Intellact News

Hasta la Vista, Microsoft!

2007-08-30T09:03:00.000+01:00

It"s faster than Windows, it fights viruses - and it"s free. Jimmy Lee Shreeve on the software that"s bringing more power to our PCs Unless you use an Apple Mac - or you"re a particularly dedicated geek - your computer almost certainly runs a version of Microsoft Windows. There"s little choice in the matter; almost all consumer PCs come with Windows already installed. Can you be bothered to change that?

But now, this stranglehold has been broken. Dell, one of the global giants that supplies businesses and homes with PCs, is selling some of its PCs with Linux, a rival operating system, already installed.

Linux makes your computer run quicker, it doesn"t crash, it doesn"t catch anywhere near as many viruses, and it"s free. For a decade, it was available only for people to install themselves. But now, the geek"s favourite is coming to the masses.

Dell"s two Linux machines are the 530n desktop and 6400n laptop. Their prices are low - £399 and £329 respectively. That"s partly because the version of Linux they run is free. Also, Linux doesn"t work your PC as hard as Windows does, so you can get the same performance with cheaper, or older, hardware.

Many in the know prefer Linux. Michael Dell, Dell"s chief executive, is presumably not bothered by cost - he"s worth $15.8bn. And what does he run on his home laptop? Linux Ubuntu. He also chooses Mozilla"s free Firefox web browser and the free software suite OpenOffice. And that"s part of the problem for Microsoft. Linux isn"t just a threat to Windows; its users will also abandon Microsoft"s Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office, too.

Linux Ubuntu comes with everything you need. There"s a powerful office program with desktop publishing, an e-mail/organiser, a web browser and instant messager. You can use your iPod with it, too.

Windows, on the other hand, is continually under assault from the nasty side of cyberspace. And the software bundled with it is more basic. You get Internet Explorer and Outlook Express for web browsing and e-mail, a notepad, a paint program and a word processor, along with various media applications. If you want more software, you have to pay for it.

Linux already powers everything from supercomputers to mobile phones. Google runs more than 10,000 Linux servers. Amazon.com switched to Linux and saved a cool $17m. The French National Assembly has started using Ubuntu on more than 1,000 computers. And since the blockbuster movie Shrek, the Dreamworks studio has been using Linux to render its 3D graphics and special effects.

Linux was created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, a student in Helsinki. It was released to his computer community, who made improvements. In 2003, Microsoft put Linux high on its risk list. "The general economic environment is risk and driver No 1," said John Connors, Microsoft"s then chief financial officer. "Linux and non-commercial software is risk No 2." Linux needs to pick up 2.5 million users a year to claim even 1 per cent of the market, but with Toshiba rumoured to be pondering a range of PCs with Linux installed, it could be the thin end of the wedge.

So is this the time to make a switch to Linux with your next PC purchase? Should you take Windows off your creaking old machine and give it a new lease of life, courtesy of Linux? Our table of comparisons will help you decide.

What's best about it?

What's worst about it?

How much does it cost?

Is it good for music fans?

What about photos and videos?

What if i need to use it for work?

Does it crash much?

How would i fight viruses?

Linux Ubuntu 7.04 "Feisty Fawn"

Should make your existing computer responsive and lightning-fast - switching it on, powering down, and launching programs are all so much quicker than on Windows. And unlike Windows, Ubuntu doesn"t slow down over time.

It may not have every feature you"d like - it"s quick because it"s stripped-down. Plus you could have difficulties getting Ubuntu to work with other hardware. It"s not quite as "plug and play" as Windows.

It"s free! But if you run into difficulties and need technical support you will have to pay for it (unless the free Ubuntu online forums can help, that is). This costs around £125 a year.

Comes with Sound Juicer, for ripping audio from CDs; Rhythmbox, for organising music and listening to internet radio (the closest thing to iTunes); Serpentine, for burning CDs; and Sound Recorder for recording anything on your PC.

"F-spot" lets you get them from your camera and organise them into albums. Movies and videos can be watched in the Totem Movie Player, which compares well to other movie apps that are available.

The powerful free office program, OpenOffice, comes as default with Ubuntu. Many say it rivals, or even beats, Microsoft Office. The word processor is particularly sophisticated. The presentation, spreadsheet and drawing components are equally impressive and easy to use.

No. Linux is renowned for being one of the most stable operating systems around.

The vast majority of virus attacks are not aimed at Linux. But if you are concerned, the excellent Aegis Virus Scanner comes with the Ubuntu package and can run in the background searching for dubious files or attachments as you work.

Linux Mandriva

Linux Mandriva is a more attractive and fully featured operating system than Linux Ubuntu, but some say it"s not as fast. The Beagle search is a big boon, enabling you to search documents, chat rooms, email and contact lists. It"s also very fast - and has an attractive, intuitive interface.

Some users report that Mandriva struggles when you want to plug in a new USB hard drive or flash memory stick - it"s not always as simple to set them up as it is with other systems.

The latest package, Mandriva Linux Discovery 2007 Spring For Beginners, costs just £34. If you haven"t had previous experience with Linux, you may also want the manual, at £21. The snag: it"s 292 pages long.

You can produce your own music with the Linux MultiMedia Studio. To store and play your favourite tunes you use Rhythmbox, which was inspired by Apple"s iTunes. It has all the usual features, including streamed internet radio and podcasts.

The Photo Album application is included, which does a great job of organising your snaps and lets you enhance colours and reduce red-eye. It also allows you to view slide-shows and print your snaps.

Evolution is the Outlook equivalent of Linux and lets you send e-mails and organise your calendar and contacts. Office 1.6.2 is a lightweight but more than adequate office suite.

Crashes aren"t common on any Linux system - so long as it is properly set up. If they do happen it is usually down to a hardware problem.

Linux rarely catches viruses, but the free Clam AntiVirus software is very easy to set up and automatically updates so it can look f or the latest viruses. Many Linux users feel comfortable not using any anti-virus software at all.

Windows Vista

Everything looks sharper and more vivid than it does on the outgoing Windows XP. The new Flip 3D application helps you quickly switch between the different windows, and the search features have been greatly improved, too.

Six months after it launched, gripes continue. Many people still complain that they can"t run their favourite programs on Vista, so many others are holding off upgrading from XP until a second edition of Vista arrives.

Around £180 for the home Premium edition (£120 if you have XP already). If you want all the bells and whistles, go for the Ultimate edition at around £320.

It"s on a par with Mac"s offering, and better than the Linux equivalents. The new Windows Media Player lets you rip CDs to your PC, buy new tracks, and link to an MP3 player.

All the basics are covered. Windows Media Centre also lets you browse your photos, put on slide-shows, play DVDs, watch and record TV shows from the web, download movies and watch your home videos. Or use Windows Movie Maker to cut your own home movie.

£290 buys Windows Vista Business, with its fax software, but you could buy a fax machine for that. MS Office costs £300 - but try OpenOffice, its free rival ( http://www.openoffice.org ).

Microsoft says Vista is the most stable release of Windows yet. Many users, however, are unimpressed - they complain of crashes on a daily basis, saying it may be feature-packed but it"s still not safe.

You"ll need to buy your own antivirus software, such as Norton Internet Security 2007 (around £40).

Windows XP

XP is in its final edition, so most bugs have been ironed out - unlike the newer Microsoft Vista package. Many programs don"t yet work with Vista (Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox browser, recommends you stick with XP), so it might be wise to keep using XP for a while yet if you already have it.

Microsoft will end support for XP Home Edition in a couple of years. This means you"ll have to ensure you keep your antivirus software up-to-date, but even so, security could still be compromised.

It"s no longer available in most shops, but you can pick up used copies on Amazon, and elsewhere on the web, from about £50 up to about £100.

Windows Media Player 10 will serve most of your music needs. It"s not as good as the music softeare in Vista or Mac OS X, but you can sync your music collection with over 70 different MP3 players. Smart Jukebox lets you burn music to CDs, rip your own CDs and listen to internet radio.

Photos can be viewed and organised in XP"s default viewer. Better still, download the free Irfanview ( http://www.irfanview.com ), which also doubles as a basic photo editor, and plays movies.

You can either pay for MS Office (£300 for the standard edition) or get the cheaper Microsoft Works for around £70. Alternatively, download the free Open Office, which zips along on XP and has all the features of MS Office, but doesn"t have the Outlook organiser.

Like all versions of Windows you"ll get the infamous "blue screen of death" now and again. One way to minimise this is to avoid loading too many programs, or plugging in too many different types of hardware at the same time.

It"s essential to run your own antivirus software. A good option is Avast! 4 Home Edition, which is free ( http://www.avast . com/eng/ avast_4_home.html). Otherwise you have to buy something like Norton Internet Security 2007 (around £40).

Mac os x tiger

It"s very easy to use and set up and has all the essentials included: calendar, e-mail and address book, and a web browser. The Spotlight search technology finds lost files in seconds.

