Wi-Fi’s true believers see powerful ‘grass-roots’ force

John Markoff NYT Monday, July 14, 2003

  SUN VALLEY, Idaho Is the Wi-Fi boom about to bust? Even though that has lately become the fashionable view, the answer is probably no.

Critics argue that there are too many competitors trying to deliver high-speed wireless connections to the Internet. Prices for most commercial Wi-Fi services are too high, they say, and free or subsidized operations abound, including those like the one McDonald’s started rolling out last week at its fast food restaurants in San Francisco.

All this will make it practically impossible, the skeptics insist, for anyone to build a profitable business in Wi-Fi, a short-range wireless radio technology that frees personal computers from their physical tethers to the Internet.

A surprising number of true believers in Wi-Fi were present at this famed mountain resort during an annual conference, organized by the investment banker Herbert Allen, that brings together technology, media and entertainment industry leaders.

Intel, in particular, is betting a lot of its own money on Wi-Fi. And that may be exactly what the new technology needs to succeed.

Intel’s two top executives, Craig Barrett and Andrew Grove, were here this year to preach the virtues of Wi-Fi, in the belief that it will be a powerfully disruptive force in the telecommunications industry.

It has certainly been a disruptive force at Intel. The industry and analysts have focused their attention on the current frenzy to build out wireless Internet locations known as hot spots at airports, coffee houses and hotels. But Intel has a much bolder wireless plan in the works: it wants to close the so-called “last-mile” gap between homes and the Internet backbone with cheap, super-fast connections so that businesses can deliver interactive entertainment and a host of other digital products and services right into America’s living rooms and dens.

The new Intel bet is remarkable given that the company initially backed the wrong wireless standard, putting its resources behind a competing standard known as Home RF. But Intel, the world’s biggest computer chip maker, changed its strategy after company executives realized the power and potential pervasiveness of the unregulated Wi-Fi wireless networking standard.

The Wi-Fi standard was developed and commercialized at Apple Computer as early as 1999. Ultimately, though, it gained widespread popularity on its own, Mr. Barrett acknowledged in an interview here, as a grass-roots, from-the-bottom-up movement. That success stands in striking contrast to top-down wireless data strategies, like the 3G cellular approach pushed by the telecom industry, which has so far been an expensive bust.

Barrett now says that people who predict a Wi-Fi shakeout are missing the point, as well as failing to see the deeper implications of the technology. “What is missing is the realization of how many legs this technology has,” he said.

In the three months since Intel introduced its new wireless PC chips, the company has become the dominant force in the Wi-Fi market. It is now putting Wi-Fi circuitry in all of its chip sets for portable computers, investing widely in Wi-Fi industry start-ups and spending almost its entire annual marketing budget in a $300 million advertising campaign trumpeting the virtues of its unwired Centrino brand.

“Intel has raised the level of the water and is floating all the boats,” said Glenn Fleishman, editor of Wi-Fi Networking News, a Web-based daily newsletter.

Of even greater potential import, Intel plans to start a test in Texas in a few months that will use a combination of wireless technologies, including Wi-Fi, to bring broadband Internet connections directly to homes. Last week the company quietly announced that it was teaming with a small equipment maker, Alvarion, of Tel Aviv, Israel, to back a complementary wireless standard that is intended to send data over distances of as much as 30 miles and at speeds of up to 70 megabits per second. The data rate is high enough to comfortably stream high-definition television video broadcasts, and the range makes it possible to quickly deploy a system in a large urban or suburban area.

By comparison, current Wi-Fi technology is limited to several hundred feet and speeds of 11 megabits per second. The Intel test, however, will explore using the 802.16 standard, known as WiMax, to distribute the data to Wi-Fi antennas in local neighborhoods. If Intel is able to jumpstart the market to reach millions of homes with a relatively inexpensive interactive data and video service, the technology could quickly alter the communications landscape. That is already starting to happen. There is now an explosion of Wi-Fi hot spots in hotels, coffee shops, restaurants and airports, and a new wave of handheld gadgets will soon supplement portable personal computers for a class of mobile workers that analysts are calling windshield warriors.

