So....how is SD DVD not a "monopoly?" It's a single format that beat out other formats as a successful retail delivery solution, just like BD is.

Pardon my ignorance but weren't the DVD specs developed by a consortium while Blu-Ray is all Sony. If that is so, then that is a big difference between the two. DVD is not a monopoly because it isn't owned/controlled by a single company while BD is.

David

All BD formats are created and supported by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), originally called the Blu-ray Disc Founders, an alliance of manufacturers founded in 2002 by Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric, Pioneer, Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Sony, and Thomson.

As of Sept. 2007, the BDA consisted of 175 members, contributing companies and applicants and is lead by its board of directors consisting of Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Mitsubishi Electric, Matsushita Electric, Pioneer, Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Sun Microsystems, Sony, TDK, Thomson, Twentieth Century Fox, Disney and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

HD DVD was initially proposed in 2002 by Toshiba and NEC as Advanced Optical Disc (AOD) and later adopted by the DVD Forum in Nov. 2003. The DVD Forum (originally DVD Consortium) is an alliance of manufacturers founded in 1995 by Hitachi, Matsushita Electric, Mitsubishi Electric, Pioneer, Philips Electronics, Sony, Thomson, Time Warner, Toshiba and JVC.

Although the DVD Forum develops and administers all HD DVD format specifications, many of its contributors back competing Blu-ray Disc (BD). Thus, market development comes by way of the HD DVD Promotion Group (HDDVDPRG), a separate association of manufacturers founded in Dec. 2004. As of Jan. 2008, the HDDVDPRG consisted of 134 members and associates and is lead by Toshiba, NEC, Memory-Tech and Sanyo Electric.

"Pardon my ignorance " Toshiba developed and owns the HD DVD patents and MS owns the menu software that controls the player. Sony development BR back in the the mid 90's, but open up its design and menu structure(standard Java) to all in the consortium members, which includes all the big manufacturers and a lot of the studios. Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Pan... , etc choose BR over HD DVD because of Toshiba past muscling DVD consortium and then HD DVD consortium( a small active group compared to BR's) trying to force everyone to use MS menus, but the big studios where the first say to "no" in the a meanfully way.

Sony wasn't that interested in a market war, but MS was interested in stopping PS3 development and slow linux development in the servers and media center business in general---- where DL's is the future in MS view. This MS/SCO project linux.unix lawsuit is now playing out in Fed Bankruptcy court; not in MS favor stopping linux, but slow linux servers and media development big time--3 years, plus gain some big fees--- now ruled as illegally acquired by SCO( spend out to who) that crippled many corp's linux development or forced their daily operations closure. Even Sun was afraid to fight the SCO/MS allaince, but IBM say "no more" and won the case in the end on facts while SCO/MS played in the media for driving up maasive stock prices of rumors of massive lawsuit settlements from IBM, etc, of course, there would be no PS3 or Apple in the end.

Its funny, MS/SCO claiming to fathered technology that existed before they did or have acquired it thru indirect purchases of licenses---- don't try that argument with MS! And the one I really love, is MS/SCO forcing individuals to sign license agreements base on false claims of ownership of Unix and then claim these documents as proof that unix/linux must contain MS technology and any MS violations of Unix technology is signoff by these licensees---- but they don't own Unix(?). But MS was aggressive in the Internet rumor and FUD mill so even on this forum, people think spin is fact, HD DVD was the major player, MS created Internet( AL Gore is sharing), etc...... Sony was being bad for not quitting and designing better gear......

Do you know of any MS real product (manufactured) that hasn't serious design faults? Apple products ( a lot of them) do have a limited life but most products work enough or long enough ---- tho not all are successful, that loyal fans can look pass( ;-) ) , but Loyal MS fans are just left on the road side because MS is building the future( cars that fail in the first 30 secs, not after the one year warranty ---- and the warranty is invalidated because you opened the car door). Don't worry, your MS smart phone will never have a problem--- buy two spares and a competitor's phone if your survival is based on communications. ;-)

Mmmm...off on yet another "I hate Microsoft " tangent again, eh... there seems to be no shortage of that. Why don't you all simply boycott all microsoft products... including windows?

You talk like Microsoft is the big bad boy and all other corporations are clean as the driven snow. How about the Enron boys.... Conrad Black... etc....etc. You show me a corporation that operates with the honesty of a church and I'll show you a corporation that's so good at hiding their dirt, they have yet to be caught.

And BTW... Microsoft didn't stop the PS3.... Sony did that all by themselves. They thought Americans were actually gullible enough to spend $700 on a game console.

