance rights to court.
To the contrary: I respect you for it.
Most recently though, the federal court ruled that digital performance rights did in fact apply. We're also in arbitration right now under the auspices of the Copyright Office, with several broadcasters and webcasters participating, to determine what rates should apply for these transmissions.
So where do we go from here?
Before I answer that question, let me ask another: Is there a lawyer in the house?
Because I want to talk business.
Don't misunderstand. I like lawyers all right. Lord knows we employ enough of them. And, I suppose, we should.
But lawyers aren't going to get music online. Businesspeople are. Courts aren't going to show us the way. Consumers are. The love of the music will.
And we've got to get past the litigation. You want new businesses and so do we. With all due respect I urge you to get over the past and look to the future. This opportunity is too grand—this moment too exciting—to leave it to the lawyers.
Their specialty is the arcana of law and the art of the deal. And we need that. We sincerely do. But it should not—it must not—drive the process.
What we need are visionaries who can chart a course for getting music online and lead the voyage to get there.
Right now, those visionaries are sitting in this audience. They are exhibiting at this conference. They are working at record labels. And it's time to let their innovation loose.
It is not too late to resolve this outside of the courtroom or the arbitration proceeding. I've directed my staff to explore any reasonable, workable means of getting music online. I've told them to reach out to broadcasters—make no mistake, to protect our interests in the process—but to work with anyone who wants to build a legitimate market for online music.
In turn, I invite broadcasters to meet with us in a spirit of open minds and honest dialogue. You have my word that we will be flexible. We are open to any solution that respects the creative process and the public interest.
Some doubt the sincerity of this message. They accuse us or the record companies of refusing to license products so we can cling to an old way of doing business. But we sought these rights precisely because we saw new opportunities in the online space.
But we believe that as you seek to build a business by providing music online and extending your brand identity, even creating Internet-only side channels, broadcasters should compensate the copyright owners of the work they are using.
The more options we have for selling music, the more likely it is we'll get a favorable return on what are some of the riskiest investments in American industry. Fewer than 10 percent of record label releases even recoup their costs.
If we figure out how to take full advantage of the online space, pricing can be more flexible because there will be more varied outlets. Smaller-selling artists will have a better chance of getting real earnings by targeting their audiences more efficiently. We have already seen, through Sound Exchange, that artists who don't sell records are getting significant online airplay which deserves to be rewarded. And all of us stand to gain from new efficiencies across the market.
People must also recognize—as I believe you do—that this is new terrain. That it takes time. And most of all, that it is worth taking the time to get it right.
We are industries who need each other like the car and it's engine. And we have many opportunities to find common cause. Such as the issue of censorship and the need to balance the legitimate interest of parents with the right of artists, entertainers and yes, even talk show hosts, to free expression.
I want to pay tribute to Citadel and station KKMG in Colorado for their fight against FCC sanctions for playing an Eminem song. Now Eminem is not without controversy and I understand that he is not every American mother's dream role model for their child but he does have artistic credibility and the song played on the radio was an "edited version" that had been played on other stations for a year by the time of the FCC action. And the truth is, if you read the lyrics of the song, it is not much more fresh than Chuck Berry singing about his "ding-a-ling".
RIAA stands with Citadel in this fight and we will do all we can to support your cause and those of other stations who come under fire for playing music that you deem is worthy of your audience.
So where do we go from here? What does the future hold?
Today I say to anyone who seeks to bring music to a digital space—broadcasters, web sites, webcasters, wireless, streaming providers and more—we are ready to work with you. You can take my e-mail address off of your web sites! I assure you I am committed to your future and to your ability to bring your signals on-line in both their original format and in the new and innovative ways that you are developing.
When we first sat down, we disagreed. Show me two people who never disagree, and I'll show you a pair who never think. But it has almost universally been my experience that once we share a common goal, we can arrive at common ground.
We do—and we can.
The common goal is a powerful new experience for consumers.
For decades—since the first musical recording was broadcast over the airwaves—our industries have worked in partnership to create a joyous, exciting and vibrant musical experience for fans.
We have triumphed through technological change. And today—as music, film and the written word converges with new modes of delivery—we stand on the verge of a technological revolution that will transcend any our industries have ever seen.
Let's get it done. Let's get it done right. And let's get it done together. Thank you.
Liquid Audio should be put up for sale, says key investor
NEW YORK, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Private equity fund Steel Partners II, the biggest shareholder of Liquid Audio Inc. (NasdaqNM:LQID - news), said on Monday that the online music software company should put itself up for sale, citing a lack of confidence in the company's management and a consolidating industry.