Once you"re in the Apple world it"s hard to migrate to other operating systems. Apple provides everything - the hardware, software and OS - which tends to lock you in. You can"t just install it on a PC.

The basic operating system is £89. Since it"s so easy to easy to use, you"re unlikely to incur any extra technical support costs.

Mac"s iTunes still sets the pace, letting you buy audio and video from the iTunes store, rip music from your CDs and burn your own compilations.

iMovie records and edits videos, while QuickTime 7 lets you view them. And iPhoto organises and does some simple editing of photos and other images.

Networking and four-way video conferencing are bundled in. OpenOffice gives you a good free word processor, spreadsheet and so on. If you buy MS Office, you"ll see that Outlook isn"t made for the Mac, but Entourage is, and it does the same thing.

Mac OS is a very stable operating system and rarely crashes. An application might quit but the whole machine won"t freeze, so you don"t have to restart.

The Mac operating system is extremely secure. Viruses and worms that target Windows are virtually non-existent on the Mac. It also has built-in security settings so you can encrypt data and set various password-protection options.

Why Apple Can't Stop iPhone Hackers

2007-08-30T09:01:00.000+01:00

... AT&T and Apple may face an uphill battle prosecuting hackers who untether the iPhone from the AT&T wireless network.

It sure sounds like a steal. On Aug. 31, George Hotz plans to trade in his iPhone for a metallic blue Nissan (NSANY) 350Z sports car and three brand-new iPhones. But the 17-year-old's device is no ordinary Apple phone. Hotz hacked his iPhone and unlocked it so that it can be used on a variety of cell-phone networks, becoming the first person known to have done so. The person buying Hotz's phone, Terry Daidone, believes he's the one getting the deal because Hotz has agreed to work for him at his cell-phone refurbishing company, CertiCell. Daidone says he doesn't plan to sell unlocked iPhones just yet. Rather, he says that he wants Hotz to teach CertiCell's technicians the secrets to unlocking other kinds of cell phones. But that could change -- if he can clear up legal questions surrounding the practice of unlocking mobile phones. "As the need arises to unlock phones, we should be at the forefront of that," Daidone says.

Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T), the sole authorized supplier of the iPhone in the U.S., are doing what they can to make sure that legal clearance never comes. The two companies have put their lawyers on the case, applying pressure on hackers involved in unlocking iPhones to try to get them to stop. Much is at stake. AT&T has been hoping that as the exclusive provider of the iPhone, it will see a surge in new customers and monthly service charges of at least $60 from each one. Apple is supposed to get a cut of the revenues. If iPhones are unlocked, they can be used on the wireless networks of rivals like T-Mobile USA -- and AT&T gets zippo. AT&T wouldn't comment for this story, while Apple didn't return a request for comment.

So will Apple and AT&T's legal action deter hackers? Hardly. Individual users are already allowed to unlock their own phones under an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act [DMCA] that the U.S. Copyright Office issued last November. The exemption, in force for three years, applies to "computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network."

What's less clear is whether companies and hackers can legally unlock the phones and then sell them to others, or sell unlocking software. "The law here is unclear," says Jonathan Kramer, founder of Kramer Telecom Law Firm in Los Angeles. "There just isn't any case law in this area for us to figure out how it plays out."

Experts believe that AT&T and Apple will point to the DMCA's section 1201, stating that "no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." They will claim that a phone lock is just such a technological measure that protects copyrighted work: namely, cell-phone software.

Problem is, it could be argued that, in reality, the lock only protects access to a carrier's communications network -- and communications services aren't copyrightable under the Act, explains Jane Ginsburg, professor of literary and artistic property law at Columbia Law School. "This law was written for DVDs and video games," she explains. "What's going on here is using the Copyright Act to achieve another objective."

Indeed, this time, hackers may have the law on their side. Remember, decades ago, automakers built their instrument panels so that only authorized radios of their own manufacture would fit in. Eventually, U.S. courts ended that practice. "If Apple and AT&T push too hard, they might see a revision of [the Copyright Act, and it won't be in their favor]," says Richard Doherty, director of consultancy the Envisioneering Group.

That's why, for now, some hackers contacted by AT&T lawyers still plan to release their wares. "Over the next few days you will get what you are looking for," promises an Aug. 27 message posted on the Web site of UniquePhones, which helps people unlock mobile phones.

Demand for unlocked iPhones, which sell for $499 and $599, is rising. Already, the phone has become a cultural phenomenon, with enthusiastic fans going to great lengths to get their hands on one. Consumers in rural areas where AT&T doesn't have a network or in markets with spotty AT&T coverage may want to use the popular device through T-Mobile's network. Overseas, consumers want to try it in conjunction with Orange (FTE) and Vodafone (VOD) wireless service. "If Apple offered unlocked iPhones for $1,200, they'd probably sell some," Doherty says.

Frustration over locked iPhones is showing up in the courts as well. A class-action lawsuit filed on Aug. 27 in the Supreme Court of the State of New York tells of an iPhone buyer who racked up $2,000 in charges because he couldn't use a different carrier's network while he was on a trip to Mexico. Filed against Apple, the suit claims the plaintiff didn't know that iPhone was tethered to the AT&T network.

Many hope that the legal wrangling will, eventually, result in major shifts in how the U.S. wireless industry operates. For one, a case could pave the way to making all wireless networks more open to unlocked phones. In the next five years, 10% to 15% of U.S. wireless users could move to unlocked phones, figures Andrei Jezierski, founder of venture consultancy i2 Partners in New York [see BusinessWeek.com, 12/4/06, "Motorola, Nokia Set Cell Phones Free"].

Plus, to answer pent-up demand for untethered phones, a cell-phone carrier could differentiate its offerings by selling all of its handsets unlocked, says David Chamberlain, an analyst with consultancy In-Stat. "It's an anomaly that the phones are tied to individual carriers," he says. "Can we change that business as usual? Maybe. But people who want that will fight for a very long time."

Nokia breaks into music, gaming services

2007-08-30T08:58:00.000+01:00

Nokia, the world's largest cell phone maker, unveiled an online music store, a gaming service and four new multimedia handsets in a move to take a greater share of consumer spending from mobile operators.

Nokia, which sells more than one third of the world's cell phones and is seeking new sources of revenue as that industry matures, said its core market of making mobile handsets was just "not enough anymore."

"We are trying to make the cake bigger for everyone: our piece grows, but also operators will benefit through data revenues," Tapio Hedman, head of marketing for Nokia's multimedia unit said.

Nokia's shares jumped to their highest level in more than five years on the news. But some of its top customers -- mobile phone operators that have built their own music service offerings -- reacted with caution.

"Some operators in Europe will not like this at all," said Shaun Collins, managing director at research firm CCS Insight.

Nokia Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said at an all-day event in London that the company would start to sell touch-screen phones -- Nokia's answer to Apple Inc's iPhone handsets -- using its popular S60 software next year.

Nokia shares jumped to levels last seen in April 2002 and then closed 4.6 percent higher at 23.31 euros in Helsinki.

Nokia said it would wrap mapping services, its new music store and gaming services into an Internet service offering under new brand "Ovi," a Finnish word for "door."

" Nokia is seeking to become a gatekeeper to services to increase brand loyalty -- one brand with several hooks," said Glitnir analyst Jussi Hyoty. Nokia said it aimed to introduce the brand to consumers on a step-by-step basis, combined with its other advertising campaigns.

Nokia unveiled a top-end music and gaming phone, the N81, and a new version of its top profit generator, the N95 handset, its key rival to the iPhone. Nokia also unveiled two mid-priced music phones: the Nokia 5310 and 5610.

"The range of new handsets with good storage steals a march perhaps on iPhone. If they can get the high-storage device out before the iPhone hits (Europe), that would be a good idea," said Daniel Winterbottom, an analyst at research firm Informa.

Apple, which broke into the cell phone industry this year, saw its long-awaited iPhone handsets fly off shelves when the sleek, touch-screen multimedia device hit U.S. stores in June. Its European launch is expected later this year.

Nokia said it would roll out its own music store in key European markets -- Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain -- later this year, with songs selling for 1 euro ($1.36) each, a similar price point to Apple's iTunes.

Nokia's music store will start with a couple of million songs, compared to more than 5 million titles in iTunes.

"This service isn't sufficiently differentiated to make a major impact in terms of convincing consumers to either start using legal download services, or wean them off of Apple's service and dedicated music devices," said analysts at Forrester.

Nokia said it hopes to benefit from its presence in more than 130 countries in tailoring music offerings to local tastes.

Analysts said the music industry would welcome a serious alternative to iTunes, which dominates the digital music distribution market. But shares in Apple rose nonetheless, fueled by excitement over the pending launch of new iPods.

Vodafone in mobile broadband fast lane

2007-08-30T08:55:00.000+01:00

Vodafone is upgrading its mobile broadband services to offer speeds that are 10 times faster than the current "standard".

From 3 September subscribers will be able to download content up to 14 times faster and upload at around 10 times the speed via HSUPA (high-speed uplink packet access) technology.

