Business News Holding

Tag: market-data

  • SpiriTel wins EURO 1.1m VoIP contract


    SpiriTel has announced that it has won a network services and hosted VoIP contract with a major European hotel group.

    The business communications service provider said the value of the three year contract is expected to exceed £1 million.

    Under the terms of the agreement SpiriTel will provide integrated network services across all of the group’s UK estate of 21 hotels and its head office.

    The hosted VoIP solution is a managed service which includes the provision of teleworking facilities for field based staff.

    The deal is SpiriTel’s second significant cross sale contract win this month.

    Earlier this month, the Company signed an agreement with another international hotel group, under which SpiriTel replaced BT as the provider of a private UK voice network.

    The two deals take the total value of cross sales orders since the company’s April 2008 year end to over £3 million, according to a company statement.

    Alastair Mills, CEO of SpiriTel said: "I am delighted to have secured another significant contract win for SpiriTel which provides further evidence of the viability of our integrated model in a challenging economic climate."

  • eBay To Sell Skype?


    Skype’s future as an eBay company is looking increasingly unsure as speculation mounts over its possible sale.

    eBay’s chief executive, John Donahoe, has done nothing to ease expectations of a sell-off. Last week he told analysts that "synergies between Skype and the other parts of our portfolio are minimal" and that it is "a great standalone business".

    This follows his comments early last year when he said the company would be reassessed and sold if it did not benefit eBay or Skype.

    Analysts point to the lack of a logical integration between the telephony service and the auction site.

    Names being touted as potential buyers, include Google, which has shown interest in Skype in the past, and US telecoms giants AT&T and Verizon.

    eBay purchased Skype for USD $2.6bn purchase of Skype in 2005.

    In the auction company’s financial results for the last quarter of 2008, revenue fell 7 per cent to USD $2.04bn, below market expectations.

    Skype has seen revenues rise by 26 per cent.

    Skype is also said to be preparing new applications for its VoIP software which could be introduced at next month’s Mobile World Congress in Spain.

    These are expected to involve a dedicated application for Apple’s iPhone, a similar app for the BlackBerry Storm and via an update to Windows Mobile 6.5 itself.

    This month, the company introduced Skype lite, a no-frills client meant for Android-powered devices and the many mobile phones that are capable of running Java applications.

  • AdMob Strengthens Position With $ 12.5m Funding


    The mobile ad network AdMob has raised USD $12.5 million in a further round of venture funding.

    The new investment is its third round of funding, which now totals USD $28.2 million.

    Chief executive Omar Hamoui said the new funds will be used to make investments to ensure AdMob comes out of this "challenging economic environment" in a strong position.

    The San Mateo, California-based company has made a number of announcements recently.

    These include offering, first iPhone-customized ads and metrics, and then earlier this week a similar service for Google’s Android smartphone.

    The new funding comes from Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

  • Blackberry Offered As Pay-As-You-Go


    Orange UK is to offer a pay-as-you-go Blackberry – the first carrier in Europe to launch a PAYG RIM device.

    The move underlines RIM’s intention to re-position itself as a provider of handsets that appeal to the consumer market as well as its traditional enterprise stronghold.

    The smartphone will be an exclusive indigo-colored BlackBerry 8120 that will cost £145.

    An estimated two-thirds of UK mobile customers use PAYG.

    To take up the Orange offer customers must take out one of the operator’s existing PAYG Animal packages before taking a PAYG BlackBerry Internet Service for just £5 per month, on a monthly rolling subscription.

    This will give them access to email, messaging and the web.

    An Orange statement said the new offering was a result of the growing demand for a BlackBerry smartphone with PAYG service.

    The BlackBerry Pearl 8120 has a 2 megapixel camera with LED flash, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and media player.

  • Thirst For HD Drives Freesat Sales To 200,000


    Demand for HD content has helped drive sales of Freesat devices past the 200,000 mark since the UK service was launched last May.

    While the figure is impressive, it further highlights the gulf that has opened up between the US and Japan and the rest of the world.

    An In-Stat report earlier this week showed that the bulk of households with an installed high-definition television is decidedly biased towards these two countries.

    That said, steps are being taken in the UK to improve the amount of HD content available.

    Freesat has quickly established itself as a leading provider of high def channels.

    The BBC-ITV joint venture said that HD had become a key selling point, with 61 per cent of a "customer panel" choosing the availability of high definition content as their "primary reason" for purchasing.

    Freesat offers its HD channel with no subscription.

    BSkyB announced this week that 779,000 now have its HD receiver and it hopes to make further investment in HD programming.

    Apple has also just announced that the first HD show is available for download from the iTunes store for AppleTV owners in the UK.
    Other European nations are also making in-roads into the HD world.

    A study from market researchers GfK states that the German market for Blu-ray players is in great shape, with strong sales in the final three months of 2008.

    GfK said that with average prices approaching the €300 barrier, sales figures of Blu-ray Players finally reached the 100,000 mark in December when more than 30,000 units were sold.

    Despite this positive development in the last quarter of 2008 the new format is not yet a resounding success.

    In December, there were already more than 11 million HD-ready or Full HD TV sets on the market in Germany compared to only 110,000 Blu-ray Players.

  • iPhone Swells AT&T's Results


    The addition of 1.9 million 3G iPhone accounts helped AT&T to post USD $0.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the fourth quarter.