``We are deeply disappointed that the Board has adopted a business strategy doomed to failure and has not implemented a plan to maximize stockholder value,'' Steel Partners said in a letter to the company's board of directors.
``It is Steel's belief that the company should be put up for sale to the highest bidder and that immediate measures should be undertaken to substantially reduce the cash 'burnrate,''' the letter continued.
Two upcoming online music ventures, MusicNet and Pressplay, could be potential acquirers of the company or its assets, the letter said.
Steel Partners said it owns 1.7 million shares of Liquid Audio common stock, or about 7.8 percent of those outstanding. The stock was down 2 cents at $2.28 in afternoon Nasdaq trade, the low end of a 52-week range of $1.65 to $6.97.
Trading of pirated music online is wider than ever
• Free music alternatives rise from Napster's ashes
Posted at 2:19 a.m. PDT Thursday, Sept. 6, 2001
BY DAWN C. CHMIELEWSKI
Mercury News
More people are trading more bootlegged music online than ever before despite the recording industry's relentless legal battle to quash Internet piracy.
The industry successfully shut down Napster, the rogue site that popularized music swapping, but new statistics reveal that online music exchange continues to grow. A new generation of file-swapping sites have risen up from the Internet underground to fill the void.
``It's like playing whack-a-mole: You kill one of these guys, and another one pops up to take its place,'' said Rob Batchelder, research director for Gartner Dataquest, a technology research firm in Stamford, Conn.
Exact numbers are elusive, but analysts estimate a record 15 million people downloaded music online this summer -- illicitly trading 3 billion songs in August alone. That surpasses the song-swapping binge that followed a federal appeals court ruling against Napster in February. Fear that the music free-for-all would stop brought Napster's usage to its peak -- with 13 million people hoarding billions of MP3s, the digital version of popular songs.
The courts ruled that anyone downloading copyright material without permission commits theft. But the record labels' victory hasn't deterred the practice.
Beyond music
The online bootleg bonanza isn't limited to music anymore. Anyone with an Internet connection and a little patience can download pirated movies, including first-run films like ``American Pie 2.'' They can swap the collected works of popular novelists like Stephen King. And, of course, they can find enough porn to satisfy any appetite.
The fastest-growing of these new file-swapping services, MusicCity's Morpheus and KaZaA, have attracted 3 million users since Napster introduced new, more effective song-filtering in June, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, a New York research firm that tracks Internet activity. Traffic on these services was too small to measure before then.
Other popular bootleg sites -- AIMster, AudioGalaxy, iMesh and BearShare -- are growing more slowly, but nonetheless attracted nearly a million users each, according data gathered by the online audience measurement firm Nielsen//NetRatings.
``Not only are these services less centralized -- and more difficult to police,'' said Aram Sinnreich, a digital entertainment analyst for Jupiter Media Metrix. ``But whereas Napster was only an MP3 application, consumers now have been introduced to the wonderful world of porn and movie pirating.''
In short, the recording industry's prosecution of pariah Napster did nothing to halt Internet music piracy. It has fragmented and spread, like a glass shattered against a tile floor.
Stepping in
``After 15 months, other networks just stepped into Napster's place,'' said Matt Bailey, a senior analyst with Webnoize, a Massachusetts research firm covering digital entertainment. The millions of dollars in legal fees was a waste of money for the recording industry, he said.
``We know there will be a certain amount of piracy online and offline,'' said Amy Weiss, Recording Industry Association of American spokeswoman. ``We are not going to sue our way through the Internet as we do not believe that litigation is a business model.''
However, piracy is cutting into the recording industry's business. The sustained popularity of underground file-swapping services is eroding CD sales, says Gartner's Batchelder. Indeed, sales of albums and singles are down 5.4 percent for the second quarter of the year, according to SoundScan, a firm that tracks retail record sales.
Batchelder predicts CD sales will continue to decline dramatically, with revenue off 20 percent by 2005.
``No amount of wishful thinking on the part of the music industry will stop this,'' said Batchelder.
The recording industry planned to use the legal precedents won in the Napster case to combat Internet pirates and bide time, as it prepares to launch paid subscription services.
Two new ventures backed by the record labels -- MusicNet and pressplay -- are expected to launch this month. But both services have become mired in licensing disputes with music publishers that could postpone their consumer introduction.
Remake of Napster
Even Napster plans to go legit sometime this year, remaking itself as a paid subscription service.