The upgraded service will be rolled out during the autumn, starting with central London and major airports - including the London airports, Birmingham and Manchester - before being pushed out to the rest of the country.

Laptop users will be able to subscribe to the service for 49 per month on an 18 month contract which can be purchased online or in-store.

Vodafone will offer a 'plug and go' USB modem as well as two datacards, known as ExpressCards, one of which is a 'plug and go' datacard and another said to be more suitable for corporate customers.

Each device will have two antennas to boost connectivity in weaker signal areas.

Download speeds of up to 7.2Mbps will eventually be possible but initially speeds will range between 1.7Mbps and 5.5Mbps, allowing users to download a 5MB file at a minimum of seven seconds, 14 times faster than standard 3G.

Upload speeds will also be boosted to 1.44Mbps, 10 times faster than 3G currently.

Vodafone cut its 3G mobile broadband prices at the beginning of July, with the monthly tariff falling from 45 to 25.

Security slows UK wireless uptake

2007-08-30T08:54:00.000+01:00

Employee mobility (43%), convenience (23%) and increased productivity (12%) are the key factors driving wireless network adoption by UK businesses according to recent industry rese Employee mobility (43%), convenience (23%) and increased productivity (12%) are the key factors driving wireless network adoption by UK businesses according to recent industry research conducted on behalf of wireless network assurance solution provider, AirMagnet. The research demonstrated that although British companies are increasingly aware of the benefits offered by wireless connectivity in the workplace, concerns about security and poor performance continue to hold back wLAN (wireless local area network) adoption for many firms.

The survey found that 43 per cent of companies who have so far resisted wireless adoption in the workplace have done so because they are concerned about how to ensure the wireless network’s security. A further 29 per cent are delaying implementation because they perceive wLANs to be slower or less reliable than traditional wired networks.

Wireless technology can be highly effective in giving firms a competitive advantage over their peers through increased productivity. Access to a wireless network enables increased productivity via remote working and offers businesses more efficient use of resources and infrastructure without sizeable installation costs. These benefits are clearly being felt by business who have already made the transition to wireless with almost two thirds (63%) of those already using the technology saying they intended to increase investment in their wireless network in the future.

Ian Schenkel, MD EMEA at AirMagnet comments: “The research demonstrates that although many companies have already moved to a combination of wired and wireless networks in the office to increase employee productivity, incorrect preconceptions are continuing to hold many more back. This means that most are still missing out on the increased productivity, mobility and convenience delivered by wireless networks.”

Schenkel continues: “The security concerns expressed by respondents are easily addressable using a variety of different methods.

For example, point monitoring using a mobile device or laptop solution allows users to identify isolated risks. Ad hoc or continuous monitoring with an enterprise level tool which alerts users to any potential threats or security weaknesses, in some cases proactively scanning the network for potential issues, adds a further level of security to protect users.”

“The perception that wireless networks are less reliable than their wired counterparts seems to linger on but this does not have to be the case. In order to ensure coverage and reliable performance as well as fast speeds users simply need to plan ahead. Today’s WiFi survey tools are able to analyse sites, locating the best position for access points and avoiding interference such as glass, lift shafts and metal doors prior to implementation. In the case of an installed network, a survey tool can offer a clear understanding of potential obstructions and where extra access points could be of use in the future –avoiding the concerns identified by respondents.”

Deutsche Telekom pins hopes on IPTV to lure customers

2007-08-30T08:52:00.000+01:00

Deutsche Telekom hopes to tap into the growing market for television over the Web with new packages and lower prices in its drive to keep and win back customers. Europe's largest telecoms group by sales said it plans to gain 100,000-200,000 new customers by the end of this year for its Internet-based TV, said board member Timotheus Hoettges at a press conference ahead of the start of a trade fair in Berlin.

Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) will be available to 17.2 million households by the end of 2007, Hoettges said. The service currently reaches 15 million households.

The Bonn-based company is offering new products to attract customers to compensate for a steady loss of customers in its traditional fixed-line business.

IPTV is television programming provided via broadband cable and allows viewers to watch what they want when they want. It also has high-definition images and fast downloads.

For fixed-line operators like Deutsche Telekom IPTV is seen as a chance to compete against cable companies' all-in-one packages of video, voice and Internet services.

"IPTV is ready for the mass market," Chief Executive Rene Obermann said, adding the company planned to expand its high-speed VDSL network across Germany. It currently reaches 27 cities.

Its ADSL2+ technology is installed in 750 towns and cities.

ADSL is a form of DSL (digital subscriber line) that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines. ADSL2+ doubles the speed of transmission.

Subscriptions to IPTV services across Europe are expected to rise to 5.6 million this year from 2.9 million last year, with subscription revenue rising to more than 1 billion euros from 470 million euros, according to media research company Screen Digest.

Eyes on the Road: Digital Dream, Driving Reality

2007-08-29T09:45:00.000+01:00

I am not a tech-savvy guy. Still, when I get into my car for the morning commute, I bristle with digital devices. I have an iPod full of music, a BlackBerry that doubles as a phone, and a CD loaded with MP3s of tunes passed along by offspring or friends who want to upgrade my musical tastes. On the way to work, I am tempted to fumble with the iPod's touchy selector wheel to find the podcast of that NPR quiz show I like. Or I might punch a number into my phone handset to make a call. Either way, I am endangering myself and other drivers. I know email messages are stacking up in the BlackBerry. I know I mustn't read them at 65 miles per hour, despite my anxiety about missing a note that will betray my abuse of the "present while absent" function that comes with a BlackBerry subscription.

But the dream of turning cars into digital communication hubs hasn't died. Now, car makers and technology suppliers are rallying to take another shot and to develop a safe way for drivers to manage their digital clutter and connectivity angst while on the road.

Ford Motor Co., for example, hopes to generate buzz with a system called Sync, developed in collaboration with Microsoft Corp. and being rolled out on about a dozen Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models.

Ford's effort grew out of the frustration of a small group of Ford engineers with the auto industry's tendency to lag behind personal-electronics trends, says Gary Jablonski, manager of infotainment system engineering for Ford in Dearborn, Mich. "Customers want the same stuff in their cars that they see in Best Buy," he says. "We are generally a year behind."

Their idea: Develop a system, using a variant of Microsoft's Windows CE software, that can link to various digital devices using either Bluetooth wireless technology or a USB port. Then, no matter what kind of device is involved, the system can operate it using a voice-recognition system or the buttons, knobs or touch screens provided for the car's basic audio system.

If I had a Sync-equipped car, my morning drive might go like this: I would plug the iPod into a USB port in the storage bin under the center armrest and pair my BlackBerry with the car's audio system using Bluetooth.

To get the iPod to play, I could tell the system, "Play genre jazz," and the iPod would start playing tunes in that category.

To make a call, I could say, "Phone," and then say the name of a person listed in the phone's contact list. I could also sound out numbers. Using the phone hands-free would keep me legal in states that have rules against juggling the handset while in motion. However, there's considerable evidence that just carrying on a phone conversation is a distraction that undermines driving performance, whether you have a hand on the phone or not.

Provided I had the right kind of phone, I might command the system to read aloud text messages -- a better choice than reading them from the phone screen at highway speeds. The Sync system will even translate text abbreviations, such as "LOL," or "CUL8R," Mr. Jablonski says.

Perhaps Ford and Microsoft could develop a home edition of to decode the speech of teenagers for their parents' benefit.

The most impressive trick Mr. Jablonski performed was finding a British radio site on his Web-enabled phone and then piping the broadcast wirelessly from the phone to the Edge's sound system. Not every phone could do that, he cautions.

So how will all this go over in the real world, where Internet radio broadcasts time out, phone calls drop, Bluetooth earpieces produce annoying echoes, and PC software crashes?

The market-research firm J.D. Power & Associates this month released an outline of its latest survey of consumer interest in new automotive technology, which offers some encouragement and some caution for products such as Sync.

The good news is that half of the consumers polled for Power's 2007 emerging-technologies study said they would be interested in paying as much as $100 to get a USB interface in their next car. Asked if they'd pay $150 to get an iPod interface, about 43% said yes.

At a theoretical price of $200, "wireless connectivity" came in at No. 8 among 19 different technologies listed, according to Power. Ford plans to charge almost double that, about $395, for Sync as a standalone option. (It will be standard on the Lincoln lineup.)

However, Power's survey indicates consumers are generally more inter ested in certain safety technology; smart air bags, backup assistance systems and run-flat tires ranked 1, 2 and 3, respectively.

When it comes to entertainment systems, consumers want to be able to use their digital music players in the car. But they also express considerable enthusiasm for premium sound systems, and particularly systems bearing recognized high-end audio brands, says Power's Mike Marshall.

Among consumers who say they are interested in "premium audio" at a cost of $500, about 80% are willing to pay double that to get a name brand, such as Bose, he says. The top three brands, Mr. Marshall adds, are Bose, Alpine and Sony. This is no longer a luxury phenomenon. Nissan Motor Co. is offering a Rockford Fosgate system on its Nissan Sentra compact.

