The big corporations partering with Microsoft suggest that the company knows what it’s doing, but real the secret is that Microsoft hasn’t ever earned significant profits in the consumer hardware business. Here’s why DRM is the least of the Zune’s worries!
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Contributed by: Daniel Eran, RDM

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Sony Ericsson have launched the MBW-100 Bluetooth Watch. The analogue watch will go on sale globally during Q4 of 2006 with a guideline retail price of EUR 300.
Designed in partnership with fashion watchmaker Fossil, the MBW-100 sports an OLED display beneath the watch face which displays who is calling you on your mobile (well, as long as your mobile is a Sony Ericsson K610, K610i, K618, K790, K800, V630, W710, W850, Z610 or Z710). A key press on the watch rejects the call, or diverts it to the phone or bluetooth headset.
The watch also allows you to play, pause and skip to the next track on your phone’s music player, notifies you of text messages received and lets you know when your are out-of-range from your phone.
And now the bad news. It weighs 190 grammes. That’s 5 grammes more than my 60 gigabyte iPod Photo. 190 grammes is twice the weight of your average candy-bar mobile phone, so why not just have the phone built in to the watch? An attractive lightweight wristwatch-style phone which paired to a bluetooth headset might get me wearing a watch again!
Oh, and Sony also get the ‘Tautology of the Week’ award for this excerpt from the official press release:
“Most consumers cannot do without the indispensable tools for their busy lives”
Nice.
(Contributed by: Brett Jordan)

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Secret answers that expose a series of myths about Microsoft’s ability to own new markets, how it uses its monopoly in the PC industry, and why its monopoly position won’t be of any help in fixing the company’s broken retial consumer electronics strategies.
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Contributed by: Daniel Eran, RDM

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Unlike the passive entertainment of TV, interactive content involves users. There’s nothing entirely new, just a wide open markets for Apple to target with the iTV: games and entertainment, e-learning, Gutenberg text and hyperlinked PDF eBooks, live web clippings in Dashboard Widgets… What’s next for TV!
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Contributed by: Daniel Eran, RDM

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Steve Jobs has connections in music, movies, and TV – how long before Apple begins commissioning original programming? Here’s a look at the music, movie and TV business, and why Apple’s involvement in each is far larger than the mainstream media seems to understand.
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Contributed by: Daniel Eran, RDM

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Apple’s iTV promises the delivery of shared content created by individuals: independent, amateur, and academic. Alternative content is huge, even if, like personal content, there’s not usually a direct business model to support it. What’s next for TV and podcasting:
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Contributed by: Daniel Eran, RDM

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Say Hello to iOne (link 1, link 2)
Contributed by: Richard

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The previous article considered how Apple is pioneering delivery of on-demand commercial content, in particular music, movies and television programming. Apple also has investments in the production of that content, with pro software tools such as Final Cut Pro and Logic, as well as hardware engineered for audio and video production work, from the Mac Pro to the Xserve RAID.
Apple also builds production tools for a wider audience: the rest of us. Apple’s digital hub may have started with iTunes, but now it’s a suite that includes iMovie, GarageBand and iPhoto. Each is designed to catalog and polish personal content.
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Contributed by: Daniel Eran, RDM

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Why Apple Will Change TV presented similarities between the iPod and iTV, and introduced how Apple is poised to add value to existing content using the iTV in much the same way that the iPod added value to CD and MP3 music collections. Here’s the first of Five Ways Apple Will Change Your TV.
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Contributed by: Daniel Eran, RDM

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Poor Microsoft! Its abandonment of PlaysForSure partners and other strategies related to its solo iPod killer efforts have been mercilessly attacked before the company can even get the new device into the hands of users.
On top of that, it’s also facing stiff competition in pricing. However, according to proponents of Ten iPod vs Zune Myths, the Zune is technically superior, with brilliant wireless sharing features, and will be able to compete with Apple’s iPod as a cheap loss leader. Ahem. They’re wrong, here’s why.
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Contributed by: Daniel Eran, RDM

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