Analysts like Sinnreich wonder whether the recording industry has already lost the battle to the gray market.
``If the record labels put together a well-priced, easy to use service that has a broad catalog and a bunch of value-added tools and technologies that an underground service wouldn't offer, then they have a business that can become popular,'' Sinnreich said. ``If they don't do that . . . they're going to drive consumers into the hands of the gray market alternatives.''
The record industry is not about to surrender to pirates. ``Our member companies have been offering music online for consumers so fans can get music when they want it and how they want it,'' said RIAA's Weiss. Asked if the recording industry was contemplating future legal action, Weiss declined to comment.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact Dawn C. Chmielewski at dchmielewski@sjmercury.com or (800) 643-1902.
Publishers to sell e-books on Yahoo
BY DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
New York Times
Four major publishers have agreed to open an online clearinghouse on the Web portal Yahoo.com to sell their electronic books directly to readers, advancing their efforts to liberate themselves from reliance on online retailers.
Although almost no one is buying electronic books today, Yahoo is entering a scramble among publishers and booksellers battling to position themselves to profit from the potential future sales of their books in digital form.
Rob Solomon, general manager of Yahoo Shopping, said electronic books were part of the company's plan to build a business as a distributor of digital media by capitalizing on its ``neutral status, like Switzerland.'' Since Yahoo is not part of a major media company, it can provide a venue for rival media companies to sell their digital books, music and video, he said. Yahoo also has an agreement with a service to distribute digital music from more than one record company.
But by inviting publishers to sell their electronic books directly to readers through its Web site, Yahoo is also competing with Barnesandnoble.com, which pays to be the main bookseller featured on Yahoo's Web site.
A spokeswoman for Barnesandnoble.com, Carolyn Brown, said its agreement with Yahoo did not cover electronic books. Solomon said he hoped the sale and promotion of electronic books would inspire sales of printed books through traditional retailers as well.
Yahoo will receive undisclosed commissions on each sale through its site, along with other fees for promoting authors and books. Several publishers said they found the terms more attractive than selling through online bookstores.
Jack Romanos, president of Simon & Schuster, said that the arrangement would allow publishers to have their first direct contact with at least a few of their consumers.
One of the five major publishers, however, has not yet signed on. The books division of AOL Time Warner, the last of the five largest publishers, has so far declined to sell its digital books through Yahoo.
``Given the fact that sales of electronic books are not running away, we have to question whether we need to expand right now,'' said Laurence Kirshbaum, chairman of the company's books division. ``Our focus right now is on AOL.''
The Random House division of Bertelsmann, which also owns 40 percent of Barnesandnoble.com, is participating. A spokesman for Random House, Stuart Applebaum, said the companies operate at arms length.
In addition to the Simon & Schuster division of Viacom, the other publishers participating are the Penguin Putnam division of Pearson and the HarperCollins division of News Corp. Solomon of Yahoo said the company hopes to add other publishers, including small publishers, and provide a fuller selection of books.
Microchip develops new flash technology to cut cost of re-programmable MCUs
Semiconductor Business News
(09/04/01 14:09 p.m. EST)
CHANDLER, Ariz.--Microchip Technology Inc.
today disclosed a new flash memory
technology, which promises to drive down
the cost of flash-based microcontrollers to
the range of one-time programmable (OTP)
MCUs. The technology also will increase the
endurance of the nonvolatile,
re-programmable flash in 8-bit
microcontrollers, according to the company.
Also today, Microchip launched 14 new
flash-based microcontrollers, based on the
patented technology. The company said it
plans to introduce another 16 devices based
on the process technology during the next
six months as it expands its offering in
embedded markets. The Chandler-based
company disclosed the new flash technology
and microcontrollers during the opening of
the Embedded Systems Conference in
Boston today.
Microchip president and CEO Steve Sanghi
compared the new technology and rollout of
MCUs to his company's efforts to drive down
the cost of OTP-based MCUs. "We're taking
that same philosophy and technical
expertise to make flash microcontrollers
cost effective for mainstream embedded applications," he said.
The company's new flash process technology features a patented PMOS
electrically erasable Cell, called PEEC. The cell is the result of three
years of development, and it's three times smaller than
previous-generation EEPROMs, according to Microchip.
Microchip said the PEEC cell utilizes a size-reduced merged cell with a
Fowler Nordheim tunneling region instead of a defined tunnel dielectric
window. This approach improves manufacturability, repeatability and
reliability across a temperature range of -40 degrees C to +125 degrees
C. It also supports 2.0 to 5.5 volt Vdd operations, the company said.
Tests have shown devices capable of more than 5 million erase/write
cycles and greater than 40 years of data retention, Microchip said.
