Author Archive | Ed Oswald

Sirius XM Still Shedding Customers, Albeit More Slowly

Posted by Ed Oswald on August 6, 2009 at 6:44 am

Sirius XM continues to bleed customers, although at a much slower pace than the first quarter of this year, numbers released Thursday morning show. The satellite radio provider shed 186,000 customers in the second quarter, an improvement from the 404,000 customers it lost in the first.

Regardless, the satellite radio provider is still losing customers, the wrong way to go when you’re already struggling to make money so as it is. Pro forma revenue was in at $608 million, which was a 1% improvement year over year. Losses were $171 million, an improvement over last years $203 million loss.

Some of this improvement can be credited to a further reduction in subscriber acquisition costs, now down to $57 from a year ago. Additionally, monthly average revenue per subscriber edged up 11 cents to $10.66.

It is also continuing to pull a bigger profit from operations, now up to $132 million in the current quarter.

There is still trouble ahead for Sirius XM however. Beginning this month, a $2 royalty fee at minimum will be tacked on to every subscriber’s bill. It will be interesting to see the effect this may have on subscriber numbers. If we see a worsening again in the third quarter numbers out this fall, we’ll know the likely cause.

Regardless, the company must keep a hold of its customers. All this improvement can easily be stymied or wiped out if the company has an increasingly smaller base of customers. The biggest thing now is focusing on keeping current customers happy.

Programming — which from the looks of things appears to be Sirius XM’s weak spot — is job one. It’s clear that many are not responding to the “FM-plus” strategy carried over from Sirius, and much rather would prefer deeper playlists, which was XM’s biggest strength.

I’m reserving judgement until next quarter whether this merger can ever be a success. I’m still not sure yet.

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Palm Goes For the Throat in Apple Tiff

Posted by Ed Oswald on August 4, 2009 at 3:23 pm

Pre Disguised as iPhone Apple locking you out of iTunes? Call on the USB Implementers Forum. That’s Palm’s tact as it looks to muscle its way back into the smartphone space. Its complaint to the group which manages the standards for USB alleges that Apple is misusing those standards by permitting only its own devices to use the application.

It’s unknown what may come out of it as this is basically the first time a company has taken this route in attempting to break into the walled garden that is iPod/iTunes. That is essentially what the Pre’s Media Sync does–it tricks iTunes into thinking the Pre is an Apple device.

That strategy has its pitfalls too: it very well could be against the policies of the USB governing board, but Palm is saying its the only available route because of the way iTunes is set up.

Palm has a lot riding on the Pre: many industry watchers see the device as the last hope for the company which has slowly been fading since its heyday when Palm Pilots were the rage, and its acquisition of Handspring’s Treo helped catapult it into the smartphone industry.

The company will likely again build a workaround, continuing a cat and mouse game between the two companies. Apple has shown a willingness to play for as long as is needed, so Palm better have developers on call to continue to break into iTunes when needed.

It’s a smart move for Palm to at least try. With iPods so ubiquitous, and many using it to organize their digital media, as the saying goes “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

But in the end, we all know Jobs and Co. want Apple to stay at the center of the iTunes universe, and will do what is necessary to keep it that way. Palm better be ready to be in this for the long haul.

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Apple Tries To Hush Owners of Exploding iPod

Posted by Ed Oswald on August 3, 2009 at 11:11 am

In true Apple fashion, the company has reportedly attempted–and failed–to hush the owners of an defective iPod that ended up exploding in England. Acording to The Times, the only way the Stanboroughs would get a full refund was if they agreed to sign a settlement form.

On it, the form specified that if the family would talk, it would open them up to possible legal action by Apple. Obviously since The Times is reporting on it, they didn’t accept Apple’s terms.

While the Stanboroughs apparently may have some culpability here–the iPod touch in question was dropped shortly before it reportedly exploded–it’s still a little worrisome. There are a lot of us out there who have done the same thing.

This is only the latest reported incident of pressure by Apple to keep folks with defective iPods quiet. Last month, the company did all it could to prevent KIRO reporter Amy Clancy from investigating fire incidents involving the company’s ubiquitous music device.

Documents obtained by Clancy indicate Apple knew about issues with its players and overheating as early as 2005–even though they were telling people complaining years later that it was the “first time” they ever heard of such a problem.