In a speech here, Barrett sketched a portrait of a rapidly growing market. There are now about 40 million Wi-Fi users, he said, and new access points are selling at the rate of about 15,000 a day, which makes Wi-Fi a much faster-growing technology than cellular telephony.

While prices for connection times are certain to keep falling, industry executives say they are already seeing usage patterns that suggest that Wi-Fi commercial services are working and are here to stay. Moreover, they say they believe the services will complement and not compete with free services that are emerging in urban areas around the country. “We have a good business model in hotels, said Dave Vucina, chief executive officer of Wayport, a provider of Wi-Fi hot spots in hotels, airports, restaurants and other locations that is based in Austin, Texas.

In the hotels that Wayport serves, he said, the company is seeing between 8 and 12 percent nightly usage rates for each occupied room. He said he believed that the rate could go as high as 15 to 24 percent. Those numbers are credible, industry analysts said, because out of the 40 million business travelers in the United States, 30 million now carry personal computers when they hit the road.

The central issue in the debate is whether those workers will be able to meet their data needs with next-generation cellular telephone networks, or whether the far higher data rates available on Wi-Fi networks will prove preferable.

Copyright © 2003 The International Herald Tribune

By Joe Wilcox Staff Writer, CNET News.com January 6, 2003, 4:00 AM PT

Apple Computer on Tuesday is expected to unveil a new portable product aimed at bolstering the company’s strategy to make itself into a major player in home entertainment, sources and analysts said.

The product, which is expected to be shown off during a keynote speech by CEO Steve Jobs at Macworld in San Francisco on Tuesday, will come with 802.11g and Bluetooth wireless capabilities and serve to make the Mac a more appealing “digital hub” than Windows XP PCs, according to sources. Machines with Windows XP Media Center Edition can be used to record TV shows, similar to digital video recorders (DVR) such as TiVo boxes, and catalog music and video.

What the product does exactly, however, remains shrouded in mystery. Some sources and analysts believe that it will be similar to the tablet computers released by Acer and others late last year. These are full-fledged portable computers complete with handwriting recognition and handwriting input.

Others, however, say it will be a device geared toward playing or capturing video. By incorporating both 802.11g and Bluetooth wireless capabilities, the device could connect to both upcoming Apple PCs (Apple has said it will support the 802.11g wireless networking standard) and the latest digital cameras and video recorders. A standard TV jack would allow the device to be hooked up to TVs as well and function as a DVR or as a bridge to let the TV act like a DVR.

Then again, it could be something entirely different, as the company has proven adept at confounding speculation preceding the convention before. An Apple reperesentative would not comment on new products ahead of the show.

One thing that is not expected at the show are new computers. Because of a relatively modest inventory bloat, Apple is delaying new models, according to sources.

Analysts note that Apple has all the pieces in place to deliver a tablet-like computer. Such a computer, outfitted with Mac OS X 10.2, Apple’s Inkwell handwriting recognition technology, iSync data synchronization capabilities and 802.11g and Bluetooth wireless would be a formidable entry.

Bluetooth would remove the need for a docking station as the mouse and keyboard would connect wirelessly. With speeds up to 54 megabits per second (mbps), 802.11g wireless networking would allow the transfer of large data files or video without the need of cables.

“That kind of device would make a lot of sense,” said NPD Techworld analyst Stephen Baker. “The idea of the digital hub is to try and tie a bunch of different product types together but provide a lot of mobility of your data–your TV entertainment data, your music data, your digital data. This kind of device would have that.”

IDC analyst Roger Kay agreed. “If it were really cool it would generate a lot of buzz and maybe even a few sales.”

A tablet computer, however, would be risky. These devices generally sell for more than $2,000, or more expensive than most notebook computers. Overall tablet sales in 2003 are expected to be fairly small: Gartner projected first-year Tablet PC portable sales of 425,000, or about 1 percent of the notebook market, while IDC said it could go up to 775,000.

