Microsoft reports record revenue

21 July 2011 Last updated at 18:53 ET

The US technology giant Microsoft said its annual revenues hit a record of $69.94bn (�43.4bn).

Sales of the company's Xbox 360 videogame console and its Office software helped fuel the growth.

Net income at the world's biggest software maker jumped 23% to 23.15bn for the year.

The figures, which beat earnings estimates, also showed final quarter revenues reached a record high of $1.37bn, leading to profits of $5.87bn.

Sales rose 8% to $17.37 billion, a boosted chiefly by sales of Office, Xbox and server software behind Microsoft's push into cloud computing.

Microsoft's business division, which sells the Office suite of programs, including Outlook, SharePoint and Excel, was the company's biggest seller in the quarter, increasing sales by 7% to $5.8bn.

The company's online services unit, which runs the Bing search engine and MSN internet portal, increased sales by 16.5% to $662m, but saw losses increase to $728m as it struggles to fight competitor Google.

One weaker spot was sales of its widely-used Windows product, which are slowing as tablet PC sales eat into demand for traditional PCs.

On Wednesday, chipmaker Intel warned that PC sales would not be as strong as it had expected this year.

Microsoft is itself expected to enter the tablet market next year with the launch of its next operating system, code-named Windows 8, which will be compatible with the low-power chips commonly used by tablet and mobile phone makers.

Microsoft is the latest technology company to exceed profit expectations.

Google, Apple and IBM all reported strong earnings recently.

Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin | Settlement Statement | WordPress Tutorials

Fake Apple stores found in China

21 July 2011 Last updated at 10:24 ET

An American blogger has discovered three fake Apple stores operating in Kunming city, China.

Pictures of the stores, their staff and a description of a stroll around them was posted on the BirdAbroad blog.

In the article, she writes about conversations with staff, many of whom were convinced that they were employed by the US electronics firm.

Apple has said it has no comment to make on the discovery of the counterfeit shops.

On her blog, BirdAbroad described the stores as a "beautiful ripoff - a brilliant one - the best ripoff store we had ever seen".

She describes how convincing the shop was at first glance because so much trouble had been taken to copy key elements of a real Apple store.

For instance, it has a winding staircase, upstairs seating area and employees wearing blue t-shirts and chunky ID lanyards.

Shoddy construction

On closer inspection, wrote BirdAbroad, the store did not seem to be constructed to a particularly high standard.

The stairs appeared to be poorly put together, the walls were not painted properly and, most damning, it had the words "Apple store" written on the shop front.

"Apple never writes 'Apple Store' on its signs - it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit," wrote BirdAbroad.

Research by the blogger revealed that the only official Apple stores in China are in Beijing and Shanghai.

A further check revealed that none of the three stores she found are mentioned on Apple's list of official resellers known to be trading in Kunming.

What was also unclear was where the fake store had got the Apple products on sale - whether they had come from an Apple distributor or a grey market source.

The blog entry mentioning the visit to the fake store has proved hugely popular and has gathered more than 500,000 visits in less than 48 hours.

Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin | Settlement Statement | WordPress Tutorials

Pirate chasing firm moves abroad

21 July 2011 Last updated at 03:34 ET

ACS:Law, the controversial law firm that tried to get money from people by accusing them of illegal file-sharing, appears to be back in business.

Ralli Solicitors, which represented some of those accused by ACS:Law during a UK court case, has told the BBC it is now advising a client based in Greece.

"They have received e-mails purporting to be from the law firm," said Ralli solicitor Michael Forrester.

The letters have been sent to overseas addresses.

"The IP addresses quoted do not appear conventional, making reference to country codes outside of the UK," said Mr Forrester.

"Despite this, the letters of claim refer to UK law under the Copyrights, Design and Patents Act," he added.

Compensation

One of the letters seen by the BBC read: "We act as solicitors for DigiProtect Ltd, the owners of copyright of various films and music rights.