According to the company, this high level of reliability characterization
and manufacturability will enable microcontroller system designers to
achieve more than 1 million data memory erase/write cycles and more
than 100,000 program memory cycles.
The on-chip erase/write charge pump allows for full erase/write/read
operations at only 2.0 volts without an external Vpp voltage, Microchip
said. I/O voltages used in this technology are true 5.5V capable, said
the MCU supplier.
Microchip is aiming the technology at an 8-bit flash-based
microcontroller market that's expected to grow from $600 million in
2000 to $1.5 billion in 2003. The embedded applications cover the
gamut--everything from automotive subsystems to networked home
appliances to medical systems, parking meters, and vending machines.
Sanyo and Wolfson link DSPs and audio converters
By Peter Clarke
Electronics Times
(04/09/01 01:27 PM GMT)
Japan-based Sanyo Semiconductor and Wolfson
Microelectronics, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, have decided to
work together on audio-visual applications for the consumer
electronics and in-car entertainment markets.
As part of the deal, Sanyo is making an investment of "a few
million dollars" in return for a 6% stake in the Scottish company.
The companies refused to give further details of the value of
Sanyo's investment.
The planned partnership includes both technical and commercial
co-operation. The first mixed-signal products resulting from the
alliance are due to become available in Q2 2002.
Sanyo Semiconductor will also market all of Wolfson's products in
Japanese and related markets.
"This is Wolfson's most significant alliance yet. Much more
significant than the relationship we've had with Texas
Instruments in the past," said Julian Hayes, vice president of
marketing at Wolfson.
Hayes said the match between Sanyo's digital signal processing
(DSP) technology and Wolfson's specialism in mixed-signal
design capability had attracted Sanyo to the deal.
"There are a number of elements to this deal. We will jointly define and develop chips for the
audio-visual and in-car entertainment markets. We will sell our chips back to Sanyo. They can sell
our chips on. They will be branded 'Sanyo by Wolfson' or something like that. Thirdly we gain access
to Sanyo wafer fabrication facilities. And we gain access to Sanyo's DSP technology which they use
in all sorts of digital consumer goods."
Hayes said that the systems the two companies would define together would work standalone and
need no third-party DSP chip.
Wolfson supplies digital audio converters and has won a design-in with the Xbox games console put
together by Microsoft.
The initial joint development programmes that are currently underway focus on audio-visual
receivers, mini hi-fi and in-car entertainment systems. Wolfson and Sanyo are working on a series of
multichannel audio codecs and DSP-based products.
Hayes said the technology agreement could result in the transfer of designs in the form of licensible
semiconductor intellectual property (IP), although it was not business model that Wolfson had
exploited to date.
Hayes said: "It could be IP. Initially, we are providing packaged ICs but, for example, we could
supply bare die for use in a multi-chip package. We'll do whatever it takes. For audio, a partition
between digital and mixed signal die would seem to make sense for some time to come."
MUSIC, INTERNET GOOD FIT...
Posted at 3:56 p.m. PDT Monday, Sept. 3, 2001
Merger wallflower Yahoo may get next dance
NEW YORK (Reuters) - So far, Yahoo! Inc. has been a wallflower at the merger ball, but analysts say someone is bound to ask the Internet media firm to dance soon.
When it comes to mergers and acquisitions in the media industry, AT&T Corp.'s broadband unit is currently in the spotlight. The nation's largest cable operator is being pursued by Comcast Corp. , but it's still up for grabs. The outcome will determine who owns the distribution system that can carry a vast array of music, film and other programming.
After AT&T Broadband's fate is decided, the industry will likely shift its attention toward the issue of securing an audience for entertainment over the Web. That's where Yahoo, one of the world's most visited Web sites, enters the picture.
Yahoo has been the center of merger speculation ever since America Online Inc. spent $106.2 billion to buy Time Warner Inc. in January to form AOL Time Warner Inc. .
A host of media firms -- including Microsoft Corp. , Japan's Sony Corp. Viacom Inc. , Walt Disney Co., France's Vivendi Universal , and Germany's Bertelsmann AG -- have been mentioned as possible Yahoo suitors.
The question is: Which one will pop the question?
There is still debate over the need to have both a distribution platform, such as a cable system or an Internet service, and content, such as music, films and magazines, to succeed in this age of convergence.