Typically, Apple’s “cool” products have done well when they are relatively cheap. The first iMac, targeted at new computer users, and the iPod music player have sold well. The cube, geared for professionals and carrying a corporate price tag, did not sell well. And sales of the the flat-panel iMac, which was unveiled at last years Macworld, have cooled after an initial flurry.

iPod II But some analysts don’t believe the new product will be a tablet, but a successor to Apple’s iPod music player. The new device would have video capabilities and possibly a touch screen and wireless capabilities. As such, the device would be similar to the portable video player unfurled by Intel last year. Sonicblue is currently marketing the Intel-designed device.

“I think any rumors about a tablet computer are a smokescreen for iPod II,” said Richard Doherty, president of research firm Envisioneering Group.

Technology Business Research analyst Tim Deal agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple introduce an iPod with touch-screen capabilities as well as additional applications to include cell-phone connectability and gaming as it continues to evolve into a fully functional PDA,” he said. “A wireless iPod with bolstered display features would allow users to share and view digital (pictures) and videos on the fly.”

Doherty said Apple has been working on a video-capable iPod-like device for some time. “Originally, Apple had planned to announce iPod II at Expo Tokyo,” he said. In December, IDG canceled next month’s Macworld Expo/Tokyo. “We think the product can be announced, if not shipped now,” Doherty added.

The iPod II, in fact, is one of three principal pieces of hardware in Apple’s labs that Apple has shown analysts but not officially announced yet. The company is also working on computers that will contain IBM’s 32-bit and 64-bit chip and a computer with a 3D screen, similar to the screens recently unveiled by Sharp. Of course, Doherty added that not everything in the lab eventually goes public.

Whether tablet or iPod, emphasis on video would be one of the new product’s distinguishing features, Doherty said. Apple could further advance its digital media strategy around MPEG-4, the successor to the MPEG-2 format widely used for Hollywood movie DVDs.

“Nobody has better MPEG-4 tools than Apple,” Doherty said.

The ripe and the unripe During his keynote address Tuesday, Jobs also is expected to unveil new versions of the company’s digital media programs, or “i” applications. But consumers will have to pay as much as $50 for new versions of iDVD, iPhoto and iMovie, which will be sold together as a bundle. Apple released new versions of iCal and iSync on Thursday.

Bluetooth and next-generation 802.11g wireless networking will be important parts of the Macworld announcements, sources said. Apple plans to release a new version of its AirPort wireless base station using 802.11g, as the company moves up from the slower 802.11b that moves data up to 11mbps.

Meanwhile, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company apparently has delayed launching new Macs ready for Macworld until later in January, while the company sells out stock left over from the holidays, according to sources. When available, some of the new Macs are expected to include support for 802.11g and Bluetooth wireless.

The “quarter’s financial results will undoubtedly show weaker-than-usual holiday sales for Apple,” Deal said of the decision to delay new Macs.

Inventory information from distributors Ingram Micro and Tech Data indicate Apple is sitting on modest inventory–anywhere from one to three weeks–in most product categories. But some products are considerably backordered, such as the 5GB and 10GB iPod for the Mac, AirPort base station and 15-inch flat-panel monitor. Based on similar past situations, the backorders would suggest new products are coming in these categories. But sources said to watch for Apple to drop the 15-inch flat-panel monitor as the company replaces the current 17-inch display and adds a new, 19-inch model. The new monitors could debut on Tuesday, but are more likely to appear when Apple announces new Mac models.

No matter what happens on Tuesday, “The innovation ratio will be much higher than Apple’s 5 percent market share,” Doherty said.

———–

SONY/Ericsson support Bluetooth in their current round of phones, Apple has already demonstrated interoperability with them in shipping product, and Apple has mysteriously incorporated robust Bluetooth support into OSX Jaguar.

-Ian.

