Tue Oct 16, 2007 8:24pm

By Scott Hillis – Analysis 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) stock is just a couple of dollars shy of its all-time high, and any misstep the maker of iPods, iPhones and Macintosh computers reports on Monday could give investors an excuse to cash out. 

The stock, which has doubled so far this year, has been on a relentless march upward for the past month despite a barrage of criticism from die-hard Apple fans over draconian controls on the iPhone that prevent them from installing software from outside developers. 

Apple’s quarterly earnings report next Monday could be a catalyst for further gains, but a slip, no matter how small, could give investors an excuse to cash out, analysts said. 

“Given Apple’s high valuation, we think a shortfall in any one of its three businesses or outlook could send the stock tumbling,” Bernstein analyst Anthony Sacconaghi said in a recent note.

“We believe Apple’s current valuation is justifiable, but not especially compelling,” Sacconaghi wrote. He has a price target of $175 on Apple shares.

Sacconaghi was one of nine analysts who have raised their price targets on Apple since September 12, citing strong sales of iPods and Mac computers. Over that time, the stock has risen 24 percent.

Having gained $2.60, or 1.6 percent, to close at $169.58 on Tuesday, the stock is nearing not only its high of $171.88, set last Thursday, but also the increased price targets, which range from $175 to $190. Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Huberty said Apple may show better-than-expected profitability thanks to falling component costs that have lifted results in the past few quarters. 

Huberty reckoned gross margin could be as high as 31.6 percent, well above the company’s forecast of 29.5 percent.

If investors keep betting on faster growth and good product buzz, Apple shares could trade at up to 40 times expected 2008 earnings per share, Huberty said.

That multiple would value Apple shares at $181, based on the $4.53 per share that is the average forecast on Reuters Estimates. If profits hit the upper range of estimates, the shares could blow past the $200 mark.

CHANGING BUSINESS MODEL

For its fiscal fourth quarter ended September 30, Apple is expected to show a profit excluding items of $751.7 million, or 82 cents per share, on revenue of $6 billion, according to Reuters Estimates. That profit figure is about a third higher than what Apple reported a year ago.

But with key aspects of the iPhone business still under wraps, such as how much of service provider AT&T Inc’s (T.N: Quote, Profile, Research) fees go to Apple’s coffers, analysts say the stock’s performance is hard to predict.

“While historical ranges are important to consider, they only provide one perspective and should be taken in context of Apple’s changing business model,”

Huberty wrote.As the iPhone shakes up the cell phone market, iPods are expected to keep dominating the portable music industry thanks to a recent overhaul of that line. Both products are helping drive sales of Macs, which jumped by about a third in Apple’s fiscal third quarter to nearly 1.8 million machines.But the strong performance masks growing anger over Apple’s campaign to prevent iPhone users from installing software from third-party developers or making calls on a cellular network other than that of AT&T.  The discontent has even spilled over into the courtroom, with the filing of a couple of class-action lawsuits, legal action that attempts to seek damages on behalf of a larger group of people — in this case, iPhone users.

Many consumer product companies, including Apple rivals, face such legal action, but the lawsuits reflect deepening discontent toward a company that has traditionally stirred passionate support among customers.

“It has more to do with Apple entering a new market with a lot of new rules,” Tim Bajarin, head of Silicon Valley consultancy Creative Strategies, said of the company’s strict iPhone controls.

“They are trying to play by as many rules as put in front of them and at the same time trying to innovate. It’s a tough place to be sometimes because if you are first in any area you almost always have arrows in the back,” Bajarin said.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN1620639520071017?pageNumber=3 

for more info please visit our site: http://www.semaphore-software.com/offshore-outsourcing/offshore_outsourcing_services.htm

By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek
October 16, 2007 03:50 PM

The technology is designed to let content owners prevent YouTube users from uploading copies of their videos, or they can have the choice of monetizing unauthorized uploads with ads.

Seven months ago, Viacom (VIAB) filed a copyright infringement lawsuit demanding $1 billion from Google and YouTube and charging the companies with “brazen disregard” for intellectual property laws and threatening “the economic underpinnings of one of the most important sectors of the United States economy.” On Tuesday, YouTube finally launched a content identification system, YouTube Video Identification, to give copyright owners some measure of control over the presence of their content on the site. 