The PS3 has been stopped? That's certainly news to me....

The PS3 has been stopped? That's certainly news to me....
In terms of a gaming console.


Sony went and priced themselves right out of the gaming war.

That's just as well, I never thought of it as a gaming console, I thought of it as a killer multimedia player and it definitely is that.

"he PS3 has been stopped? That's certainly news to me....
In terms of a gaming console." Blink, bad news for you. The world sales the PS3 the last four weeks, has beat the X360, and the sales of PS3 are still gaining-------- oh, looks like another of your favorites is losing ground. Simple known facts, the PS3 beat the PS2 record time of the first million units sold, which means its beats the X360 in its first million sold. Of course, the WII beat everyone in 34/36 weeks.Currently, mostly market research firms are projecting that 2008 the PS3 will beat the X360.


THINK LINUX 's war not real, from todays news....
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SCO bags $100m to fight another day
By Drew Cullen 14 Feb 2008 23:00
The company that refused to die

It's Alive! SCO is bouncing back from Chapter 11 and taking itself private, thanks to the munificence of a private equity firm.

The company that thinks it owns some lines of code in Linux - and that anyone who uses Linux owes it a living - fled to Chapter 11 last September, after fighting legal battles against world+dog - to prove that it was wrong. But you have to hand it to SCO: this company is a better escape artist than Harry Houdini.

Stephen Norris & Co. Capital Partners and "partners from the Middle East" will pump up to $100m (our italics) into the moribund firm. So now you know where your oil money is going.

Norris is a co-founder of Carlyle Partners, so he probably isn't mad. And his firm has a cunning plan for involving "new product lines aimed at global customers". He also wants to bankroll "SCO's legal claims through to their full conclusion". Which may be ominous - or may simply mean that the company wants to put to bed those interminable court cases with Novell, IBM, world+dog...

Time for a quote from Jeff Hunsaker, CEO of SCO's operating business. You know, the bit of the company that doesn't sue business partners or bully customers. "This significant financial backing is positive news for SCO's customers, partners and resellers who continue to request upgrades and rely upon SCO's UNIX services to drive their business forward."

We shall see. Re-organisation will enable SCO to slough off accumulated debts of $258m, by the time it emerges from Chapter 11 at some point this year.

But sales have been in free-fall - and not just because people are switching from SCO because they hate the company. In its 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month, the company notes:

"Sales of our UNIX-based products and services have been declining over the last several years. This decline in revenue has been primarily attributable to significant competition from alternative operating systems, particularly Linux." Our expectation is that this trend will continue as a result of continued competition, the negative ruling received from our litigation with Novell, and our Chapter 11 filing."

SCO may have earned itself some wriggle room, courtesy of Mr. Norris and friends. But that significant competition ain't going away.

SCO release. ®

Related stories

SCO details bleak future (6 February 2008)
SCO faces financial crunch after Unix defeat (21 September 2007)
SCO files for US bankruptcy protection (14 September 2007)
Novell owns Unix copyrights after all (11 August 2007)
Open Source thieves stealing my American code – SCO boss (22 January 2004)
MS blesses SCO, licenses Unix (19 May 2003)
SCO sues IBM for $1 billion for ‘devaluing Unix’ (7 March 2003)
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Should any money become real, Novell fees will claim the bulk. in US Court...... but ;-) MS$ has many faces...... mostly red at the moment, but many faces..... ;-)


And it looks like EU market for HD DVD is not the gold mine as earlier claimed but not dead either---
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Euro Blu-ray movie sales reach 2.37m discs

By Tony Smith [More by this author]
15th February 2008 01:02 GMT

Blu-ray Disc pre-recorded media sales have sailed past the two-and-a-quarter million mark in Europe, the format's promotional body said this week.

And, according to market watcher GfK, 79 per cent of hi-def discs bought by European consumers thus far this year have been BDs. The remaining 21 per cent were HD DVDs.

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) was most keen to highlight hitting the 2m mark, which was passed two months after the 1m point was reached, it claimed.

In fact, more than 2.37m BDs have been sold in Europe, according to figures from market research company Screen Digest by way of the BDA, which also claimed 3.2m PlayStation 3 consoles and 34,000 standalone BD players have purchased in Europe to date.

Now, the HD DVD Promotional Group this week said its favoured format accounted for more than 60 per cent of standalone player sales up to the end of 2007. Doing a rough, back-of-an-envelope calculation, that means those 34,000 BD players are approximately 40 per cent of the total number of hi-def players sold in Europe, which we calculate therefore to be 85,000 units.

