News for Thursday, 5 July 2007

According to the Financial Times, a newspaper rather well informed and not known for publishing non-verified information, Apple would have decided to initially launch the iPhone in only 3 European countries: UK, Germany and France.
Apple might have dropped the idea of finding a pan-European agreement with a single carrier, and would go for a country by country agreement. To back-up what we published earlier today, O2 (own by the Spanish carrier Telefonica) would get the iPhone for UK, while Orange will get it for France and T-Mobile for Germany.
Of course, nothing is sure until it is officially announced, and as we mentioned this morning, the topic is so hot that some investors might spread rumors for financial interests.
The iPhone could be launched in those 3 countries in November. The reason for the restricted European launch could also be driven by the availability of a local iTunes Store which will be required for activation. Those three European countries are representing more than 200 millions potential consumers.

The current war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray is mostly taking place on two fronts. The first front was initiated recently and deals with the ob-going war for HD video standalone player, with price decreasing faster than expected while providing future-rich models.
The second front is in Hollywood, where both alliances try to convince studios to offer their movie catalog exclusively on a single HD format. This race for signing up exclusive agreement is the basis for the European Union's antitrust regulator to initiate investigation leading to a potential future action. The EU representative sent letters to studios asking for further information about possible restrictive agreements with one of the two blue laser HD video Alliances.
Currently, studio's agreements are as follow:
- Exclusively on BD: Sony Pictures Entertainment, Walt Disney Co., Twentieth Century Fox, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and MGM
- Exclusively on HD-DVD: Universal Pictures
- Both BD and HD-DVD: Paramount Pictures and Time Warner
The DVD Forum might be initiator of such action launched by the EU's antitrust regulator, and it comes right at the time when BD format is taking over the leadership position for HD movie retailed format. In addition, the BD Alliance has to face reports from consumers who are complaining about compatibility issue with some interactive BD movies on some currently available BD players
In an ideal world, both Alliance would have teamed up and released a single format taking advantages of both systems and not relying on some obscure agreements that could involve some barely legal financial interests.

A bit less than a week after the launch of the iPhone, passion and buzz surrounding the new device did not come down yet. If most of the dissection and test are now mostly completed, media networks keep publishing news about the last Apple device. Most of the news is currently dealing with ways to hack the iPhone to prevent its exclusive use with the AT&T service.
Jon Lech Johansen, better known as DVD Jon, already successfully activate his iPhone without connecting it to internet. He modified iTunes to hack the request sent by the application during the activation procedure. Once modified, the iPhone does not have phone capability, but the iPod and WiFi work. If you intend to try this procedure, you will have to download "Download Phone Activation Server v1.0" (windows only).
Of course having only the iPod and WiFi functions activated makes it a bit limited for a device which is intended to be a mobile phone. Many hackers have started looking into the iPhone to unlock it from the AT&T exclusive use. For sure lawyers are already waiting to send "cease and desist" letters to the first one who will release the procedure.
In Europe, networks and Tech magazine and newspapers are mostly trying to identify carriers which will sign up the exclusive contract with Apple. depending on the source and the day, one carrier becomes the winner or the loser. It might well be that carriers are self powering such a mess regarding on-going negotiations with Apple. For Cupertino, the longer it will take to come up with an agreement with European carriers the higher the price will be for them. Indeed, Apple can raise the exclusivity fee in parallel to the weekly record of sale for the iPhone.
[update]
To further illustrate this race for being the first news network to announce the European carrier(s) selected by Apple to distribute the iPhone by the end of the year, the BBC news website announces that O2 (subsidiary of Spanish carrier Telefonica) will get iPhone contract in UK! The same news website was already announcing couple of days ago that Vodafone would be, together with T-Mobile, the European carrier selected by Apple...
If O2 really get the iPhone contract in UK, it could imply that Vodafone is out of the loop, but in addition it would also mean that T-Mobile is out too as O2 is also a carrier in Germany... O2 being absent in many European countries, including France, it would then leave Orange as the second carrier for the iPhone in Europe?
Overall, all those announcement and rumors are simply serving interest of some investors who want to surf and benefit from the current buzz to make money and spread inaccurate information. News network are amplifying without much reason such rumors.

If the iPhone and its functions attract consumers, it will also force other mobile phone manufacturers to bring new features and innovate with their future models, especially considering the number of third-party applications expected to quickly be running on the iPhone. The first company to react is LG Electronics and its yesterday's announcement of a future mobile phone which will feature an integrated support for YouTube. The future device will also allow you to capture video, edit them and upload them to the video-sharing website.
Of course, this is only a press release and the mobile phone should only be available by the end of the year. For sure, in the coming weeks, most mobile phone manufacturers are expected to suddenly innovate and announce future mobile phones with new features, or at least equivalent to those found in the iPhone.

According to Digitimes, Intel could drop the exclusive support for the FB-DIMM with its next generation of chipsets dedicated to servers, the same type of chipset Apple is currently using in Mac Pro and Xserve. The upcoming Intel 5100 chipset (San Clemente) is expected to support only RDIMM (registered DIMM) memory modules instead of FB-DIMM (fully buffered DIMM). The price of FB-DIMM did not really drop overtime, remaining several folds higher than registered memory modules. In addition RDIMM modules are currently available with higher capacity.
What would be the impact of such move?
- Intel will then install a memory controller directly in the processor, as AMD does it.
- RDIMM modules will be faster than FB-DIMM which was slow down by its poor latency
- RDIMM modules are and will be cheaper than FB-DIMM
FB-DIMM will enter memory modules history with one of the shortest life cycle, something similar to the RAMBUS RIMM in the past.