By Joseph White

How to keep the lid on a good idea...

2007-08-29T09:43:00.000+01:00

Investors on the hunt for funds risk communicating their key concepts to potential rivals.

For the entrepreneur, balancing the need to protect a business idea and the need to share it with potential investors and partners can be tricky. That is especially so in Silicon Valley where thousands of would-be technology moguls are racing to create the next big thing, and where good ideas, sometimes based on merely a few fleeting bits of software code, have a way of spreading around.

'My advice to early entrepreneurs is be careful,' says Jerry Kennelly, co-founder and chief executive of Riverbed, a networking equipment maker. 'Don't disclose more than you have to.'

His is the voice of experience. In 2002, when Steven McCanne approached him with an idea for a new technology that would dramatically increase the speed of corporate computer networks, he knew he would be collaborating with someone he could trust.

The two men had worked together at Inktomi, a bubble-era online start-up whose pay-per-click revenue model was later perfected by Google. They also happened to be neighbours in the college town of Berkeley, just across the bay from San Francisco. In addition to being an entrepreneur, Mr McCanne is an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

'We had talked off and on,' says Mr Kennelly. 'We both wanted to be entrepreneurs again and to have our own company. I had gone over one Saturday to help him mow the lawn, and he mentioned he had this technology. So we met at a coffee shop in Berkeley. We had coffee, shook hands, and on Monday he went in and quit his job.'

By the time Mr Kennelly left his own job several weeks later, they were ready to get Riverbed off the ground. 'The first thing we did after we incorporated was pick a law firm to draw up a non-disclosure agreement,' says Mr Kennelly. 'We made sure we had clean title to any software code wedeveloped - we'd never pay anyone to do anything unless we hadfull ownership of all the intellectual property they made for us.'

Mr Kennelly, who had also worked at Hewlett-Packard and Oracle, says: 'I'm a trusting guy and, in general, people in big companies are decent, honest, moral people. When you get to the start-up world, it's different. It's people struggling to get by. It's people trying to finance, to get rich. They're not bad people, but everyone is on the make.'

But while non-disclosure agreements help protect an idea when shopping it around to potential employees or partners, they are of little use when it comes to pitching a company to venture capitalists. As a rule, VCs do not sign non-disclosure agreements.

'It's very different when you're recruiting co-founders or employees than when you're pitching for money,' says Furqan Nazeeri, a serial entrepreneur who now works as an entrepreneur-in-residence at SoftBank Capital, a Boston-based venture capital firm. 'When you are pitching for money, VCs talk to each other a lot, so it's more likely the information is going to be passed on.'

Paranoia about venture capitalists can be extreme in Silicon Valley. Jessica Livingston, a venture capitalist and author of Founders at Work, a book about the early lives of companies, points to the example of Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith, the founders of Hotmail.

The two knew they were on to something big when they started seeking funding for the world's first web-based e-mail service. They became so paranoid that they pitched venture capitalists a completely different idea.

'Once they sort of felt out the investors, and decided they wanted to work with them, it wasn't until then that they told them about the real idea, which was web-based e-mail,' says Ms Livingston.

Steve Jurvetson, a partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, one of Hotmail's venture backers, says entrepreneurs tend to go overboard when it comes to secrecy. Concerns about venture capitalists chatting about start-up ideas with each other or their portfolio companies, he says, are overblown. 'We don't share things with other VCs,' he says. 'Our ability to do our job is predicated on the trust entrepreneurs have in what we are doing.'

Not all venture capitalists may be so scrupulous.

'The first VC we went to didn't want to fund our company,' says Mr Kennelly. 'They wanted us to join an existing company of theirs. Lo and behold, about 15 months later the company came out with a copy of our original idea.'

In that case, the aggressive intellectual property strategy Riverbed adopted from the outset paid dividends. 'By then, we had already patented it. They folded and went out of business. Had they not folded, we would have challenged them,' he says.

Venturing groups inside big, established companies can present a bigger problem. 'I do caution entrepreneurs to treat corporate backers very carefully,' says Mr Jurvetson. Once the seed has been planted, he says, 'corporations can execute very well on an idea'.

Mr Kennelly's experience at Riverbed bears this out. 'VCs often bring in an outside expert to help them understand what you are talking about. The second firm we saw brought in a Cisco employee who was on their payroll onthe side. That made us verynervous.'

Cisco, the world's biggest maker of data networking equipment, eventually funded a Riverbed competitor, according to Mr Kennelly.

Noam Wasserman, a professor at Harvard Business School who specialises in entrepreneurship, says start-ups can lessen the risk of theft of their idea beforethey make a pitch to would-be investors.

'Entrepreneurs should do due diligence on the people who will be seeing the pitch,' he says. 'This can be done via word of mouth, or even online via sites like TheFunded and LinkedIn.'

Entrepreneurs should also think of an initial pitch as the first in a series of meetings in which a start-up team and its potential backers can feel each other out and try to establish a bond of trust.

'Just as trailers for movies show enough to whet the moviegoer's appetite for more, the initial pitch should also whet the investor's appetite for more,' Prof Wasserman says.

Another lesson founders should bear in mind is that ideas are just one part of what makes a successful company. Much of the success - most of it, many would say - comes down to implementation.

'It is only in retrospect that you know you have a big idea,' says Mr Nazeeri. 'Implementation is a lot of work but it's the thing that you can have a lot of impact with. Successful businesses have a combination of both.'

Sony software makes PCs vulnerable, researchers say

2007-08-29T09:42:00.000+01:00

Software included with high-end memory sticks sold by Sony Corp can make personal computers vulnerable to attack by computer hackers, according to researchers with two Internet security firms. Sony's MicroVault USB memory stick and fingerprint reader includes software that creates a hidden directory on the computer's hard drive, researchers with Finnish security software maker F-Secure Corp reported on the company's blog on Monday.

Such software that hides itself, which is known as a root kit, leaves room for hackers to secretly infect personal computers, they said.

Software that is installed on such hidden drives is not only invisible to the human eye; some types of computer security software are unable to detect viruses and other types of so-called malware, or malicious software, stored on them.

F-Secure's blog posting said it attempted to contact Sony before alerting the public about the software, but the company had not replied.

Sony spokesman Chisato Kitsukawa said he could not immediately comment on the situation.

On Tuesday, researchers with McAfee Inc. said they had confirmed the vulnerability described by F-Secure.

"The apparent intent was to cloak sensitive files related to the fingerprint verification feature included on the USB drives," said McAfee spokesman Dave Marcus. "However, software creators apparently did not keep the security implications in mind. The application could be used to hide arbitrary software, including malicious software."

This is not the first time F-Secure has found Sony software installing hidden directories on the drives of its customers. In 2005 there was a similar situation involving the electronics maker's digital rights management software, security experts say.

Google CFO Reyes plans to retire by end of year

2007-08-29T09:40:00.000+01:00

Google Inc said on Tuesday finance chief George Reyes plans to retire, ending a bumpy five-year ride for an executive charged with trying to manage ferocious growth while upholding a policy of refusing to give financial forecasts.

As chief financial officer, Reyes, a veteran Silicon Valley financial executive, worked out of the public spotlight in a company led by its two co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and its chairman and chief executive, Eric Schmidt.

Reyes, 53, helped spearhead the initial public stock offering of the world's top provider of Web search and online advertising services in August 2004. The stock has risen fivefold in the three years since then.

But Google investors received a shock in July when a surprise 13 percent jump in second-quarter hiring and rising operating expenses led to a rare profit disappointment.

The stock, which traded upward of $550 in mid-July, has declined since then, closing at $506.40 on Tuesday.

"They need a higher-caliber CFO, many people on Wall Street will tell you," said Martin Pyykkonen, a financial analyst with Global Crown Capital. "He had a couple of snafus."

Pyykkonen said the recent quarter had exposed a lack of internal financial controls that could have helped to rein in Google's aggressive hiring and averted the disappointment.

As a financial manager, Reyes played a notably subservient role within a company famously led by and for engineers. Efforts by Google's leadership to keep Wall Street at arm's length further marginalized Reyes role as a senior executive.

Google's spectacular growth in revenue and profit served to mask investors' concerns about Reyes, the analyst said. Wall Street analysts expect Google revenue to more than double its 2006 level by the end of 2008, growing to $21.8 billion.

"When the machine has been running on autopilot, you can hide a lot of inefficiencies," Pyykkonen said.

Reyes will help in the search for his replacement, and the Mountain View, California-based company expects the transition to be completed by the end of the year.

His total compensation package was worth about $1.7 million in 2006, according to the company's annual proxy statement. He held stock options at the end of last year that would have yielded him $23.6 million, according to the government filing.

Reyes previously served as interim CFO of optical networking equipment company ONI Systems before it was sold to network communications gear maker Ciena Corp in 2002.