So Europeans own roughly 51,000 HD DVD players.

Yes, the number of BD players is a total reached a month-and-a-half after the averred HD DVD market share was taken, but unless sales of HD DVD players have spiked of late - needless to say, they haven't, or the HD DVD PG would have said so - the sales ratio will be much the same now as then. If anything, we'd expect it to shift in BD's favour, after the Warner announcement that it will support the format exclusively.

Earlier this month, Screen Digest was reported as saying there are 55,000 HD DVD players and Xbox add-on drives in European homes, so we're in the ballpark.

Whatever the exact figure, the point is the number of Blu-ray capable players out there is substantially way beyond the number of HD DVD capable devices. According to GfK, Q4 2007 BD player sales exceeded those of HD DVD machines.

The HD DVD PG said that Q4 had seen a doubling of HD DVD sales, so we're looking at a total of around 25,500 units up to that point. If BD sales were higher than that, even by a small margin, it means that the vast majority of those aforementioned 34,000 BD players were purchased in Q4 - or only 8,500 had been sold up to the end of Q3 2007.

That's a quarter-on-quarter growth rate of roughly 300 per cent cent for BD, compared to 100 per cent for HD DVD. So even ignoring the PS3, there's clearly rising demand for Blu-ray. If these rates are maintained, there'll be more BD players in European homes than HD DVD ones by the end of the current quarter.

Can HD DVD keep up? If it maintains its player price advantage, quite possibly. But if sales of BD players are increasing so much even when they cost twice as much, on average, as HD DVD machines, how would they grow if Sony, Sharp, Samsung and cut their prices as much as Toshiba has?
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From the NYTimes;
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Microsoft Reassigns Several Top Executives

By SAUL HANSELL and JOHN MARKOFF
Published: February 15, 2008

Microsoft announced a sweeping shake-up of its executive ranks Thursday, placing new executives over operations facing fierce new competition from Google, Apple and cellphone makers.

Full coverage of Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo, who is advising, who else might be in play and where the bid goes from here.

The announcements were part of a broad management reorganization involving seven new senior vice presidents and seven new corporate vice presidents.

One of the more significant leadership changes was in the cellphone operations. Andy Lees was named senior vice president for mobile communications operations. Mr. Lees, who had overseen the server business, succeeds Pieter Knook, who, the company said, “made the decision to leave Microsoft to pursue other opportunities.”

Microsoft has been paying more attention to its cellphone business following the introduction of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android software operating system. In only a few months of the iPhone’s release, according to Canalys, a market research firm, Apple gained 28 percent of the smartphone market in the United States, a greater share of the market than the cellphones using Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software. Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, leads the category that has been dominated by phones made for business users.

Microsoft is showing more interest in the consumer market. This week it announced it was buying Danger, the maker of the popular Sidekick cellphone.

Analysts said that Microsoft was moving to confront a growing competitive threat from a range of companies that have positioned themselves to offer Web-based alternatives to Microsoft’s core office-productivity applications. The other major change was the replacement of Steve Berkowitz, the current senior vice president of Microsoft’s Online Services group. Mr. Berkowitz, the former chief executive of the online site Ask Jeeves, was hired with great fanfare in April 2006 to help revive Microsoft’s search and portal operations. Microsoft has been unable to make a dent in Google’s growing dominance in search and search advertising. Mr. Berkowitz will leave the company this August, the company said.

Responsibility for online operation was split among three executives who will work in the combined organization that handles both Internet activities and the Windows operating system, which is run by Kevin Johnson.

Satya Nadella, will be the senior vice president for the search, portals and advertising group. Mr. Nadella is on the engineering side of Microsoft, and will look after the technical side of Web search, advertising systems and related systems. He will also have responsibility for the programming of the MSN portal.

Bill Veghte, will be the senior vice president for online services and Windows, handling sales, marketing and product management both for Windows and online operations.

Brian McAndrews, the senior vice president of the advertiser and publisher solutions group, will look after the strategy and marketing of Microsoft’s online activities jointly with Mr. Veghte and Mr. Nadella.
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PS3 are still gaining-------- oh, looks like another of your favorites is losing ground.

Favorites???

I thought we had this clear in regards to amount of respect I have for game consoles?? You think I like the xbox any better???

Blink 3x, give it up. You're delusional. Let it go.

I realize this board probably accounts for all your social interaction with people, but it's time to stop beating that dead horse and finding something more productive to do with your time. Maybe a girlfriend.