The new service requires that content owners upload videos they wish to protect so that a “hash” — a numeric fingerprint of sorts — can be created. That done, content owners will be able to prevent YouTube users from uploading copies of their videos; they will also have the choice of monetizing unauthorized uploads with ads.

 “Video Identification goes above and beyond our legal responsibilities,” said David King, YouTube Product Manager, in a blog post. “It will help copyright holders identify their works on YouTube, and choose what they want done with their videos: whether to block, promote, or even — if a copyright holder chooses to license their content to appear on the site — monetize their videos.”  

YouTube’s and Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s legal responsibilities are at issue in Viacom’s copyright lawsuit. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Google, as an Internet service provider, escapes liability for copyright infringement by its users if it responds quickly to notifications of copyright infringement. Viacom claims that Google and YouTube “actively engage in, promote and induce this infringement,” and thus shouldn’t qualify for safe harbor protection. 

It’s not yet clear whether YouTube’s new technology will prompt Viacom to drop its copyright claim. When the lawsuit was first filed, pundits observed that the lawsuit was a negotiating tactic to force concessions of some sort from Google. 

 In April, at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Calif., Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicted that as Google rolls out its content protection system, “the issues in Viacom become moot.” 

 Yet, 64 legal filings later, the case chugs along, with Viacom still apparently set on a $1 billion pay day. In his post, King pointed out that Google already has a number of content policies and tools in place to help copyright owners. These include account terminations for repeat infringers, technical measures to prevent videos that have been removed from being re-uploaded, a 10-minute limit on the length of uploaded content, an electronic notice and takedown tool, and prominent copyright compliance tips for users. 

 Source: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202403363   

 for more info please visit our site: http://www.semaphore-software.com/offshore-outsourcing/offshore_outsourcing_services.htm

Andy Greenberg, 10.10.07, 1:36 AM ET 

Since shelling out $1.6 billion for YouTube last year, Google has yet to wring a profit from the video site’s millions of user-generated clips. 

Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) has tried inserting overlay ads into videos, and on Tuesday, it launched a new program to distribute ad-laced, commercially produced YouTube video clips to sites through its AdSense network. 

But the key to unlocking profits from the torrent of homegrown online videos may instead be in the hands of a small British video search company called Blinkx. 

Blinkx released a tool Wednesday that lets online publishers place targeted text ads in any video embedded on a Web site based on the actual content of the video. That’s a big contrast to Google’s approach: Google figures out what ads to pair with a video based strictly on the video’s title and any keywords attached to the clip. Blinkx software “listens to” and “watches” the video, then inserts text overlay ads based on the spoken words and to some extent, the images in the clip. That technology depends on algorithms developed by a longtime Google competitor, search engine Autonomy. 

Here’s how Blinkx’s contextual advertising might work: Imagine a teenage girl doing a podcast about a dress that she just bought. Blinkx software might create a text link to the dress at the bottom of the video player, even if the clip isn’t labeled with the brand of the maker. 

Blinkx Chief Executive Suranga Chandratillake says the software can also recognize written words and even a small library of faces. That means that automatic ad targeting isn’t limited to the relatively small amount of video content generated by media companies and savvy bloggers who carefully label all of their content with text tags, he says. 

Advertisers will be able to insert targeted ads into the massive number of amateur videos on the Internet, many of which often weren’t intended to generate revenue and so carry no content-related tags. Blinkx’s new tool comes on the heels of Google’s plan to syndicate YouTube videos on the hundreds of thousands of sites in its AdSense network of publishers. The move, one of the first major steps to monetize YouTube’s millions of hours of video content, allows any publisher in the network to have videos automatically placed on his or her site based on the site’s text content. Video ad revenue will be split among Google, the site’s publisher and the video’s creator. For now, Google plans to circulate only a few hundred videos created by commercial media companies rather than tangling with the mass of user-generated clips that make up the bulk of YouTube content. 

“In the short term, Google is obsessed with the head of the market, using a small volume of content and high value ads,” Chandratillake contends. “In the longer term, I think they’ll get interested in the long tail and using their millions of user-generated clips. But their stumbling block will be developing the technology to understand what those videos are really about. The level of targeting really matters.” Better targeting through audio and image recognition could also improve the click-through rate of videos, or how often an ad is clicked for every time it appears. A report last year from the online ad consultancy eMarketer estimated the click-through rate for video ads in general at 0.75% — tiny, yet still higher than the more prevalent non-video display ads.  