For 13 years, he held various financial executive positions at computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc .

Reyes serves on the boards of two Silicon Valley software makers: Symantec Corp and BEA Systems Inc . He was never a member of Google's 10-member board of directors.

He is the uncle of Gregory Reyes, the former chief executive of Brocade Communications Systems Inc , who earlier this month was found guilty on all counts in the first U.S. criminal trial for backdating of stock options.

AT&T puts media buying account into review

2007-08-29T09:38:00.000+01:00

AT&T Inc said on Tuesday it would review its media buying, seeking to cut the number of agencies that work on the key account from a handful down to just one. At the moment, the telecommunications company splits the work of buying advertisements among Omnicom Group Inc agencies GSD&M and OMD, Publicis Groupe SA agency Digitas, WPP Group's Mediaedge:CIA and Interpublic Group's Initiative agency.

"This move will consolidate all of AT&T's media planning and buying at one agency and is part of the company's ongoing efforts to maximize efficiencies created, in part, by AT&T's acquisition of BellSouth at the end of last year," it said in a statement.

AT&T hopes to have a final decision by the year-end. Only the incumbent media agencies will be included in the review.

In the first quarter alone, AT&T spent an estimated $512 million on advertising, according to recent figures from TNS Media Intelligence, which tracks expenditures, putting the telecommunications company among to biggest U.S. marketers.

The Skeptic: Questioning The BT Model

2007-08-29T09:36:00.000+01:00

Viviane Reding, the E.U. media commissioner, is holding up the leading U.K. telecommunications company, BT Group, as the model on which the rest of the union's former monopoly operators should be run.

But that's not comparing apples with apples.

The other telcos are right to object because the E.U. would be penalizing them for being strong where BT is weak, and for being weak where BT is strong.

Balancing customers' best interests and those of the shareholders in BT's continental European rivals, content their companies' different strategies, is going to prove a delicate business for Reding.

In 2005, BT split its wholesale and retail divisions, creating Openreach, a separate business to allow rival operators access to BT's own local network. Revenue BT lost as a result was offset by success in developing already diverse alternative revenue streams.

In 2006, BT Global Services, its IT unit, contributed 33% of overall revenue, more than BT's retail division at 32% and just less than its wholesale division's 35%.

But BT's rivals run their businesses differently. They are more focused on their fixed line and broadband businesses.

BT was never a dominant player in the U.K. Internet service-provision market, facing stiff domestic competition from numerous rivals. Allowing them greater access to its networks didn't have a significant impact on its operations.

Deutsche Telekom, by contrast, is the leading broadband provider in Germany, with 41% of subscribers in 2006. France Telecom had a 50% share of its domestic market in 2006. Even more dominant is Telecom Italia, with a 57.5% share.

DT does have a services division, T-Systems, but it's struggled for some time with an uncompetitive cost structure. DT is currently looking to transfer 16,000 jobs from T-Systems to a joint venture. France Tel's equivalent unit is also a straggler.

To force a split on the telcos and make them share their networks, and thereby increase the competition in their markets, would dent the telcos' dominant positions that they have fought hard to protect in face of occasionally tough but certainly persistent regulatory pressure.

In as much as that would be good for customers, Reding is on the right track.

But the telcos are right to wonder what incentive they'll have to keep up the massive investments in infrastructure required to deliver new services such as ultrafast broadband if revenue is to be hit by increased competition at the same time.

Telecom Italia plans to invest EUR6.5 billion over the next ten years in upgrading its network. France Telecom wants to spend up to EUR3 billion from 2009 on its new fiber network.

France Tel has said that it's willing to proceed with its investment only if France scales back regulations forcing it to unbundle parts of the network. DT is involved in a court battle with the E.U. regulator over denying competitors access to its new ultra-fast network.

So the lingering mission BT's former state-owned rivals have as providers of public services will ensure the E.U. has a fight on its hands if it wants to rush through a new phase of telecoms deregulation.

TV phone-inscandals hit RTL Group

2007-08-29T09:34:00.000+01:00

RTL Group, Europe's largest broadcaster, has been hit by the phone-in scandals plaguing the UK TV industry. It announced a writedown of its UK channel that marred news of strong growth in its German arm in the first six months of 2007.

The TV and radio group, controlled by Bertelsmann, the German media company, wrote down the value of Five by Euros 123m ($168m), or almost half of the goodwill from its acquisition of the UK broadcaster, because of collapsing revenues from phone-ins coupled with higher programming costs. Five was among several broadcasters fined for rigged TV phone-in competitions. The write-down comes in spite of a more bullish assessment of the UK advertising market but follows Five's aggressive £30m ($60m) a year bid to snatch Neighbours, the soap opera, away from the BBC.

RTL has invested in the launch of two digital channels in the past year and said the move had raised combined market share to 6.3 per cent from 6 per cent at the same point the previous year.

But start-up costs for the digital channels saw RTL's UK earnings before interest, tax and amortisation (ebita) fall to Euros 5m from Euros 15m in the first six months of last year. UK revenues rose 8.3 per cent to Euros 242m over the same period.

Telefónica facing further delay to Telecom Italia buy. Gobbles up another....

2007-08-29T09:32:00.000+01:00

Brazil's telecommunications regulator Anatel could delay even further its long-awaited decision on Telefónica's acquisition of a sizeable stake in Telecom Italia, which would give the Spanish telecoms giant an interest in both Vivo and Tim Brasil, Brazil's two largest cellphone operators. Anatel was expected to issue a ruling before the end of August, although reports in the Italian media yesterday suggested that the decision could be put off until at least September. Telefónica and several Italian investors are looking to acquire a 23.6-percent stake in Telecom Italia that would make the consortium the Italian group's largest shareholder. Telecom Italia in turn controls Tim Brasil, while Telefónica already possesses half of Vivo, a joint venture in Brazil with Portugal Telecom.

Buffalo flies the flag for Blu-ray format... sort of

2007-08-29T09:29:00.000+01:00

Buffalo appears to be throwing its weight behind Blu-ray Disc, sort of. The manufacturer has announced that it plans to release a drive capable of reading both Blu-ray and HD DVD, but which is only able to write to discs in the Blu-ray HD format.

The drive, which will be offered with a USB 2.0 interface, will provide a whopping 6x write speed to a single-layer, 25GB BD-R disc and a 4x write speed to dual-layer BD-R disc. It will also provide a 2x write speed to a single- or dual-layer rewriteable BD-RE disc.

BD and BD-R read speeds come reach 6x too, dropping to 4.8x for dual-layer media. Again, the drive reads BD-REs at 2x, no matter how many layers the discs contain.

The drive will read single- and dual-layer HD DVDs at 3x.

Buffalo's drive will also offer writing capabilities to more traditional formats, such as DVD, where users will benefit from faster data-write times than with BD media.

European Blu-ray fans will have to sit tight for the time being through, because the drive is only due to be released in Japan towards the end of next month, for ¥74,800 (£321/€473/$647).

Earlier this month, small form factor PC manufacturer Shuttle launched a custom-build PC available with either a Blu-ray writer or combo drive crammed into its tiny frame.

Amimon ships wireless HDMI chipset

2007-08-29T09:27:00.000+01:00

Your next TV and DVD player may prove capable of connecting wirelessly, according to chip manufacturer Amimon. The company has just started shipping a chipset based on its Wireless High-Definition Interface (WHDI) standard, that allows wireless streams of uncompressed HD video and audio to be broadcast around your home.

The chip enables the delivery of uncompressed 1080p HD content at datarates of up to 3Gbps through a 40MHz channel in the 5GHz unlicensed band. In addition, 720p, 1080i and 1080p at 24-30fps, with data rates of up to 1.5Gbps, can also be delivered through a 20MHz channel by the chip.

Amimon claimed that its chip is the only such one on the market capable of covering an entire house, with a range of over 30m and the ability to penetrate dividing walls.

It said the chip experiences a latency of less than 1ms and forecats that it will enable consumers to eliminate all their A/V wires and cables.

Amimon said its chipset will be integrated into consumer electronics products by the end of this year, with a wider variety of devices set to arrive during 2008. Manufacturers Loewe and Funai are both due to demonstrate devices based on the chip at the IFA consumer electronics show, which kicks off in Berlin later this week.

Earlier this month, Belkin confirmed that it was developing a form of wireless HDMI utilising the 5GHz spectrum. Unfortunately, it's keeping its lips shut about any further developments until CES in January.

Manhunt 2 tweaked to beat US sales ban

2007-08-29T09:25:00.001+01:00

Ultra-violent videogame Manhunt 2 has beaten the ban and will hit store shelves in the US at Halloween, publisher Take-Two Interactive has said.

Take-Two said that the game has been altered to achieve a lower age-rating than it was previously granted in the States. The US Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has now granted the game a Mature rating, marking it as suitable for players aged 17 or more.

