Apple facing pressure for music download dominance

The music industry is gearing up for an explosion in downloading at its annual get together in Cannes. Download services such as Napster, record labels and mobile phone manufaturers all predict that 2005 will be the year in which Apple's dominance of the market for both music downloads, through its iTunes Music Store, and portable devices on which to play them, such as the iPod, will come under real pressure. Some observers believe that where downloaded music is played - on a computer, portable player or phone - will not be the key issue of the year; rather, the battle will be between subscription-based services and those like iTunes which only offer paid-for-downloads. ...more

Microsoft buys SCO Unix licence

IP-wielding SCO has found a friendly ear with Microsoft, as it upsets the Linux community. Microsoft has obligingly agreed to license SCO's Unix patents and source code that lies at the heart of SCO's $1bn suit against IBM. Brad Smith, general counsel for Microsoft said that 'the announcement of this license is representative of Microsoft's ongoing commitment to respecting intellectual property (IP) and the IT community's healthy exchange of IP through licensing. ...more

Yahoo! doubles its profits

The rise and rise of Yahoo! continues. Yesterday the internet portal announced that it has doubled its profits for the last quarter compared with the previous year. The company said that income for the first quarter of 2005 totalled $205mn. ...more

Nokia and Symbian steal a march on Microsoft and Palm

Nokia should have the edge over rivals Palm and Microsoft, as it is launching its combined mobile phone and personal organiser, the 9210 Communicator months earlier than products using Microsoft Pocket PC or PalmOS platforms. The Finnish handset manufacturer says that it will launch the colour, wireless device in Europe and Japan sometime in March or April, based on Symbian's EPOC OS. Microsoft says its Pocket PC won't be available in colour wireless products for another six months and, although the Palm III Series have colour screens, there's not yet a wireless version. ...more

T-Mobile bails out of mobile payment venture

A consortium of mobile phone network operators has had to shelve plans for a pan-European wireless payments system after T-Mobile withdrew its support. Simpay, a joint operation between T-Mobile, Orange, Telefonica Moviles and Vodafone was hoping to establish a single payment system for m-commerce transactions that would enable mobile device users to buy goods and services from any network provider in any country. The service was primarily designed to facilitate small purchases up to between 10 and 12 Euros. ...more