Technology news short takes
Posted on Monday, October 9, 2006
Microsoft releases last Vista test version
Microsoft Corp. said Friday that it had released the final test version of its new operating system, Windows Vista, improving the chances the software will be done on time. “Release Candidate 2” was sent to customers and testers who had signed up for a preview, the company said.
Microsoft said it still aims to get Vista to businesses in November and stores in January. Vista is running more than two years late, hurting Microsoft’s sales of Windows for PCs, which have risen less than 10 percent the past two years. High costs hold back smart-phone sales
Sales of the most-expensive mobile phones, handsets that surf the Internet and handle e-mail as well as make calls, won’t increase as quickly as expected this year because of high prices, the research firm Gartner Inc. said last week. Sales of so-called smart phones will rise 65 percent to 81 million units, Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner said.
The researcher earlier had predicted the market would almost double to 95 million units, analyst Todd Kort said.
Growth is being hindered by price tags of as much as $ 400 and data-service fees charged by carriers, Kort said. Smart phones will probably account for 8. 4 percent of this year’s overall expected shipments of 970 million. The total market will probably grow 19 percent this year, Kort said.
“The price of smart phones is still fairly high compared to nonsmart phones,” Kort said. “People don’t really care if it’s a smart phone or not. Something that really looks good catches their eye.”
The report shows that while products such as Research In Motion Ltd. ’s BlackBerry and the Treo handset from Palm Inc. attract attention, the top sellers are from mainstream manufacturers such as Nokia Oyj and Motorola Inc.
Nokia, the largest handset maker, increased its smart-phone shipments 37 percent to 8. 84 million in the second quarter. Its market share slipped to 52 percent from 57 percent share a year earlier. Nokia’s growth was hampered by a lack of phones using code-division multiple access technology in some markets, Kort said. AOL free software aim is to keep users
AOL, Time Warner Inc. ’s Internet unit, is offering free software that helps organize e-mail, multimedia and Internet tasks as part of the company’s effort to keep broadband users from switching to other services. The AOL OpenRide software puts e-mail, instant messaging, a Web browser, and a music, photo and video center on the same page, making it easier for users to handle several tasks without opening multiple windows, Joel Davidson, an executive vice president at Dulles, Virginia-based AOL, said last week.
“It’s an all-in-one experience,” said Davidson, who is in charge of products and technology at AOL. “It’s about gaining more users.”
AOL started giving away e-mail and software to broadband users last month to prevent them from moving to free sites offered by rivals such as Yahoo Inc. The company aims to lift online ad revenue to compensate for the decline in subscribers to its dial-up Internet service. OpenRide is designed to entice broadband customers to keep using AOL.
The OpenRide software creates an interface similar to what AOL’s paying customers were already using, except the new service is free. Disney ending ESPN cell-phone service
Walt Disney Co. will spend $ 30 million to shut down its Mobile ESPN cell-phone service, Chief Financial Officer Thomas Staggs said last week. Disney will end the service on Dec. 31 and refund subscribers for the phones, Staggs said. Most of the company’s costs will occur in 2007.
Closing Mobile ESPN is “a positive step,” Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Jessica Reif Cohen said in a research note. Disney said on Sept. 28 it would shutter the service and license content from ESPN, the most-watched U. S. sports cable channel, to other wireless providers. Disney spent more than $ 100 million to start Mobile ESPN, Reif Cohen estimated.
Mobile ESPN was part of ESPN President George Bodenheimer’s strategy to expand beyond cable-TV to the Internet and handheld devices. Sales of the phones, which featured sports news and real-time scores, were less than predicted, ESPN said in July. The New York-based venture, operated on Sprint Nextel Corp. ’s network, debuted at the Super Bowl on Feb. 5. Semiconductor sales rise to $ 20. 5 billion
Worldwide sales of semiconductors climbed 2. 1 percent to a record $ 20. 5 billion in August, as declining gasoline prices left consumers with more money for music players and digital cameras, an industry association said last week. Global chip sales rose 10. 5 percent from a year earlier and reached an “all-time monthly record,” the U. S. Semiconductor Industry Association said in a statement today. That topped the previous record of $ 20. 4 billion in November 2005.
“A sharp decline in gasoline prices appears to have boosted consumer confidence, which bodes well for an industry that is now strongly driven by sales of consumer electronic products,” association President George Scalise said in a statement.
The chip industry gets more than half its sales from consumer electronics makers. Semiconductors account for about 40 percent of the cost of making products such as cell phones, digital cameras and music file players, the association said.
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