In June, the ESRB awarded Manhunt 2 an Adults Only rating, signalling it to be suitable only for folk aged 18 or over. The US rating system is merely a guide - there's no legal weight behind it - but many major chains refuse to sell AO-rated titles, and the games console makers forbid games with that classification being branded as compatible with their systems.

The original rating effectively blocked Take-Two's plan to release Manhunt 2 in the US on 10 July for both the Nintendo Wii, and Sony's PS2 and PSP consoles.

Earlier in June, the UK's game rating body banned Manhunt 2 by refusing to award it a rating. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) certification is backed by legislation: it is illegal to sell an uncertified game here, or to sell a certified title to a buyer who's too young.

Take-Two did not say whether it has re-submitted Manhunt 2 to the BBFC.

Social Networking Goes Professional!

2007-08-28T12:34:00.000+01:00

Social Networking Goes Professional --- Doctors, Salesmen, Executives Turn to New Sites to Consult, Commiserate With Peers; Weeding Out Impostors

When radiation oncologist Michael Tomblyn recently saw a 21-year-old patient whose eye was protruding from its socket, he turned to his fellow physicians for help. Dozens of doctors offered suggestions, including fungal infection, HIV-associated lymphoma or a cocaine-associated sinus problem, eventually steering him toward the correct answer: rhabdomyosarcoma, a fast-growing cancer most often observed in young children. The diagnosis didn't take place in a doctor's lounge. It happened on Sermo.com, a social-networking site for licensed physicians, which Dr. Tomblyn and 25,000 doctors like him visit regularly to consult with colleagues specializing in areas from dermatology to psychiatry.

"It is a way for us to commiserate and know we are still talking to others like us," says 36-year-old Dr. Tomblyn, who works for the University of Minnesota Medical Center.

Social networking, popularized by teens sharing information with their friends online on Web sites such as Facebook Inc., is now blooming in the business world, thanks to new social networks that enable professionals and executives in industries such as advertising and finance to rub virtual elbows with colleagues.

Millions of professionals already turn to broad-based networking sites like LinkedIn to swap job details and contact information, often for recruiting purposes. Business executives also have turned to online forums, email lists and message boards to sound off on information related to their industries.

Now, online services are trying to promote a more personal type of business networking. Unlike relatively simple message boards that are open to all, these new sites -- including Sermo.com for doctors and INmobile.org for the wireless industry -- have features such as profile pages showing professional credentials; personal blogs that function like a kind of online diary; links to "friends" online; electronic invitations to real or online events; and instant-messaging.

Social networking is just one of many consumer technologies, including blogs, wikis and virtual worlds, to cross over into the corporate world. It is happening as social networking is moving more into the mainstream. Leading consumer social-networking sites attracted more than 110 million unique monthly U.S. visitors in July, up more than 40% from the previous July, according to comScore Inc.

For a variety of reasons, social networking has been slower to take off in the business world. Employees are wary of disclosing too much to potential competitors, and loose-lipped executives can easily embarrass themselves and their companies online. Policing these services' memberships to weed out impostors can be difficult, and the sites are still in the early stages of turning their networks into sustainable businesses. Also, business users typically have less time to devote to socializing online and are willing to do so only if they believe they are getting a unique benefit from the site.

"Professionals are fairly protective about their social networks which they spend their whole lives to build," says Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. He adds that the appeal of social networking is limited largely to industries where workers are fairly isolated from their colleagues on a day-to-day basis, like medicine, construction and sales.

Many of the new services are free to members. Revenue comes from advertising or charging outside businesses access to data and member discussions. For example, Sermo Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., generally charges $100,000 to $150,000 a year to nonmedical businesses like hedge funds, which use it to research such things as how doctors feel about new drugs. They can monitor online discussions, with the doctors' names omitted, or see a tally of topics being discussed on the site -- like a new medical device or a controversial cancer treatment -- to determine what's rising or falling in popularity.

The site, founded by Daniel Palestrant while he was a surgical resident in Boston and launched last year, discloses its business model to users when they register. Members say they don't mind that their conversations are accessible to others, particularly since their identities are concealed. In this, Sermo is different from many other sites. Doctors are generally more interested in getting treatment advice and access to other doctors' experiences than in networking for new business partners. As a result, the site doesn't require users to use their real names, although Sermo itself verifies and holds the identities of everyone who registers.

INmobile.org -- a social network for the wireless industry launched last year by Adam Zawel, former director of the Yankee Group's Wireless US Research Program and the executive search firm IdealWave Solutions, based in Harvard, Mass. -- has a different business model. Its basic services are free to its members, about 730 high-level executives at cellphone makers, wireless operators and media companies. But members can choose to pay $2,000 a year to list promotions and ads in a special "marketplace" section.

Some of the new sites simply charge a membership fee. This fall, for example, Reuters Group PLC is planning to launch a new social-networking service, tentatively named "Reuters Space," for fund managers, traders and analysts. For a fee, which hasn't yet been set, they will be able to log on to create profiles with industry-relevant information like their "asset class" and "instruments," check financial news feeds and ruminate about the industry on personal blogs. However, the Reuters service will only allow employees to join if their companies are Reuters customers. It also plans to allow companies to block certain features like blogging and to archive employees' online activities for compliance purposes.

Online networking services are trying to broaden their appeal with new ways of making sure their members are who they say they are. For example, Sermo authenticates each of its members by checking their credentials against several of the 10,000 databases they have access to. The service also requires users to answer three verifiable personal questions, ranging from their phone number to where they got their medical degrees before they can sign up.

INmobile.org relies on member referrals and email confirmations, but says it is looking into stricter methods, like calling up the person or their colleagues, since emails can be easily faked. The service says it turns away more than half who apply, admitting only director-level employees and above from large companies, top-level executives from smaller companies and vice-president level and above from midsize businesses.

Even after these measures, it can be difficult getting business people to converse freely with each other online. Alexander Pigeon, vice president of international for MLB Advanced Media LP, the interactive media and Internet arm of Major League Baseball, is guarded about what he shares on INmobile.org, which he recently joined to stay on top of big trends in wireless. "I certainly wouldn't post something about my company that wasn't publicly released," says Mr. Pigeon, who instead sticks with "pontifications" on broad trends like the future of mobile music.

But taking a risk on an advertising social-network paid off for Angela Glenn of Long Beach, Calif. The 40-year-old graphic designer first joined a free social network created by the blog AdRants as a "lurker," reading but not contributing to the site. Before long, she gained the confidence to debate topics like Web-site design, and she and one sparring partner grew so fond of each other's styles that they eventually started an ad agency together, the GASP Company LLC. "You get to hear potential partners out and see how they think about things," she says. "It's the closest thing you get to a personal recommendation."

Acer Buys Gateway, Bulks Up for Global Fight

2007-08-28T12:30:00.000+01:00

The banding together of Taiwan-based personal-computer maker Acer Inc. and Gateway Inc. of the U.S. underlines how crucial scale is in the consolidating global personal-computer market, where margins are thin and competition is increasing. Acer's latest push into the U.S. also marks a new stage in one of the PC industry's biggest turnaround stories.

Acer yesterday announced its $710 million acquisition of Irvine, Calif.-based Gateway, vaulting the combined company into the No. 3 spot in global PC-market share by unit shipments. The new Acer would supplant China's Lenovo Group Ltd., which rose to the third spot in the industry two years ago by purchasing the PC operations of International Business Machines Corp.

"Scale is important and will become even more important in the future," Gianfranco Lanci, president of Acer, said in an interview. He added that for the time being, he planned to consolidate Gateway's supply chain into Acer's to gain efficiencies but keep Gateway running as a separate company.

"This transaction provides the scale to compete in today's global market," Acer Chairman J.T. Wang said on a conference call.

PC companies have their components built by suppliers that discount their prices based on the size of an order. Now, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., which together accounted for more than 52% of the U.S. PC market in 2006, can put in the biggest orders and get the biggest discounts. They then often use such discounts to underprice their competition, which helps maintain or increase their share. The vicious cycle makes it nearly impossible for smaller PC players to compete profitably.

While Gateway and Acer were respectably sized, their market shares were tiny compared with H-P and Dell. Together, however, the combined company would have had revenue of more than $15 billion for 2006, and it expects to ship about 25 million PCs this year, executives said. Acer executives said they will continue to use the Gateway and eMachine brand names after the acquisition.

Mr. Wang acknowledged the multibrand move is a "major change in corporate strategy" for single-brand Acer, but he said it would be a strength to have three brands as it would enable the company to better target different segments of the consumer market. Mr. Lanci added, "The other good reason is that the Gateway brand is a very well-recognized brand in the U.S., and we want to continue to leverage on the brand in the U.S. and to expand [it] outside the U.S., because we see opportunity in some emerging countries in Asia."

Acer executives said they expect the union to save the combined company about $150 million next year, by giving it better purchasing power for components and by cost cuts through combining parts of overlapping operations like customer services. Gateway is in talks to sell its unit that sells PCs to education, government and businesses, the company has said.