"Our client has retained forensic computer analysts to search for and identify internet addresses from which their copyright works are being made available on so-called peer-to-peer programs."

It requests a compensation payment of �1665 or else court action will be taken.

The letter asks that cheques are made payable to ACS:Law and supplies a central London address, which is in an adjacent building to where the law firm used to trade from.

ACS:Law has enjoyed something of a chequered history, and has been accused of taking advantage of tough new laws on piracy in order to make money.

Sole proprietor Andrew Crossley teamed up with companies DigiProtect and MediaCAT, which purported to represent copyright owners.

Together they sent letters to around 10,000 people in the UK, alleging that the IP addresses of their computers had been linked to illegal file sharing.

Individuals were given the option of paying �500 or facing court action.

Many of those contacted said they had never engaged in such activity. Consumer watchdog Which accused the firm of speculative invoicing and claimed that none of the evidence would stand up in court.

Bankrupt

Mr Crossley eventually brought 26 cases to court, but soon after hearings began he tried to have them dismissed.

Judge Colin Birss QC refused to allow proceedings to stop and accused Mr Crossley of trying to "to avoid judicial scrutiny".

He, in turn, left the court mid-way through the case and had his barrister read out a statement in which he said that he no longer wanted to pursue net pirates because he had received death threats.

The case was dismissed and Mr Crossley faced a large bill for wasted costs. The accused have since settled out of court.

Soon after, ACS:Law was wound up and declared bankrupt.

Mr Crossley is currently the subject of an investigation by the Solicitors' Regulation Authority.

"It is unclear how the firm ACS:Law is continuing to operate, despite purporting to close earlier this year and the sole principal recently being made bankrupt. We have advised clients that we may be dealing with an imposter," said Mr Forrester.

ACS:Law was not contactable at the time of writing.

Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin | Settlement Statement | WordPress Tutorials

Traffic light plan for web music

<!-- Empty - Wide embedded hyper -->

A music body wants online search results to steer fans to legal download sites.

The Performing Rights Society (PRS) For Music wants search engines to show which sites offer content illegally.

Links to sites that offer legal downloads would get green tags, while links to illegal download sites would be flagged in red.

The PRS says the new system is needed as some people don't know when they're illegally downloading.

"There is evidence out there that if you help people go in the right direction many of them will do," said Robert Ashcroft, boss of PRS For Music.

'Right thing'

"We're concerned about piracy, there are many things we can do about it, but we should start by telling people what is licensed and what is not licensed.

"We're not trying to stop people, this isn't a legal action, this isn't site blocking.

PRS are proposing search results are flagged with 'traffic lights'

"This is an information to consumers and I think that many people want to do the right thing.

"I say watch this space - I would like to see something happen before the end of the year," he added.

The technology has already been developed and could be deployed at short notice.

But the proposal has had a mixed reaction from artists and music fans.

Wretch 32, the rapper who scored a number one single with his track Unorthodox earlier this year, said he understood why PRS are doing this.

But he thinks the plan is flawed.

"I think 98% [of people] are aware of where they're getting it from.

"Everyone has got their way of obtaining music - I think people who download [illegally]... they just download.

"They know exactly where they're going and that's just what they do."

Adam Gibblin is 23 and from London.

Adam Gibblin, from Northwood, says he thinks it's a good idea

He usually listens to his music on iTunes and YouTube but he thinks it's a good idea.

"I think people are quite naive - when you search for something you think it's come up on the internet it must be okay. You just use it.

"It'd make you think about it and consider what you're doing."

PRS for Music will now need to convince the most popular search engines to adopt the idea.

Google, which is by far the biggest search engine in the UK, said it had "no comment" on the plans.

But PRS for Music has had success in negotiating with the internet giant before.

Earlier this year after negotiation between the two parties, Google changed their Autocomplete search feature.

The most recent figures from the UK's recording music body British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said 1.2 billion individual tracks were illegally downloaded last year.

Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin | Settlement Statement | WordPress Tutorials