But once battle lines are drawn on the distribution side of the business, content firms will likely scramble to link up. Those lines will be drawn after the AT&T Broadband is sold.
Rumors about Yahoo, which is mired in an advertising slump, have been swirling for a while. But industry watchers said several factors have prevented any bids, including the perception that Yahoo was too expensive.
``I think any acquirer would like to wait until Terry Semel (recently appointed Yahoo CEO) puts the house back in order,'' said US Bancorp Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy. ``And wait to see if there is anything to these premium services, if they are worth paying a premium for.''
Deep-pocketed Microsoft, with about $31 billion in cash, has been pegged as a likely suitor, especially as the software titan battles rival AOL Time Warner.
``Microsoft has been grabbing all sorts of content. They are trying to ultimately put themselves at the table with people like AOL Time Warner and Vivendi,'' said Mike Katz, a senior vice president at consulting firm Booz Allen.
The AOL Time Warner deal has demonstrated the benefits of using the Web to promote artists and movies, analysts said.
Such a deal ``creates a significant economic value if you look at the P&Ls (profit and loss statements). That clearly creates a lot of economic value and an advantage to those companies that have those linkages,'' said Geoff Sands, a partner at consulting firm McKinsey & Co.
The AOL deal made sense because much of Time Warner's content -- movies, music, books and magazines -- was aimed at the same audience as AOL's 30 million Internet subscribers, industry players said.
Similarly, a company that is marketing to the same type of advertisers as Yahoo -- such as Microsoft's consumer business -- would make for a logical Yahoo match, said Ken Marlin managing director at investment banking firm Veronis Suhler.
MUSIC, INTERNET GOOD FIT
``The people best in a position to monetize Yahoo are the people who are absolutely desperate or need a pre-eminent position on the Internet,'' Katz said. ``Logical candidates would be other media giants, like a Disney or Vivendi, that are worried that AOL Time Warner has the right idea.''
Sony has also been making strides in its content business and could use Yahoo as a good entry vehicle to the United States, consultants and analysts said.
``Music is another natural fit with the Internet. Although you can't predict with certainty how it will finally evolve, it's clearly a medium in which Internet-based distribution makes sense and getting to the consumer makes sense,'' Marlin said. ``Yahoo is a terrific vehicle to do that.''
Viacom sniffed around Yahoo last year, but concluded a deal was too expensive, according to a source familiar with the company.
While Bertelsmann and Vivendi have been mentioned as suitors, some analysts were skeptical.
``I don't sense any real appetite from either of these companies right now. Yahoo has been a potential deal for a long time, and it's been cheap for a long time,'' a source close to both Vivendi and Bertelsmann told Reuters.
``Of course, action from one of their competitors could bring them to attention, but I think most people agree it would not be the right time or deal for either of them right now,'' the source added.
In the case of Bertelsmann, one European analyst noted that the company may still have contractual restrictions from a deal with AOL Time Warner, preventing it from investing in competitive platforms in Europe. Bertelsmann launched AOL Europe with AOL in 1995 but then agreed to sell back its half interest to AOL last year.
Vivendi executives have repeatedly said they do not see a reason to buy Yahoo when they could have a cheaper, simpler distribution deal. Vivendi already has a distribution pact with Yahoo for its music platform Pressplay.
TIMING
Marlin of Veronis Suhler said Yahoo does not have to pair up this year because it is strong enough alone. It has a market value of about $7 billion, and is well positioned to attract mainstream advertisers.
``Prices are lower than they were a year to two years ago,'' said Morton Pierce, chairman of the mergers and acquisition practice at Dewey Ballantine. ``On the other hand, I think people are more cautious when economic times are slower. There's a more wait-and-see attitude. They are trying to figure out where the future is. But on the other hand, (companies) act more cautiously when the economy isn't robust.''
Tune-in to NBC’s Today Show on Friday, September 7th as NBC broadcasts live from CEDIA EXPO 2001!
Corey Greenberg, the Today Show’s expert on new products and technologies, will be stationed inside CEDIA’s Home of Electronic Lifestyles™ as he gives the world an inside look at the newest and greatest in custom electronics being showcased at CEDIA EXPO 2001!
Corey is one of the most widely read and respected authorities in the industry. He has contributed to many well-known trade publications including Stereophile, Home Theater, Audio magazine and most recently Sound & Vision magazine. Corey is also a contributing editor to one of Internet’s fastest growing consumer electronic sites, BestStuff.com.