Under the terms of the deal, Acer will launch a cash tender offer for all outstanding shares of Gateway for $1.90 a share, a 57% premium to the closing price of Gateway's shares on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. Yesterday, Gateway's shares rose 61 cents to $1.82. The companies said the deal was approved unanimously by the boards of both companies and is expected to close by December.

Acer has been plotting an acquisition for about a year. Mr. Wang first disclosed the company's intention to do a deal in March, though he didn't specify any possible targets. Monday he said Acer and Gateway have been in contact for some time but that serious discussions about the deal began about six weeks ago.

Gateway decided to sell itself when its board determined that a combined Acer-Gateway would benefit from greater scale and efficiencies, making it more competitive, said a person familiar with the matter. The once highflying PC maker, known for boxes with a cow-hide print, referring to the company's 1985 founding by Ted Waitt in an Iowa farmhouse, had in recent years been buffeted by stiff competition and declining sales. Its purchase once again narrows the ranks of U.S. PC manufacturers, which once included powerhouses such as Compaq Computer Corp. Nevertheless, the U.S. still has the world's two biggest makers, Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

For Acer, a company that once made PCs for big-name Western brands and is now buying one, the purchase marks a major -- though potentially risky -- step. Owning Gateway, which has roughly 1,645 employees, will dramatically increase Acer's foothold in the U.S., a market long dominated by Dell and H-P but where Acer has been making some headway selling its laptop PCs through big retail chains like Best Buy Co.

That's a contrast to the mid-1990s, when Acer tried to grab market share in the U.S. before effectively retreating in 1999. Later, Acer's chairman, Mr. Wang, jokingly called the U.S. the company's "land of sorrow." Acer has since recovered and successfully pushed into Europe, where it is a dominant seller.

But while a combined Acer and Gateway would hold about a 10.8% share of the U.S. PC market, it still remains far smaller than H-P and Dell. In the second quarter of this year, H-P had a 23.6% share of the U.S. PC market, while Dell had 28.4%. Overall, a combined Acer and Gateway would have about 9% of the global PC market, compared with H-P's 19.2% and Dell's 16.1%, according to IDC.

If the deal goes through, managing three different brands could increase the complexity of Acer's operations. Retailers may want to condense the shelf space they allot to the brands, for example, now that they're all owned by one company.

The new tie-up could also strike a blow to China's Lenovo, which in 2005 acquired IBM's PC business and this year has been battling with Acer for the industry's No. 3 spot.

Earlier this month, Lenovo disclosed that it was in talks to buy a stake in Packard Bell BV, a Netherlands-based PC maker. But in a separate statement issued yesterday, Gateway appeared to throw cold water on those talks, saying it intends to exercise a "right of first refusal" to acquire all the shares in Packard Bell's parent company, PB Holding Co. Gateway said it had acquired that right in June 2006 from John Hui, the Chinese-American businessman who owns Packard Bell.

Gateway said it had recently received a notice from Mr. Hui offering to sell all the shares of Packard Bell's parent to Gateway. It's unclear what the price would be.

Lenovo says it remains interested in acquiring Packard Bell. A Packard Bell spokesperson didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Many analysts said they weren't surprised Gateway is being acquired. The PC maker hit its peak in the late 1990s with its quirky cow logo and Gateway Country retail stores. However, it suffered when competitors such as Dell priced their wares more cheaply. In 2002, Gateway expanded into consumer electronics such as flat-screen TVs, but the efforts didn't bolster its sagging PC business. By 2004, it had closed its stores and refocused on PCs. Its stock price, which once hit $82.50, has fallen around 98% to its current level.

It's unclear who will manage the Gateway business and what happens to current Chief Executive Ed Coleman, says a person familiar with the matter.

Sky makes up for share price drop

2007-08-28T12:26:00.000+01:00

THE satellite broadcaster BSkyB has made a discretionary payment totalling more than £100,000 to tens of senior managers after an administrative delay left them with a reduced bonus. The managers had asked the company to sell shares that vested in their Long Term Incentive Plan (L-Tip).

However, by the time Sky had processed their request, the company's shares had fallen in the recent stock market rout, leaving them with a lower award than they expected.

They were doubly aggrieved because Sky made a cash payment to chief executive James Murdoch in lieu of his L-Tip shares at a higher share price than the managers received.

On August 13, both Mr Murdoch and the managers received shares accruing from the group L-Tip.

The group agreed to make a cash payment to Mr Murdoch equal to the 582,750 BSkyB shares in his L-Tip scheme, netting him a near £4m bonus. The payment for Mr Murdoch's shares was made at 671.5p a share, the mid-market price on August 13.

For administrative reasons, all managers who wanted to sell their L-Tip shares were pooled together over the week, meaning they were unable to cash in their awards until August 17.

By then, however, the jitters caused by the sub-prime mortgage crisis had hit the stock market, with BSkyB shares ending the week at 655p, having traded even lower.

Sky sources said the managers had not complained, but the company had decided to make up the shortfall.

A spokesman said: "The company has decided to make a discretionary payment in respect of the difference between the actual sale price on August 17 and the closing price on August 14. This will be received by managers who chose to sell their share awards at that time.''

He denied that the company was using shareholder funds to compensate executives for falls in the market, saying: "We are not correcting the market movement, we are correcting a failure in our administrative process which disadvantaged a number of people.

"We want to treat everyone fairly and reward our people for their contribution to our success.''

The company did not seek permission from the remuneration committee to make the payment.

Jeremy Darroch, Sky's chief financial officer, also fared less well than Mr Murdoch when it came to exercising his L-Tip award. He sold 263,750 shares at only 653.42p on August 16, collecting £1.72m, while retaining 60,000 more shares.

However, as a board director, he will not receive any payment to make up the shortfall.

BT makes call for IT market

2007-08-28T12:23:00.000+01:00

Telecoms giant sets its sights on wider market after branching out of traditional space with fourth reseller acquisition.

BT has claimed there is enough space in the SME market for both the telco behemoth and its reseller base.

Following its acquisition last week of VAR Basilica (CRN Online, 20 August), BT’s fourth reseller buyout in two years, the telco admitted that the move adds IT capabilities to its portfolio putting it squarely in its channel’s path.

However, Ricky Ricketts, head of BT Indirect Sales, told CRN that its resellers already operating in the 50 to 1,000 seat market would already believe they were going head to head with BT.

“We estimate that there are 1.2m SME businesses in the UK, which is a huge community. This [buyout] does add capabilities to BT’s direct sales force, but we are reviewing a way that we can then add value to partners and possibly link in Basilica.

“We have had an IT strategy for some time and I don’t think resellers will see this as a major threat,” he said.

Ricketts said if any conflict should occur the vendor will review each case and speak to the customer.

“The end-user should choose the solution and the supplier.”

John Carter, managing director of DMSL, said: “BT bought SkyNet and TNS last year so it is targeting the mid-market. It will not do this on its own, so it is acquiring to enable it to get traction.

“With the introduction convergence there is likely to be more changes to come. BT’s route to market is firstly its web site, then BT Direct and the channel after that at the moment it is focusing on going direct to the end-users.”

“BT does not see itself as a phone company, now it wants the whole IT marketplace, and there will be other acquisitions on the horizon.”

Mark Evans, director at BT VAR ME consultancy, said: “It’s another route to market for BT. The business community won’t deal with Basilica just because it’s owned by BT

BT will have to build trust with customers and many customers already have trust with their reseller.”

Antoine Barre, EMEA vice president for Solution Partners Organisation at HP, said: “Both Basilica and BT are partners of HP and we see an opportunity with the two firms merging. Basilica can bring a lot of skills to BT and apply them to BT’s customer base.”

Tom Gutteridge, head of marketing and business development at Damovo, said: “I can understand why BT wants to make this move. Unified communications is key to our sector and BT has a skills shortage in this area. There is the expectation now that BT is operating in the IT space and end-users expect it to have solutions that include Cisco and Microsoft.”

3G's gift to humankind

2007-08-24T10:09:00.000+01:00

Net Results: Connectivity on the move used to be a luxury - if I could get an ethernet line in a hotel, or even wireless, I'd be pretty darn happy, despite the usually ridiculous charges, writes Karlin Lillington. If I couldn't, I could still get e-mail and even file stories to my editors using my mobile phone. For a long time I just used O2's XDA smartphone with its portable, folding keyboard accessory rather than carry a laptop, as I could write a story in the cut-down version of Word on the XDA, then send it by e-mail.

Then along came GSM plug-in cards for laptops, which meant you could get e-mail and internet to your laptop anywhere you could get a mobile signal. Those were nice for e-mail, but sluggish for web use, as the smallish bandwidth provided by a GSM connection was less than ideal.

In the past couple of years I'd gone back to using a laptop for travel. On the road, I would get my e-mail and surf the web sporadically, whenever I could get a free wireless connection, which usually meant in the press room at events, or in hotel lobbies.

