The law on copyright and related rights of the information society, on debate right now by the French government, looks to do away with Apple’s potential monopoly on digital music. If the law goes through, files purchased through online shops will be listenable in any player available on the market. But will this measure really boost the digital music market?

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Title: European Information Technology Observatory 2006
Source: European Information Technology Observatory (EITO)
Date: February 23, 2006
Abstract: The ICT market in the European Union will grow 3.2% in 2006 to reach 643 billion euros, according to the annual report released by the European Information Technology Observatory.
According to Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society, the EU should focus its efforts on catching up with its competitors. To do so, Europe must increase its R&D spending and promote a dynamic regulatory framework that favors free competition.
Europe holds the top spot in worldwide ICT demand with 33.6% of the market total. The US ranks second with 28% of the market share, followed by Japan with 15%. Nevertheless, the market expected to experience the most growth in 2006 will be Asia, with a 6.8% rise, just ahead of the US (3.9%).
The study highlights the increase in IT spending by the new EU member countries, such as Slovakia, with a growth of 7.6%.
The Spanish ICT market, according to the report, will grow 4% in 2006, above the European average of 3.2%.
The report also contains a special section that analyses the situation of the peer-to-peer market in Europe. In the opinion of the Observatory, 2006 could be the year in which P2P file exchange programs start to become legal. According to the organization, such file exchange systems could spawn new business models. It is thus vital, according to the report, to clarify the legal status of P2P and require respect for copyright holders’ rights.

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Title: Online Paid Content U.S. Market Spending Report
Source: Online Publishers Association
Date: March 2006
Abstract: The online paid content market in the United States continues its growth. According to a report by the Online Publishers Association (OPA), American consumers spent more than $2 billion in 2005 on this type of content, representing an increase of 15% from the previous year.
Entertainment and lifestyles activities are fueling this increase with revenues of $537.8 million, coming mostly from digital music downloads. For the first time ever, this category has overtaken that of personals/dating, which occupied the top spot for the past three years.
In third place was business content, a segment that saw revenues of over $320 million. The total of the three activities accounted for 68% of overall spending by Americans on online content in 2005.
The OPA report also reveals a significant growth in single purchases, an activity that in 2005 reached $442 million, up 61% from the previous year. Despite the increase, this category generates just 21% of the total spending, while the dominant pricing model continues to be subscriptions, which represent 78.4%.
Although there has been a rise in spending in most online content categories, the study shows that just 12% of Internet users in the US are currently willing to pay for online content.

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Microsoft announced on March 21 that it will delay the release of its next operating system, Windows Vista. The Redmond manufacturer has admitted that security problems will force it to hold back the consumer launch of the new operating system until January 2007. As a result, Microsoft will miss out on the sales of Windows Vista that would have occurred during this year’s holiday shopping season, a time when 30% of annual computer-related products are purchased.
Some PC manufacturers, among them Dell and HP, are trying to lessen the negative impact of this latest delay. To do so, they will implement a coupon system that will offer free upgrades for machines built to run on Windows Vista as soon as the new software becomes available.
In addition to missing out on the holiday shopping season, this new postponement could benefit Windows rivals, particularly Mac OS X and Linux. However, the launch of a Microsoft operating system with security problems could have a much higher cost. Unlike previous versions of Windows, Vista comes at a time when IT systems security has become the deciding factor.

Articles in Financial Times (payment service), News.com and BBC News

The top Java software developers got together in Madrid from March 21-23. The keys at the Java Expo 2006, an annual event put on by Sun Microsystems, were related to mobile applications. Currently, 3.5 billion devices use Java technology, of which 1.5 billion are mobile telephones. According to Sun, this presence will increase with the implementation of new features such as identification and payment through mobile phones. By implementing a Java Virtual Machine into a mobile phone card, its user can be identified and make payments at gas stations, restaurants and other establishments, thus being the mobile-phone equivalent of the digital ID card.
In the eleven years since its creation, Java has gained a considerable foothold in corporate IT systems and new niches are presently being discovered. Examples include consoles that control numerous devices in a vehicle, such as GPS, mobile phones and music, and the central units that control refrigerators, air conditioning, lighting, blinds and other household devices.
Some of the new arrivals include DVD players from the Blu-Ray Consortium, which will allow access to web services, and interactive television, which generates user participation in facilitates interaction with the users, such as participation in contests and getting more information about what is being advertised.