    Apple’s handset made up the bulk of the 2.1 million net new customers that the telecom company gained in the period.

    It enabled AT&T to announce full-year earnings per share of USD $2.16, up from USD $1.94 for 2007.

    The Dallas-based company’s result surprised some analysts, who were expecting poorer figures following Apple’s recent reporting of a 36 per cent decline in iPhone shipments.

    The iPhone helped push up revenue for Web browsing and video download by 51 per cent compared to the previous year.

    Total corporate revenue grew 2.4 per cent to USD $31.1 billion and wireless revenue reached USD $11.5 billion.

    Rival Verizon, meanwhile, wouldn’t give details on the number of BlackBerry Storms sold in its first quarter on the market.

    Reports suggest the figure could be around a quarter of the iPhone’s total.

  • 43% of US HDTV Owners Don't Watch HD Content


    More than 39 million US households have an HDTV set – and the figure keeps on rising.

    Yet a sizeable proportion – 43 per cent or 17 million – either don’t have or don’t watch HD content.

    A report from In-Stat has highlighted a "significant gap" between HDTV ownership and HD programming usage among US households.

    It shows that the number of US HDTV households – defined as households having both an installed HD-capable TV set and also receiving and watching HD programming – increased by almost 40 per cent in 2008.

    However, Mike Paxton, an In-Stat analyst, said the growth rate could have been much larger.

    "In the US, there are more than 39 million households with an installed HDTV set," he said.

    "However, only 22 million of those are HDTV households, meaning that 17 million US households with an installed HDTV set are not watching HD programming."

    The In-Stat report comes as the number of households with an installed high-definition television continues to grow worldwide.

    However, this installed base of households is decidedly biased to two countries: the US and Japan.

    And while there are many in the US not taking full advantage of their HDTV sets, the US has 61 per cent of the global total of 36 million HDTV households.

    Recent research by In-Stat also found the following:

    • On a global basis, HDTV service remains limited to a relatively small number of countries, primarily the US and Japan.
    • At year-end 2008, there were over 36 million HDTV households worldwide, up from 29 million at year-end 2007.
    • Even though the number of European HDTV households is rising, it will be 2011 before the number of HDTV households in that region reaches the 10 million mark.
    • Cable and satellite TV service providers provide HD programming to almost 80% of all HDTV households. Telco TV service providers and terrestrial broadcast TV service providers provide service to the remaining HDTV households.

  • VoIP Phones Help Polycom To $ 1.1 Billion Revenue Record


    Polycom has announced record revenues of USD $1.1bn for 2008.

    The company said VoIP phones continued to be one of its fastest growing product lines in 2008, as customers put out dollars to implement a "money saving solution".

    Robert Hagerty, Polycom’s president and CEO, said the revenue figure represented growth of 50 per cent for the full year and generated a record USD $165 million of positive operating cash flow.

    He highlighted Polycom’s line of desktop VoIP phones as "one of Polycom’s fastest growing product lines".

    "Driven by the significant ROI typically achieved through a transition to Voice over IP, many customers are allocating budgets to deploy this money saving solution," he said.

    "With Polycom’s IP telephones customers are enjoying HD voice and a level of features and functionality that we believe is unparalleled in the market."

    Hagerty said that,as with Polycom’s conference phones, they had a broad array of strategic partnership including Microsoft, Digium, AT&T and Telstra.

    He said the sales cycle had lengthened and budget priorities sometimes moved to video collaboration.

    "However, we are pleased with the market gains we’ve made in Voice over IP and expect to leverage our Microsoft and other go-to-market relationships in 2009."

  • FCC Inquiry Into Comcast


    The departing Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Kevin Martin announced another investigation is to be launched into Comcast shortly before leaving his post.

    The regulatory agency is to focus on allegations that Comcast is deliberately downgrading its rivals’ phone services.

    Among those whose sound quality is said to have been affected are Vonage and Skype, competitors of Comcast’s own VOIP service.

    The FCC has ordered Comcast to reply to the inquiry by 30 January.

    Comcast has responded by saying it has "fully complied" with the FCC’s so-called congestion-management practices and that it is "reviewing the FCC staff’s letter".

    Julius Genachowski is expected to be named as the next head of the FCC.

  • Testing Times For Technology Tradeshows


    This year’s Home Media Expo has been cancelled after a 27-year run as a result of the current economic conditions.

    With the financial situation worsening, the technology event is unlikely to be the only casualty among industry tradeshows.

    The Entertainment Merchants Association said it was planning on holding the Home Media Expo in 2010, according to VideoBusiness.

    It said the organizers felt that they had to temporarily pull the plug to meet the new recession-time realities for studios and retailers.

    While the DVD business suffered its steepest year-to-year declines in 2008 the EMA said the cancellation was not a reflection on the performance of DVD and Blu-ray.

    The economy has already impacted on the first major exhibition of 2009 – the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas – which saw visitor numbers drop from 140,000 in 2008 to 110,000 this year.

    Companies are also reconsidering their participation in trade shows, including influential players such as Apple and Nokia.

    Apple announced that this month’s Macworld Conference & Expo was the last at which it would exhibit, preferring instead to reach people in ways other than trade shows.

    Apple has been steadily scaling back on trade shows in recent years, including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.

    Nokia Siemens Networks is also changing its approach to trade shows by scaling back on exhibits.