    Andrew Frank, a media analyst with Gartner Research, is skeptical about advertisers’ ability to grab the attention of an online video audience. A video ad, he argues, simply passes too quickly. “Unlike text ads, you can’t read the text and then click afterwards to get more information,” he says. “Video is a different experience, more about entertainment than information gathering. It’s basically more of a passive medium.” 

That hasn’t prevented advertisers from significantly increasing their online video ad spending this year. By eMarketer’s count, video ad spending will account for 3.5% of the $21.7 billion projected to be spent on online ads this year, up from 2.4% of online ad spending last year. 

Google is poised to tap into that growing revenue source with or without Blinkx’s image and audio recognition technology, says company spokesperson Brandon McCormick. McCormick argues that culling information from the text surrounding YouTube videos — including comments from users — has generally been enough to allow advanced content targeting. 

 In fact, contextual targeting — whether based on text or audio and images — is just a small part of realizing online video’s moneymaking potential, says Michael Kelly, a media analyst at PricewaterhouseCooper. Just as crucial, he says, are elements such as increasing video access from mobile devices and targeting users with ads based on demographic details that they reveal through social networking or other personalized mediums.  “There’s no one silver bullet,” Kelly says. “In fact, it’s more like a revolver with six different silver bullets, maybe from six different companies. You’ll have to put all of these pieces together before you can really get the maximum effectiveness out of video advertising.” 

 Source: http://www.forbes.com/taxesandestates/2007/10/10/blinkx-google-youtube-tech-internet-cx_ag_1010techblinkx.html  

for more info please visit our site: http://www.semaphore-software.com/offshore-outsourcing/offshore_outsourcing_services.htm

October 8, 2007 1:33 PM PDT Posted by Tom Krazit 

Can Google’s application development prowess be transformed into a next-generation mobile operating system? 

It seems increasingly likely that Google, the ubiquitous tech company, is about to throw its hat into the race to develop the next big mobile device. Google’s no gadget-maker, but it does develop quite a bit of software, and reports have been building that the company is relatively close to releasing the Gphone. (Our style department says we have to spell it that way.) 

 Most people who have wandered onto the Internet in the past couple of years are familiar with Google. The company’s various applications from Gmail and Google Docs to Google Desktop and the Google Toolbar are likewise familiar to lots of PC users. When it comes to smart phones, Google Maps is almost a must-have application, and it comes standard with the iPhone.

  So Google’s got experience in taking applications built for a PC and moving them over to a smart phone, which will be a key part of transforming smart phones into true mobile computers. A mobile operating system, however, is an entirely different undertaking. 

It’s very much a wide-open race to develop the next advanced mobile operating system. Symbian has the lead worldwide thanks to its close partnership with Nokia, the largest shareholder in the company. Windows Mobile is the second most widely used smart-phone operating system, according to Forward Concepts, and Linux is the third. 

According to reports, Google wants to expand on that last category with its rumored mobile OS. The Gphone would be based on Linux and supported by advertising, which to many techies probably sounds like the ultimate Silicon Valley marriage made in hell. Try to forget, for a moment, about using a smart phone inundated with advertising messages and think about the implications of a Google-developed smart phone operating system. 

It’s still the very early days for this type of computing. Symbian and Microsoft have staked out opposing positions, but no company with the size and clout of Google has thrown its support behind the Linux development efforts for mobile computing. 

Mobile phone makers are intrigued by Linux because of the constrained memory and power requirements of mobile computers and the ability to customize a Linux base for their products. Lots of work has already been done to make Linux modular, or to create building blocks that can be mixed and matched depending on what is desired. Timothy Kamada of Access told me earlier in the year that carriers and phone makers also like the idea of having their own branded interface on the phone, rather than relying on Microsoft and Symbian’s branded operating system. If you go that route, that means you have to differentiate your products mostly on hardware, and that can be tricky. 

But established phone makers and carriers looking for an answer to the iPhone are finding it hard to bet on a single Linux provider. Palm is floundering, with the recent news that the Linux-based version of Palm OS has been delayed again. Access, the company that acquired former Palm OS developer Palmsource, isn’t faring much better. The folks at OpenMoko have gotten some buzz, but when First International Computer is your only hardware partner, you’ve got an uphill fight ahead of you. MontaVista has had some success with Motorola, and Wind River has been doing some interesting work, but are they in the best position to persuade the world to take a chance on their products? 