On Thursday, September 26, 2002, at 04:23 PM, Anson Lee wrote:

> And while we’re on the topic of the phone/pda
>
> An article that claims to have stumbled across the Apple hiPhone.
>
> Nice rendering, but what’s with that Apple logo?
>
> -Anson
>
> http://www.eprairie.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterIDA48
>
> Apple, Motorola Avert Confirmation of Unannounced Cell Phone
> 9/26/2002
>
> ePrairie has obtained these three photographs (dated September 2002)
> of an
> unannounced Apple cell phone called the Applele hiPhone R4 CHICAGO
> (Exclusive) – A picture can tell a thousand words. Leaked to the right
> place
> at the right time, some pictures of some products can even tell a
> story of a
> new venture by an unsuspecting company that has decided to silence the
> word.
> Well, at least for now.
>
> Such is the case with Apple Computer – known usually for making
> computers
> and MP3 players and software – regarding pictures of a new Apple cell
> phone
> that have been disclosed to ePrairie. As seen on the right, they sport
> the
> grace and colorful styling you’re used to from Apple’s computers but
> in a
> decidely more mobile fashion.
>
> Upon confronting Apple with the discovery, Nathalie Welch, a
> spokeswoman for
> the company, wasn’t interested in revealing any details. In fact, she
> wasn’t
> even interested in confirming its existence.
>
> “I can neither confirm nor deny the rumors that Apple is developing a
> cell
> phone or discuss unannounced products,” Welch said in an e-mail to
> ePrairie.
>
> Representatives from Motorola – a local company that has been known for
> working closely with Apple – also declined to confirm or deny whether
> or not
> the Schaumburg, Ill.-based powerhouse was or will be involved in
> developing
> the phone’s chipset. But several analysts, who say Motorola would be a
> logical partner, also say the release of a cell phone would make sense
> for
> Apple.
>
> “It would fit with Apple’s whole digital universe strategy in which
> the PC
> is the hub of your digital universe and the iPod (Apple’s mobile MP3
> player)
> is a peripheral,” said Kevin Hunt, a research analyst at Thomas Weisel
> Partners who covers Apple but hadn’t heard of a cell phone in the
> works.
>
> He added: “Apple has been very vehement that they wouldn’t get into
> handhelds because they think handhelds will go away and blend into a
> cell
> phone, so it would make more sense to come out with a cell phone.” The
> phones look much like Apple’s older iMacs in terms of the vibrant
> colors,
> prompting Hunt to say: “They do have some of the coolest-looking
> products.”
>
> Other analysts, though, are less convinced: “I’ve talked to some
> component
> manufacturers that say Apple’s going to do this and some that say they
> won’t,” said Dan Niles, an analyst that covers Apple at Lehman
> Brothers who
> has heard conversation of an Apple cell phone.
>
> He added: “I’m not sure how this fits in Apple’s current business
> strategy.
> I don’t view it as synergistic as the iPod. Yes, you can transfer your
> contact list [from your computer] with a cell phone, but it hasn’t
> necessarily been proven that people are using the data capabilities of
> their
> phones anyway.”
>
> Hunt says that Motorola and IBM have banded together to develop chips
> for
> Apple’s power PCs (the G4), and because Apple wouldn’t make its own
> cell
> phone chips, Motorola would be a likely vendor. He adds that the cell
> phone
> would probably be a combination device that has much of the same
> functionality as a handheld.
>
>> From Motorola’s vantage point, the sense is similar to what Apple is
>> saying
> but with the added notion of a sensible synergy.
>
> “I can’t comment on rumors,” said Amy Halm, director of communications
> for
> Motorola’s networking and computing group, “but I can say that Apple
> is one
> of Motorola’s most valued customers and has been for a very long time.
> Apple’s customers are some of the most passionate customers in the
> world.
> Every time Apple introduces a new product, they have the most loyal
> following of any company I’ve ever seen.”
>
> In terms of the chances for success in the marketplace, Hunt says this
> would
> be a very new market for Apple that would complement its own product
> line
> rather than try to compete with the big cell phone makers.
>
> He says Apple – one of the most “tightlipped” companies he’s ever
> covered in
> terms of speaking about products before they’re ready to ship – would
> likely
> begin talking about the phones in the middle of 2003 in anticipation
> for the
> next Macworld trade show. Hunt says the price point for the combination
> device might be between $300 and $500, or that of a higher-end phone.
>
> The pictures obtained by ePrairie named the phone the Applele hiPhone
> R4 and
> were dated with a September 2002 time stamp.
>
> By ADAM FENDELMAN
> Editor-in-Chief
> Reporter’s Beat: Telecom
> adam [at] eprairie [dot] com

