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THAMES TECH WIRE - June 23, 2005
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o BT Grants Network Access to Competitors, Avoids Break-Up
o Sage to Acquire Spain-Based Logic Control for £55 Million
o Scottish Email Management Firm Logicalware Raises £300,000
o Report: European Banks to Pour Funds into Internet Technologies
o Media/Entertainment Revenue to Hit 1.5 Trillion Euro by 2009
o Report: MP3 Player Market to Hit 104 Million Units in 2009
o Briefly Noted: SAP-Lighthammer Software Development, TV4-
Telia-Rubberduck Media Lab, Vivendi Universal Games-Sierra
Entertainment-Radical Entertainment
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o BT Grants Network Access to Competitors, Avoids Break-Up
London -- Ofcom, the U.K. telecommunications regulator, announced
on Thursday that it has struck a deal with BT Group Plc that will force
the incumbent to give competitors more access to its network in
exchange for lighter controls in some areas. BT said it would cut prices
on local loop unbundling from £105 a year to £80 and lower wholesale
line rental prices by 50 pence per line. The changes will go into effect
on Aug. 1, BT said. Furthermore, Ofcom announced it was changing its
rules in order to make BT separate its wholesale division into a unit
called Access Services. "Ofcom has concluded that a new approach is
necessary for the longer term, based on real equality of access to those
parts of the fixed telecoms network which BT's competitors cannot
fairly replicate," Ofcom said. Access Services will provide BT rivals
with transparent and equal access to its nationwide local network on the
same terms as those enjoyed by its own BT Retail consumer arm,
Ofcom said.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2005/06/nr_20050623
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o Sage to Acquire Spain-Based Logic Control for £55 Million
Madrid -- Sage Group Plc, a U.K.-based business software company,
announced that it has agreed to acquire Logic Control, a Spain-based
accounting software firm, for approximately £55 million (83 million
euro) in cash. Logic Control, which currently has more than 20,000
customers, focuses on small and medium-sized businesses, including
accounting, payroll and industry-specific services for accountants. For
the year ended Dec. 31, 2004, the company reported revenues of more
than £28 million and an operating profit of more than £20 million.
"Acquiring Logic Control strengthens our product offering in Spain,"
said Sage CEO Paul Walker. "Logic Control brings more sophisticated
mid-market solutions, along with new solutions for accountants, that
we can offer to our large customer base of over 180,000 businesses."
http://www.sage.com/
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o Scottish Email Management Firm Logicalware Raises £300,000
Edinburgh -- Logicalware, a Scotland-based email management vendor,
announced that it has secured £300,000 in venture-capital financing.
What's more, the company claims to be the first U.K.-based open-
source developer to receive private equity. The Sigma Innovation Fund
and former Demon Internet director Bill Dobbie led the round. The
company said it would use the funds for sales and marketing and to
develop some of the more than 100 features suggested by users. Under
the terms of the investment, Dobbie, a founder of Iomart Group Plc,
will join Logicalware's board of directors.
http://www.logicalware.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi#funding
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o Report: European Banks to Pour Funds into Internet Technologies
London -- According to a new report by market analysis firm
Datamonitor, European banks are set to spend 2.5 billion euro on
Internet technologies by the year 2008. "The Internet is set to re-emerge
as a priority area for technology investments," said Datamonitor analyst
William Conner. "This reflects e-banking's growing effectiveness as a
sales tool and banks' drive to refresh existing platforms." Although the
report predicted that the U.K. would boast the largest e-banking market
by that same year, it also said that growth would be slower than in
many other European countries, as many U.K. firms have already
upgraded their websites.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z4F92505B
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o Media/Entertainment Revenue to Hit 1.5 Trillion Euro by 2009
New York -- The global entertainment and media industry is projected
to grow at a 7.3% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), from 1.1
trillion euro last year to 1.5 trillion euro in 2009, spurred by improved
economic conditions, an advertising upswing and increased focus on
online distribution of music, films, books and video games, according
to a new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Fuelled by broadband
adoption, the Internet sector for entertainment and media is expected to
grow at a 17% CAGR, reaching 240 billion euro in 2009, while online
advertising will grow at a 16% CAGR to 26.5 billion euro the same
year. New spending streams on broadband and wireless distribution
platforms will grow revenues for those sectors from 9.5 billion euro in
2004 to nearly 60.6 billion euro by 2009.
http://www.pwc.com/outlook
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o Report: MP3 Player Market to Hit 104 Million Units in 2009
Scottsdale, Arizona -- The MP3 player market is poised to grow from
27.8 million units shipped in 2004 to 104 million by 2009, driven by
falling prices, more legitimate digital music services, smaller hard
drives and increased flash memory storage capacity, according to a
report from market research firm In-Stat. Combined revenue for hard
drive- and flash memory-based MP3 players reached 3.7 billion euro in
2004, up nearly 200% from 2003. In-Stat noted that Apple currently
holds 30% market share for combined sales of hard drive and flash
memory MP3 players. It also predicts that flash memory players with
1GB or greater capacities will make up 20% of that market by the end
of this year. "As competition heats up, vendors are striving to
differentiate products by offering a wide range of price points, memory
capacities, and features," said In-Stat analyst Stephanie Guza.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q3592305B
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o Briefly Noted:
(Frankfurt) SAP, a Germany-based business software maker,
announced that it has acquired Lighthammer Software Development
Corp., a U.S.-based privately owned supplier of enterprise
manufacturing intelligence and collaborative manufacturing software.
Financial terms were not disclosed. "Acquiring Lighthammer supports
SAP's strategy of enabling adaptive business networks, or ABNs, for
our customers," said Nils Herzberg, senior vice president of SAP's
Manufacturing Industry Solutions, Product and Technology Group.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?S3DD2205B
(Stockholm) Swedish TV4 announced that it has launched a free live
TV channel on Telia's mobile portal, SurfPort. The service, developed
by Rubberduck Media Lab, allows all mobile phones with video
support to show TV4 News -- without the installation of a player.
Viewers can watch TV4 headline news whenever they want, wherever
they are, the company said. "This is a very important opportunity for
us, as we are now entering the Nordic market," said Rubberduck CTO
Ola Akselberg. "TV4's choice of Rubberduck shows that our product
… provides the best possible quality of video content and services for
the mobile market."
http://www.rubberduckmedialab.com/press/050622.htm
(Los Angeles) Vivendi Universal Games, a unit of France-based media
group Vivendi, announced that it has signed actors Ron Perlman, Neal
McDonough and Richard Moll to lend their voices to its Sierra
Entertainment publishing label's "The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate
Destruction". The title also features a storyline penned by comic book
writer Paul Jenkins and artwork from comic artist Bryan Hitch.
Developed by Canada-based Radical Entertainment for PlayStation 2,
Xbox and GameCube, the game is due to ship in August.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050622/law010.html
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