It is believed that the iPod’s lithium-ion batteries may be the source of the problem. But with 175 million iPods sold, how do you go about recalling the devices if it was necessary? That could be a daunting task.

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Deal to Sell The Pirate Bay Appears Dead

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 29, 2009 at 10:15 am

It looks like The Pirate Bay will likely not be sold after all, as it appears the site it was sold to will not be able to raise the necessary capital to complete the transaction, TorrentFreak is reporting.

The P2P community was shocked to hear the news late last month that The Pirate Bay had been sold to Global Gaming Factory for a cool $7.8 million. In all likelihood, the deal had a lot to do with keeping the site afloat, especially in lieu of the judgement against it in Swedish courts.

According to TorrentFreak, GGF appears to have problems paying its bills. It added Grokster ex-CEO Wayne Rosso to the The Pirate Bay effort to attempt to bring record studios on board two weeks ago, but he’s already left.

Rosso claims that he and his partners weren’t paid, and on top of that GGF has no plans on exactly what to do with the popular BitTorrent site and was misinformed, further complicating matters. This poor communication has trickled down to the very investors who are supposed to foot the bill for the site.

The Pirate Bay is not allowing things to drag on any further — GGF has received an ultimatum which states either you figure out how to pay up, or the deal’s off. Knew this sounded too good to be true, eh?

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Verizon First to Cave With Exclusivity Agreements

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 20, 2009 at 11:29 am

verizonmainlogo Responding to pressure on government regulators, Verizon Wireless has announced it would limit the length of its exclusivity agreements with wireless manufacturers to six months. However, for carriers to pick up a Verizon-exclusive phone after that period, it would need to have less than 500,000 customers.

Verizon’s move seems aimed at quelling complaints by small regional carriers, while at the same time keeping its edge over its more similarly-sized rivals. It’s concession came as part of a July 17 letter sent to lawmakers. Washington is looking into exclusivity arrangements, and these agreements have become a focus of their inquiries.

“Exclusivity arrangements promote competition and innovation in device development and design. When we procure exclusive handsets from our vendors, we typically buy hundreds of thousands or even millions of each device,” the company argued. “Otherwise manufacturers may be reluctant to make the investments of time, money and production capacity to support a particular device.”

I think its all but a given that Verizon’s pander will do little to change lawmaker’s minds. While I do see the need for some type of competitive advantage, the iPhone showed us how an exclusivity agreement can go wrong.

Consumers that want an iPhone aren’t the only ones affected. Think about AT&T’s network. People who don’t even want the phone are affected by the strain that the device has put on the carrier. That is certainly a concern.

Add to this that this concession in the end would benefit such a small portion of the industry — analysts say that less than five percent of wireless customers are with carriers smaller than the 500,000 threshold, and it may be more of an half-hearted attempt to protect themselves than an honest effort to put the interest of the consumer in mind.

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Comcast’s iPhone App Somewhat Comcastic

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 16, 2009 at 1:56 pm

Cable provider Comcast has joined the legions of service providers and companies creating their own iPhone apps to interface with their services and offerings. It would be most useful to those with the so called “triple play” package: cable, Internet, and phone service.

The main functionality of this application splits into three parts. The first is an email application that will allow the user to check his or her email. But it functions more than just an email inbox. The users phone voicemail also uses this setup, although you can either select to view those in a different tab or mixed in with your regular mail.

I’m sure most of us will opt for the separate tab: with the amount of junk mail these days, your voicemails will likely just get lost in the mix. Nice feature here is Comcast’s use of iPhone 3.0 functionality — meaning you’ll be able to type in landscape mode just like you could do in the standard Mail app.

More than just voicemail — users will be able to view their received/missed calls from the application. If you so choose, you may click on the number to call or text the caller back from the iPhone.

If you have a Comcast Address Book, you will be able to sync the data there with the standard iPhone Address Book. This is a nice feature — and could be useful to those who may not have MobileMe but would still like that syncing functionality nevertheless.

Other functions include a Guide app, which will tell you what’s on television right now, and an “On Demand” feature which allows you to watch movie trailers of upcoming programming on the service.

However, what’s missing here, and what makes the app less than fantastic — err, Comcastic rather — is the lack of DVR control. PC Magazine’s Sean Ludwig points this out and i tend to agree. If it had this, I’d consider it one of the iPhone’s killer apps.

Alas, there may be some kind of technical hurdles to getting this done, but I think it definitely should be a priority in a future release.