Wife ‘hired a hitman’ to kill Scoot.com CEO 16:56 Monday 23rd September 2002 Matthew Broersma

The ex-wife of Jon Molyneux, former Scoot.com chief executive, admitted in court to paying a man to kill her husband for his insurance money

The ex-wife of Jon Molyneux, the former chief executive of Scoot.com, has pleaded guilty to hiring a hitman to kill her husband for his life insurance money, the Old Bailey heard on Monday.

Shelley Molyneux, who has four children, and whose 21-year marriage ended earlier this year, admitted in court that she had paid a hitman £20,000 to kill her husband. But the man was really an undercover tabloid newspaper reporter, who worked with police to gather evidence against her.

The case adds to Scoot.com’s afflictions, the embattled online directory service that has also faced allegations of shady stock-market dealings, and was allegedly the target of a smear campaign by off-shore businessmen who tapped an executive’s mobile phone.

Prosecutors told the court that the Molyneuxes lived in a £500,000 house in Essex and that Jon Molyneux earned £175,000 a year as Scoot chief executive, a post he took up in 1999 after leaving Apple Computer (UK). Molyneux had an estimated £1m fortune and the family’s luxuries included five foreign holidays a year and expensive cars, according to a report in The Evening Standard.

But the bursting of the dot-com bubble, and Scoot’s particular problems, led to Molyneux stepping down from the post, and the Molyneuxes began divorce proceedings. At that time Shelley Molyneux contacted a private investigator, who put her in touch with the supposed hitman.

After arranging the hit, she left for a skiing holiday with her new boyfriend to provide an alibi, prosecutors said, and she was arrested when she returned to London in February. The defence argues that she was entrapped into arranging the hit. She is due to be sentenced next month.

Jon Molyneux is not the only Scoot executive to allegedly be the target of a malicious plan. Scoot co-founder Robert Bonnier claimed that a dirty tricks campaign was launched against him in order to manipulate Scoot shares and further the interests of an obscure Monaco businessman.

Bonnier had become involved with share dealings that were financed by former Scoot chairman Ronald Zimet, an Israeli businessman. Bonnier alleged that a conspiracy had been mounted against him by Monaco businessman Andrew Regan in order to discredit Zimet, who was to be a witness for the prosecution against Regan in a criminal trial.

Bonnier said that his wife’s car had been followed, his mobile phone bugged and that taxis he called had secret recording equipment. He said that Regan was the source of a mysterious dossier circulated to major newspapers, alleging that Scoot inflated its subscriber figures.

The financial services authority is also understood to have investigated the source of the sharp fluctuations in Scoot’s share price.

More recently, Scoot was bought this summer by British Telecommunications for a bargain-basement £8m, about 0.3 percent of its £2.5bn value at the height at the dot-com boom.

The case continues

———–

Apple’s Chief in the Risky Land of the Handhelds By JOHN MARKOFF

AN FRANCISCO, Aug. 18 — It has long been Silicon Valley’s favorite guessing game: What is Steven P. Jobs going to do next?

The question is particularly engrossing as Apple Computer prepares to introduce the new version of its Macintosh OS X software operating system.

There are signs that, with the new version of the Macintosh OS, Mr. Jobs, Apple’s founder, chairman and chief executive, may be approaching a precipice like the one that led to the downfall seven years ago of the man who was then Apple’s chief executive, John Sculley.

Mr. Sculley’s great tumble came after he staked his and Apple’s reputation on the ill-fated Newton hand-held computer — an ambitious product based on handwriting-recognition technology that was ahead of its time. And now come signs that Mr. Jobs means to take Apple back to the land of the handhelds, but this time with a device that would combine elements of a cellphone and a Palm-like personal digital assistant.

