Welcome Articles

Welcome Articles


IT’S OVER!
Toshiba Gives Up On HD-DVD
The greatest war for the next-generation video format has finally come to an end—Toshiba’s pulled the plug on its war with Sony’s Blu-Ray. According to latest reports, Toshiba has formally announced that it would not be continuing its HDDVD business. This race was definitely fiercer than the earlier video battle over Betamax and VHS. This time, it was companies that were deciding what the consumer gets and not the other way round! With companies such as Sony and Toshiba pitted against each other, it was stiff competition all the way through. For Sony, it was a matter of prestige to win this battle, as it had already lost with Betamax to JVC in the VHS days. On one side was the Blu-Ray consortium led by Sony, with Apple, Dell, HP, Sharp, Philips, Panasonic, Hitachi and eight other companies on Blu-Ray’s board of directors. On the other hand, the HD-DVD front was led by Toshiba, followed by Sanyo, NEC and Memory Tech. This time, however, the battle was prolonged, and there was a host of factors that decided the outcome. The most significant decisive factor, however, was the gaming industry. Microsoft, the makers of the Xbox 360 has been a strong supporter of the HD-DVD standard. In contrast, Sony—the makers of the PlayStation 3—have understandably supported the Blu-Ray format. As a result, the soaring sales of gaming applications have yielded a significant rise in the sales of Blu-Ray discs. With half the battle won in the gaming industry, the remaining half of the battle was decided by Hollywood. Till recently, Universal and Paramount Studios were the only Hollywood studios to back HD-DVDs—the majority had backed Blu-Ray. The most significant of them was Time Warner, which switched totally from HDDVD to Blu-Ray, leaving Sony with a virtual monopoly in the DVD format arena. So where does Toshiba go from here? And what about Sony? The latest news says that Sony is in talks with Toshiba to sell its PS3 chip manufacturing plant for an amount to supposedly in excess of $ 858 million. Both Toshiba and Sony Corporation, have reportedly partnered with Sony Computer Electronic Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) for the production of high performance semiconductors. The whole DVD fiasco doesn’t seem to have ended on a bitter note after all... Most technological developments and gadgets enter Indian shores after they have been tried and tested in Europe and the Americas. For example, the iPhone has not yet been launched in India—the average Indian consumer normally complains about this fact. However, this time round we should be thankful for the late entry of the high-definition DVD battle into India—actually it hasn’t got here yet! Overall, Indian consumers have not been significantly affected by all the hue and cry among the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD camps. The average Indian consumer, till now has been happy with the normal DVD format. With significant certainty, now emerging in the DVD arena, Indians can now decide purely by the deals they get!


COME...PLAY
PS3 To Lead In 2008
The gaming industry had witnessed phenomenal growth last year, with major players such as Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft posting massive sales figures. According to research firm iSuppli, the PS3 will pose the strongest growth figures among all video game consoles. The projected worldwide sales figures this year are 10 million units for PS3, 12.2 million units for the Wii, and 7.5 million units for the Xbox 360. With strong sales, lower prices and broader ppeal among audiences, the Wii is all poised to be the market leader with a global installation base of 30.2 million units. On the other hand, the Xbox 360 has struggled in Japan and Europe, where the Sony brand formerly ominated, and is on course to increase its user base to 25.7 million units by the end of 2008. In the light of all conditions, the PS3, which lagged due to its price and lack of blockbuster games for most of last year, would double its installation base to 20.3 million users and by 2011 will be the industry leader. In India, however, the Xbox 360 leads in terms of market share. However, with Blu-Ray getting the upper hand in terms of being the preferred DVD format, Sony has a lot to gain. What happens to Xbox 360 users who use HD-DVD drives with their gaming consoles is still to be seen. The users hit the most, are those who bought external HD-DVD drives for their Xbox 360s. How Microsoft compensates them, is a matter of concern and will be closely watched in the forthcoming days.


WHAT YOU MISSED
MS, Yahoo, And Them
The world is going abuzz with talks between the two eastcoast companies—Yahoo from Sunnyvale, California and Microsoft from Redmond, Washington. Surprisingly, Google was also active in the media, this time around playing spoiler by claiming that Microsoft would use the deal to gain too much of control over the Internet. We have also heard reports about AOL talking to Yahoo! for a likely deal. We believe that’s not coincidence, considering the fact that Google owns a 5 per cent stake in AOL. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. also joined in the league, by recently holding talks with Yahoo! The Chinese portal Alibaba, however, is an important factor in the whole deal. For those of you’ll who haven’t heard of it, Alibaba is a Hangzhoubased e-commerce / eauction company, and a significant player in China’s search engine and online marketing industry after Baidu. Yahoo! is a major stakeholder in Alibaba. Softbank, a Japanese telecommunications company, which bought out Vodafone Japan, also owns a 3.9 per cent stake in Yahoo US and 40 per cent of Yahoo Japan. In addition to this, both Softbank and Yahoo, are common investors in Alibaba. Being a dominant player in China, this deal is being closely watched by Chinese authorities—concerned over foreign control of Chinese businesses, especially with Microsoft, considering its monopolistic policies and practices. The deal between the two companies has not yet been signed, and it already has effects on China and Japan. But what are the possible impacts in India? As far as Indian surfers are concerned, Google ranks the highest, followed by Yahoo! at a distant second place, and then MSN. Unlike other countries where the competition is stiff, in India, Google really holds a significant lead over the other search engines. Could this translate into a reduction in PPC rates for online advertising? SEO professionals would surely be watching this closely. So, for India, things don’t seem to be as significant anyway. Surely services are only going to improve with the competition. They’ve got to!


YOU’RE HIT!
The Great Indian Virus
India and technology seem to be in the news quite often these days. A few weeks back, it was low browsing speeds due to the cut in the Middle Eastern optical fibre (FALCON) belonging to FLAG Telecom, under the flagship of the Reliance ADA group. To add to these woes, a recent study on virus activity by a web security services company indicates that India has the highest incidence of virus attacks. As per the study conducted by Message Labs, “Virus activity increased across a number of countries in January, including India, which takes the number one spot with 1 in 30.5 emails”. As compared to India, the Web attack was far less in western countries with figures being one in every 191.5 emails in the US and one in every 158.4 e-mails in Canada. In New Zealand, Web security levels were pretty good—one out of 768 mails was virus infested, while for Australia, the figure was one for every 298.7 mails. The study goes on to reveal that the global spam ratio is 73 per cent. This translates to one in every 1.36 emails. This only further reiterates the need for us to be updated with the latest anti-virus, antispam, anti-spyware and other proactive tools to ensure safety. In taking such measures, not only are we safer as individuals, but rather reduce the risk to others, especially our friends and lose associates.