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Sen. Franken Questions Sotomayor on Net Neutrality

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 15, 2009 at 12:36 pm

No doubt the hearts of net activists around the country went aflutter when Minnesota Senator Al Franken made his very first question to Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotomayor about net neutrality. Franken asked for her opinion on the 2005 “Brand X” decision, which net activists argue allows companies with both ISP and content interests to give their traffic precedence over other Internet traffic.

Essentially, Brand X affirmed the FCC’s decision that the Internet was an information service, and thus free of any requirements that would require it to be “open.”

Franken seemed to try to prod Sotomayor for her position on net neutrality, and she for all intents and purposes demurred, placing the work back in Congress’ hands. Sotomayor did say that as a citizen she realized the value and importance of the Internet.

Gleaning somebody’s stance on an issue from two or three minutes of questioning on the subject is not easy, but I’m not so sure that Sotomayor may be inclined to side with net neutrality as she seems to think it is a legislative issue.

This may come down to how she’ll decide cases — and she seems to lean towards deciding from already settled law, of which Brand X is already there. That could mean net activists might not have Sotomayor to count on if any future net neutrality cases make it to the high court.

In any case, I do applaud Senator Franken for bringing the issue up front and center. Equal access regardless of the content provider or ISP is important, and is an issue that should concern Internet users regardless of our political beliefs.

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Recession Slams PC Industry, Shipments Shrink

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 15, 2009 at 10:43 am

PC shipments are set to decline for the first time since 2001, iSuppli said Tuesday. The call reverses an earlier one which had said the industry would be able to eke out a small gain for the year. In any case, it appears that the severe recession is at fault for the pullback.

A four percent decline is expected in PC shipments worldwide year over year to 287.4 million units. However, the drop would only be temporary as shipments are expected to grow 4.7 percent in 2010.

Desktops appear to be the industry’s weakest spot. Year over year, shipments plummeted 23 percent in the first quarter. iSuppli expects a similar number for the second quarter when figures are compiled in the next few weeks.

Notebooks are helping to buoy shipments. Shipments there will climb nearly 12 percent to 155.9 million units this year. That would be enough to give portables a majority market share for the first time.

This isn’t all that surprising considering notebooks have been growing in popularity rather quickly for several years now. It seems that consumers are increasingly choosing mobility over power — as a general rule, desktops are more powerful PCs (for cheaper) than the notebook.

Either way, iSuppli’s findings shouldn’t surprise any of us. In a economy like this, we’re more worried about the necessities in life. While many of us are addicted to the Internet these days, a shiny new computer is not that necessary to surf the web with.

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Microsoft: Windows 7 is Not Done Yet!

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 14, 2009 at 10:41 am

Microsoft took to its official Windows blog Monday night to say that despite rumors to the contrary, it had not yet signed off on releasing Windows 7 to manufacturing (commonly called RTM). It reiterated its second half of July timeframe for the release of the next-gen Windows product.

Windows team member Brandon Leblanc said that there was quite a bit of work ahead before Windows 7 could RTM, especially in the area of localization. He also addressed the leaking of build 7600, which has begun to appear on file sharing services.

While not specifically saying it isn’t the final build, he did say that its leaking did not indicating hitting any type of particular milestone in Windows 7’s development. Here’s his own words:

Another thing to keep in mind is that when we do a specific build internally of Windows 7 we have an extensive step-by-step validation process to ensure quality. This process takes time. Just because a single build may have “leaked” it does not signal the completion of a milestone such as RTM. As always, don’t believe everything that you read on the Internet – except this post ;-).

In other words, wait a little longer. In any case it won’t be long – the “second half” of July starts tomorrow.

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“Holiday” Launch for Palm Pre Across Europe

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 7, 2009 at 11:30 am

With the Pre an apparent success here in the US, and Palm planning to take on the Canadian market later this year, its next target is Europe. The company announced Tuesday that it had selected O2 to bring the phone to the UK, Ireland, and Germany, and Spain on the Movistar network.

The company calls Europe an important region for Palm. “Since we showed Palm Pre at Mobile World Congress in February, there’s been a great deal of anticipation for an announcement about European availability, and that day is here,” chairman and CEO Jon Rubenstein said.

Since its in Europe, it’s obviously GSM… thinking that we may see the Pre on AT&T or T-Mobile soon too? A point to ponder…

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