Mr. Jobs and Apple decline to confirm those plans. But industry analysts see evidence that Apple is contemplating what inside the company is being called an “iPhone.”

Among the evidence, they say, is recent behind-the-scenes wrangling between Palm and Apple over linking Palm’s own devices to Apple’s new operating system — apparently with little cooperation on Apple’s part.

Analysts also cite Apple’s deal with Pixo, the tiny company that designed the software for Apple’s popular iPod MP3 music player; that deal includes a license for Apple to use Pixo’s software with a second product.

And analysts note that the presence of a variety of features in the new Macintosh OS software that would make more sense in a hand-held device than a desktop computer.

“When you connect the dots, you end up at a phone,” said Charles Wolf, a financial analyst who follows Apple for Needham & Company.

Compared with the Newton, which was delivered prematurely in 1993 to a market not yet ready for such products, Apple’s new device would reach a field in which other companies have already plowed the ground — including giants like Microsoft, Nokia and Motorola, as well as start-ups like Handspring and Danger. This crowded field could pose risks for Apple, if its product were seen to fall short of the competition.

And yet, entering an already established market could give Mr. Jobs the opportunity to show off his and Apple’s vaunted innovation and marketing skills.

Certainly, Apple’s push into the market for a hand-held communicator would be an abrupt departure for Mr. Jobs, who continues publicly to disavow talk of such a move. But analysts and people close to the company say that the plan is under way and that the evidence is manifest in the features and elements of the new version of the Macintosh operating system.

Mr. Jobs — who was a co-founder of Apple and handpicked Mr. Sculley as its president, only to be forced out by him in 1985 — returned five years ago when the company was on the brink of collapse.

In a remarkable turnaround effort, Mr. Jobs has taken pains to distance Apple from the Sculley-Newton legacy. He canceled the Newton soon after returning and has pooh-poohed the industry’s personal digital assistants as “junk” and worse.

Behind the scenes, though, Mr. Jobs has been actively exploring the computing world beyond the desktop. Soon after he arrived back at Apple, for example, he attempted to buy Palm for $1 billion, according to a Silicon Valley executive familiar with the offer. Palm rejected the idea, this executive said.

Now, with the release of the newest version of the Macintosh operating system, Mr. Jobs appears intent on taking Apple itself into the hand-held market. The move would play into Apple’s so-called digital hub strategy, in which the Macintosh desktop computer is the center of a web of peripheral devices.

The highly anticipated Macintosh OS X, Version 10.2, which began shipping on the company’s newest computers last week, will go on sale for existing Macintosh users on Saturday. While the software is being marketed as an improvement for desktop computer users, it could have just as big a future in powering a yet-to-be announced Apple hand-held computer-phone.

Mr. Jobs continues to be coy. He insists that he still dislikes the idea of the conventional personal digital assistant, saying that the devices are too hard to use and offer little real utility. But a telephone with personal digital assistant features is another matter.

“We decided that between now and next year, the P.D.A. is going to be subsumed by the telephone,” he said last week in an interview. “We think the P.D.A. is going away.”

And even while protesting that the company had no plans to introduce such a device, he grudgingly acknowledged that combining some of Apple’s industrial design and user-interface innovations would be a good idea in a device that performed both phone and computing functions.

A look at the laundry list of features in the company’s new version of OS X indicates that a computer-phone is much more than a vague idea for Apple.

Of the 12 new OS X features the company has been emphasizing on its Web site, most would be desirable for a hand-held phone, including chat capabilities, mail, an address book, calendar features, automatic networking and a synchronization feature that will become available in September.

And several of the features, including the company’s handwriting-recognition technology and Sherlock information-retrieval program, would be much more relevant to a small, portable device than to a desktop computer.

Sherlock in particular has been repositioned in a way that would make it a perfect counterpart for a portable phone. Its original purpose, which was finding files and content on the computer’s local disk, has been transformed into a more general “find” utility program. Now, Sherlock is being extended to search for types of information like airline and movie schedules and restaurant locations. The software can display maps and driving directions.