At least that meant I could download my e-mail directly to my inbox and not have to get it through webmail - webmail is always clumsy, as it would suck all my spam into my webmail account too, making for lots of click and delete work. And I preferred to get my e-mail into my normal inbox.

But it's been a pain when I need to send an urgent e-mail or file a story and am in a hotel room late at night. In the past, either I'd have to pay a big daily fee to use the internet for all of 30 seconds to get this done, or I'd have to run down to the hotel lobby to file and check mail then run back up to bed.

Recently, a true gift to humankind has emerged: the 3G modem. I've been using one from Vodafone for a couple of months now - O2 and 3 also now offer them - and they really are the business.

The modem is about the size of a small portable mouse but much thinner, and plugs into a USB port on a PC or Mac, desktop or laptop. It weighs almost nothing and is thus highly portable - you could tuck it in a pocket. Once you install the software and enable the modem, all you do is plug it in and connect.

If the modem can get a good 3G signal, you'll get download speeds that will likely surprise - generally faster than your home broadband connection (if you have one). If there's no 3G available, it will connect over the GSM network, which is handy enough for any urgent tasks.

What I love about this gizmo is that it will connect anywhere there's a phone signal. No more searching for a wireless network, much less a free wireless network. No more running to hotel lobbies or having to wait until the next day when I'll have access to the press room to get e-mail or send files or do some online research.

The 3G modem has totally changed what I'm able to do and made my travelling work life far more efficient and simple. Now, if I am in the airport, I can get a good chunk of work done in that waiting time and get a story filed (or alternatively, pass time on the net). I can do some research on my destination or fire off some e-mails.

I also can get a connection for Skype, the voice over internet protocol (VoIP) phone service. I have a handy little USB Skype phone for my laptop and can make low cost calls or send texts. This can be a big moneysaver depending on what roaming charges apply.

3G modems are also a possible solution for anyone who cannot get home broadband. A 3G modem may also provide a better and more versatile solution for some people as your broadband can follow you wherever you and your laptop go. I know a few people who only use a 3G modem for home broadband and it works very well for them.

Some caveats: you won't always get a good 3G signal, roaming charges apply abroad, and there's a five to 10 GB monthly limit on downloads (depending on the operator) before charges apply. Operators all have different offers and pricing plans, so read the small print to find what's best for you if a 3G modem sounds like an answer to your connectivity hassles.

Google: Personalisation is the future

2007-08-24T09:46:00.000+01:00

From search to ads - and everything in between... Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, likes her iPhone and she's a big fan of social networks, especially Facebook.

During her keynote this week at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in California, Mayer demonstrated Google Maps on her iPhone and said iPhone users could also use Google's free voice-activated yellow pages service, Goog 411. You can say 'map it' and it sends you an SMS message with a link to the map, she said.

During her keynote she also talked about the parallels between Google's Gadgets and iGoogle, and Facebook, which she said is her favourite non- Google product.

She said: There is a similar vein between both programs in that they are open platforms [and thus get broader distribution]. Anyone can create a Gadget or create a Facebook app.

Such applications are a new form of advertising that's free, she added.

Mayer said she likes the way Facebook collects information about relationships between people, including when they met and how they know each other. The type of information they're building about the social graph between people is something that is intelligent and will be particularly useful in the future, she said.

For general web search, personalisation is the future, according to Mayer. Ten to 15 years from now search sites will understand more about searchers, where they are located and what their personal preferences are, she predicted.

Mayer said one of the most important data points for improving search relevance based on personalisation is the previous query, although web history and address books could also be helpful signals to the search engine.

To avert the problem of inappropriate personalised results - such as the Amazon.com suggestions based on one abnormal purchase - Google searchers can see their search history and remove particular searches to tweak the personalisation, Mayer said. Google is considering indicating to the searcher when the results are personalised or offering a way to toggle between personalised and default results, she said.

It is important that the ads are personalised too, she said. The company is looking at changing the presentation of its Universal Search page to guide users' eyes so they can see the results and the advertisements, she said. My philosophy is that the ads and the search results should match.

And when it comes to targeting, Mayer added: For me, search and ads are almost the same.

In the future, Google may incorporate blog search, scholar and other types of searches into its Universal Search results page, which today weaves together results from news, video, maps and image search. This is a pretty straightforward first attempt and we're looking at things that are much more radical, she said.

Meanwhile, mobile is taking off. This year was the first that Google noticed an increase in the use of Google mobile applications during the summer instead of a dip, she said. Usually web searches drop during the summer months as people go on vacation or spend more time outside in the nice weather. You could see people almost switching off their computers and switching on their handhelds, she said.

Usage of Google mobile apps rose 10 per cent each week for the first three weeks in June and saw a 40 per cent to 50 per cent spike almost overnight after the iPhone was launched, Mayer said in comments after the keynote.

US video game sales rise 37 percent in July

2007-08-24T09:44:00.000+01:00

U.S. sales of video games and hardware rose 37 percent in July, with Sony Corp's struggling PlayStation 3 console getting a major boost from a price cut in the month, industry data showed on Thursday. Total sales hit $925.5 million in the month, compared with $675.6 million a year earlier, spurred by strong interest in consoles from Sony, Microsoft Corp and Nintendo Co Ltd , figures from market research firm NPD showed.

Sony sold 159,000 units of the PlayStation 3, which had seen monthly sales drop to less than 100,000 units in each of the previous three months, after cutting the price by $100, to $500.

"That was exciting and very much in line with expectations, especially since we're talking about the doldrums of summer," Jack Tretton, head of Sony Computer Entertainment America, said in an interview.

It was the best month for the PS3 since January, when U.S. consumers bought 244,000 of the machines. The PS3 includes a 60-gigabyte hard drive and a Blu-ray high-definition DVD player, but its high price and dearth of must-have games have hampered sales.

"It certainly has us very optimistic, along with the software lineup we have for the fall," Tretton said. Sony also sold 222,000 units of its older PlayStation 2 console.

NPD said console sales rose more than 140 percent from a year earlier, to $286 million. Total software sales rose 11 percent on the year to $419 million.

Nintendo's Wii console held onto the top spot with sales of 425,000 units. The machine's $250 price is the lowest of any new console, and its unique motion-sensing controller has drawn buyers outside of the core gaming crowd.

Microsoft sold 170,000 of its Xbox 360 console, down 18 percent from a year earlier but better than some analysts had expected given the company's admission last month that widespread failures of the machines could cost it more than $1 billion in repairs and warranty extensions.

On the software front, "NCAA Football 08" for the Xbox 360 was the top title, selling 397,000 copies. The PS2 version of the game sold 236,000 units, while the PS3 version sold 156,000 units. The game is published by Electronic Arts Inc .

Activision Inc's "Guitar Hero" franchise also took three of the top 10 spots, with "Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s," released only on the PS2, placing second with 339,000 copies sold.

Nintendo's best game was "Wii Play," which is bundled with an extra controller and whose 278,000 units sold was good enough for second place. Nintendo's "Mario Party 8" came in fifth place while "Pokemon Diamond" for the DS handheld was seventh.

Has wireless broadband become mainstream?

2007-08-24T09:42:00.000+01:00

Penetration of mobile-only households, limited fixed broadband coverage and appropriate pricing help drive market share of wireless broadband. The success of wireless broadband is increasing the debate on how wireless is able to compete with the lower-cost, higher-bandwidth fixed services provided by fixed broadband.

Wireless broadband's success in selected markets is reflected in the market shares, which range from 6% to 21%, even where fixed broadband is readily available.

The cumulative share of net adds since launch - reflecting the market share since the launch of the service - shows an even more remarkable range of 8% to 40%, as summarised in Exhibit 1.

Exhibit 1: Market share of wireless broadband [Source: Analysys estimates, 2006 and 2007]

Analysys has identified key market factors and service proposition factors that are driving the success of wireless broadband. The key factors that enable the success of wireless broadband include:

• the presence of a large number of mobile-only households, either due to low fixed penetration in developing countries or termination of PSTN services (e.g. in Austria)

• limitations on the coverage of the fixed broadband network

• pricing for wireless broadband that is similar to, or lower than, fixed broadband services (e.g. in Austria, Singapore and Sydney).

The key challenge facing wireless broadband operators (WiMAX or HSDPA) is the choice of the appropriate technology to deploy in order to take advantage of the opportunity.

WiMAX has focused on urban areas, and this is expected to be a compelling proposition, particularly in developing markets.

• GDP per capital in urban areas tends to be significantly higher than national averages (20%–100% more), and as a result, urban areas in developing markets resemble middle-income emerging markets (e.g. Eastern Europe) rather than low-income developing economies.

• The WiMAX business case in urban areas of developing markets looks quite different to a cellular business plan in terms of cashflows.

Despite significant cash outflows in the initial years, the capex typically starts peaking in years five and six, due to increasing capacity demands rather than coverage demands. In that time frame, the business tends to be cashflow positive and therefore it is seen as less risky to make further investments.

Amrish Kacker is a principal consultant at Analysys.