News in Finanzas.com
Articles in Cibersur.com and El País

After years of promises, CRM software is now facing judgment. Along with its unquestionable benefits and success stories, which need no retelling as their protagonists already take care of that, critics are surfacing to point out its weaknesses. CRM achieves positive results in traditional channels, such as in-person, telephone and fax, but works to a lesser degree when it comes to offering an effective, multichannel solution at a reasonable price. This is especially the case with new channels, such as the Web, SMS and email, platforms which increasingly use more of the population for interacting with their providers.
Developers of CRM solutions respond by upgrading their specific modules to fit new channels, but some are proposing a different alternative: Customer Interaction Management (CIM) systems, also known as Customer Management Relationship (CMR) systems, whose most appealing feature is that the customer is given the option to decide when, with whom and how to contact the company and share its information. Not the other way around.
Naturally, CIM systems developers talk about reducing costs, achieving a return on the investment and improving customer relationships. But why should CIM technology succeed where the CRM solutions used thus far have fallen short? Basically, developers say, because CIM, which is starting from scratch, has been driven by and designed for the needs and challenges arising from the new channels.
CIM solutions are based on standards—especially XML—and are not a substitute for CRM, but rather a complement, making use of all existing information on the customer. In theory, CIM should restore customers with the same power they had when their intermediary was an employee that they were personally familiar with.

Mentioned in ITworld.com and ZDNet

Por Sandra Sieber, profesora del IESE
Las soluciones móviles ofrecen a las empresas un conjunto de apreciables ventajas. Sin embargo, su despliegue entre el tejido empresarial no está siendo tan rápido como cabría esperar. ¿Cuáles son las condiciones necesarias para que las compañías adopten la tecnología móvil?

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The current state of interactive advertising and its prospects for the future was one of the topics on debate at the 1st Conference on Interactive Advertising, organized by the e-Business Center PwC&IESE and the Interactive Advertising Bureau Spain. “The future of interactive advertising is optimistic,” said Jakob Nielsen, sales manager for MSN Europe. In five years, the Internet has gone from being one of the media platforms receiving the least investment in advertising to ranking third in 2005. One of the main reasons behind this surge is the growing popularity of broadband.
Nielsen backed up his confidence in the Internet as an advertising medium by providing a number of facts. One he cited was that Microsoft invests between 5% and 10% in online advertising and major players in the market, such as News Corporation, are paying increasingly more attention.
He also commented that although the Internet is currently a medium in which most users are youth and young adults (the average age being 35), the demographic sector of adults will begin to use it as products they deem useful begin to appear.
Brian Subirana, IESE professor and director of the e-Business Center PwC&IESE, said that in the future “all online advertising will be served through the Internet.” In fact, “adservers are already capable of serving integrated advertising in the videos being downloaded by Internet users,” pointed out Subirana. This integration will be possible, according to IESE professor and president of BBDO Xavier Oliver, due to the fact that the Web is the most complex medium that we have had up to now. “It makes three types of marketing possible: influence (done by public relations professionals), one-to-one, and distance. The Internet has a bit of all three,” explained Oliver. In his opinion, the current complexity due the numerous formats, metrics and intermediaries scares off traditional advertisers but “in time this will diminish.” The same thing happened in the early days of radio and television, said Oliver, when the traditional agencies had not integrated them, but then new agencies specialized in these media appeared. “Agencies will once again integrate all forms of media and will have non-specialized professionals who are able to provide a global vision and become the singular voice, while at the same time having specialists for each type of marketing,” predicted Oliver.

From May 29 to June 1, Barcelona will host the eight annual Internet Global Congress (IGC2006), a meeting in which experts from all over the world will take part in analyzing the impact of the Internet on companies and society. Speakers will include Javier Rodríguez Zapatero, CEO of Yahoo! Spain, and Isabel Aguilera, CEO of Google Spain and Portugal. The e-Business Center will also participate in this year’s IGC, with its speaker being professor Josep Valor from the Information Systems department.
 
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