But details of the plan are unlikely to emerge from Mr. Jobs or his team before Apple is ready to introduce a new product. The company, which in the 1980’s and 90’s was known among reporters as “a ship that leaks from the top,” is now obsessive about guarding the secrecy of its future products.

All Mr. Jobs would say on the matter was that the cellphone computers already on the market fall far short, and that some of the user-interface and industrial design touches already evident in the iPod would be perfect for an improved, consumer-friendly version of such a product.

An Apple phone could be a particularly tempting product for Mr. Jobs, giving him the opportunity to overcome Mr. Sculley’s largest failure. He could also rectify the Newton’s single biggest shortcoming: the device’s inability to communicate easily with the Macintosh desktop computer. Apple has already begun offering Bluetooth local wireless networking technology for peripheral devices, a feature that would make it simple to share information between a phone and a computer.

Furthermore, the cost of adding phone capabilities to palmtop computers is falling rapidly.

“It’s easier and easier for a company like Apple to go to a Taiwanese manufacturer for wireless telephone components,” said David Carey, chief executive of Portelligent, a technical market research company based in Austin, Tex. He said the parts required for adding advanced cellular capabilities to a device now cost as little as $50.

Of course, that is why Mr. Jobs’s greatest challenge with an iPhone might be elbowing his way into a crowded marketplace, where other companies already have supplier and manufacturing relationships in place.

“There’s no question that Apple could design a cool phone,” said Andy Neff, a Bear, Stearns analyst in New York. “The key is being able to build an infrastructure.”

———–

Thursday March 28, 10:00 am Eastern Time

Forbes.com IPod Redux By Ari Weinberg

Apple Computer ‘s iPod portable MP3 player debuted to rave reviews last fall. The newest version, released last week, does little to diminish the applause.

But it’s not yet deserving of a standing ovation.

The new iPod doubles the storage capacity to 10 gigabytes (roughly 2,000 songs) and adds 20 equalizer presets. That extra space comes at a cost. The 10 GB version retails for $499, $100 more than the original. Like the original, you can try to compare the Apple (NasdaqNM:AAPL – news) to the under-$400 20 GB offerings from SonicBlue (NasdaqNM:SBLU – news) and Archos. But you really can’t.

That’s because iPod still has limited Windows compatibility. It’s a shame considering that the vast majority of personal computers are Windows machines. Some third-party developers have come out with Windows-based software and firmware (for the iPod itself), but Apple has yet to reveal any plans for Windows compatability, though the company is rumored to be working on just such a product. The company is rumored to be hammering out a Windows solution, but that involves some mighty concession from both Apple and Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT – news) .

Right now, Apple’s proprietary FireWire connection port is its leverage. FireWire transfers data at roughly 30 times Universal Serial Bus (USB), the current standard for interdevice connections for PCs and older Macs. The iPod’s FireWIre connection can tranfer 2,000 songs in 20 minutes. For a USB MP3 player, that would take ten hours. But as more portable devices–like digital cameras and camcorders–come with FireWire capacity, the Windows machine cartel may consider small concessions too keep the high-end digerati happy. The pressure is on Apple to play ball. Of course, it would be silly to assume that the minds at Microsoft and Intel (NasdaqNM:INTC – news) aren’t hammering out a technology to blow by FireWire.

Though many iPod owners use the device as a portable hard drive–which it is–the iPod was built for music. So why is Apple touting the introduction of new software that allows the iPod to display address databases from Palm (NasdaqNM:PALM – news) and Mac?

Could the iPod be Apple’s doorway into the crowded personal digital assistant market? Let’s hope not. Apple has a hit going with iPod’s current design and format–to try to morph it into an upscale PDA could be a Newton-sized mistake.

Related Links at Forbes.com

During the concert that I went to (in 1999, in fact) he explained that he had re-arranged a bunch of new songs while riding in the bus from Calgary to Vancouver and that they were going to play those new arrangements for the first time at the show.

Pretty amazing.

-Ian.

——- http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/04/business/04PATE.html?pagewanted=print

March 4, 2002 Crooner Uses Computers to Replace Sheet Music By TERESA RIORDAN

Harry Connick Jr. is a versatile guy: crooner, composer, big-band leader, piano player, actor, comedian. And an inventor, as well.

Mr. Connick, who has been described by one critic as a new and improved version of Sinatra, recently received United States patent 6,348,648 for a “system and method for coordinating music display among players in an orchestra.”

“It basically eliminates old-fashioned sheet music,” Mr. Connick said in a phone interview 10 days ago, before leaving for Salt Lake City, where he performed “Over the Rainbow” during the closing ceremonies of the Olympics.

His patented idea came to him one day several years ago when his big band was playing outdoors and the sheet music was blowing around. Why not, he thought, have all 16 band members read their music off computer screens instead?

So before he started a long tour in 1999, Mr. Connick bought enough blue and white G3 Power Macs, each with a rotatable screen, that everyone ‹ from his trombonists to his drummer ‹ could read from electronic sheet music.

For technical advice, he turned to his neighbor David Pogue, who is a former Broadway conductor and a computer guru to the stars, whose clients have included Stephen Sondheim and Mia Farrow. (Mr. Pogue, who also writes the State of the Art column for the weekly Circuits section of this newspaper, has no commercial ties to Mr. Connick’s invention.)

“A lot of the guys I knew from my pit work on Broadway said that it would never work,” Mr. Pogue recalled. “They said the computer would crash or the screen wouldn’t refresh itself in time for a professional situation.”

In fact, Mr. Pogue said, the technology had progressed far enough that the electronic page could be turned faster and more reliably than a paper page.

At first, Mr. Pogue said, the members of Mr. Connick’s band were skeptical. “They circled it and sniffed it the first day,” he said. “But by the time they opened the tour they were really into it.”

Mr. Connick started the digital- score tour in a relatively low-stakes locale ‹ Ames, Iowa ‹ so that any kinks could be worked out beyond publicity’s glare.

Unlike most other pop musicians, Mr. Connick does his own musical arrangements right on his Macintosh computer, using Finale software from Coda Music Technology, a division of Net4Music (news/quote). His system allows him to make changes to a given arrangement ‹ knock out eight bars here, add eight bars there ‹ and have them entered automatically into his musicians’ copies of the music.

“Oh man, it’s made my life easier,” Mr. Connick said. “Before, I would write out a song by hand and give it to a couple of guys in the band who are copyists and they would figure out the instrumental sections. It could take days. Now I can write a new score in the morning and everyone has it on his computer screen in the afternoon. Imagine if a Duke Ellington or a Stravinsky had had a system like that.”

The system has had some unforeseen benefits, as well. In studio recordings, for example, it’s no longer necessary to digitally remove the page-turning rustling in the background. Moreover, musicians can insert page breaks wherever they want.

And doing away with sheet music also means doing away with music lights for the musicians. So when the lights dim and Mr. Connick begins to sing, Mr. Pogue said, all the audience sees of the other musicians is “this super-cool bluish glow on their faces from the computer screens.”

Mr. Connick’s patent covers more territory than electronic sheet music. He hopes that eventually the computers will have their own operating system and feature a touch screen that allows a composer to write music as he would on paper.

But he makes it clear that he is a concept man.

“I can do stuff like put RAM in a computer, but I’m not a programmer,” he said. “You start talking about the technology involved in making it, and I’m going to be completely lost. I don’t have any interest in actually building it. I just want someone to send me one in the mail when it’s done.”

In fact, Mr. Connick approached Apple Computer (news/quote) about helping him develop the system.

“I love their products and I thought for sure they would go for it,” he said. “They put up a lot of `Think Different’ posters and I sure think different. But they weren’t interested.”

On the day his patent was issued, Mr. Connick said, his wife, Jill Goodacre, a former Victoria’s Secret model, asked him if he was proud of himself.

“I said not really,” Mr. Connick recalled. “It’s not like I invented Velcro or anything.”