Google, on the other hand, is Google. They’ve got open-source credibility, they’ve got mobile phone pioneers on board with their acquisition of Android in 2005, and some of the best and brightest engineers that Silicon Valley has to offer (not to mention enough cash to fund four or five internal projects that might have produced the eventual winner). As mobile phones start to deliver the same Internet experience as a PC, mobile search will be a vital application.

 The part that trips me up is the notion of an advertising-supported Gphone, something also reported by BusinessWeek as a key part of Google’s aims for this market, along with its intention to go after the 700MHz spectrum auction. You’re going to have to offer people something pretty special to have ads–even targeted ads–be an integral part of the phone experience, which has thus far been mostly ad free. BusinessWeek thinks Google could be trying to do a television model on your phone, where voice and data minutes are free when the phone user agrees to accept advertising. While that might work to a certain extent, I think people have shown themselves quite willing to pay for things that get around the increasing reach of advertising. The New York Times reported Monday, however, that Google may be forgoing a licensing fee for its software in favor of the advertising model, which could make the software that much more attractive to phone makers. 

Despite a lack of smart-phone experience, Google has to be taken seriously in this market. It has the talent and the assets to worm its way into mobile phones, a consumer-friendly brand, and the industry heft to stick around through a few development cycles. The look and feel of any Gphone will be crucial to its chances, and without any solid information to that effect, it’s hard to say whether this thing will be a success or a flop. But it’s not hard to imagine that Google is making mobile development executives at Symbian, Microsoft, and Palm think long and hard about the current projects they have under development. 

Source: http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9793032-37.html 

for more info please visit our site: http://www.semaphore-software.com/offshore-outsourcing/offshore_outsourcing_services.htm

By Mandar Thosar  Published  09/12/2006 

In early years of this decade, companies had started realising the benefits of outsourcing the activities to the experts that provides them competitive advantage. With more and more companies outsourcing their software activities, the global market for offshored IT services and business processes has nearly tripled since 2001. In bid to take advantage of this fact, players are now diving in this industry.

Offshore software development has now become the battlefield with cutthroat competition. The existing players are making it difficult for new players to enter in custom software development market and new players, like new IT ventures and contries, are trying hard to get themselves identified as software service providers. In attempt to increase the market share, companies are shifting their focus towards local opportunities. To sustain current growth, the seasoned players are sorting out the options in new upcoming technologies like mobile.

As far as the two major software development countries in outsourcing, India and China, has the most of the global IT market share and cover the larger pie of offshore development market. Both these countries have thousands of IT companies that are offering many different types of development and other IT services. In both these countries the growth of Information Technology industry is remarkable. And both countries are competing closely with each other.

The software development market is becoming exceptionally competitive. Even though, India and China are considered as the competitive software service providers considering the quality of the service they provide, the new countries like Philippines, Russia and Nigeria are also preparing to make a dent in this market. The countries are making deliberate efforts to gain edge over English as deliverable. The current market can not be dictated by lower prices alone but quality and service is forming the core in software development. The winner of the deal is now decided on the total offerings- cost, quality and service. To address the quality related issues more and more companies are turning towards ISO and CMMI to get certified themselves as quality providers.The profit margin and profit earnings have made this market lucrative to enter and hence very competitive. Survey suggests that around 30% of the software companies do cover their investment and start earning profits within two years from commencement. Moreover, 40% to 45% of the companies are gaining higher than their investment withing short period. Still their are number of companies who have failed due to lower quality development services. Despite of this the market is moving upward with India becoming the hotspot for software development services.

Increased competition worldwide for IT services has made it tough for the companies to sustain their position and creating an entry barrier for the new entrants in offshore software development market. 

for more info please visit our site: http://www.semaphore-software.com/offshore-outsourcing/offshore_outsourcing_services.htm

By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY
October 8, 2007; Page B7

International Business Machines Corp. and Google Inc. said they are starting a program on college campuses to promote computer-programming techniques for clusters of processors known as “clouds.” 

In a joint telephone interview, IBM Chief Executive Samuel Palmisano and Google CEO Eric Schmidt said each company will spend between $20 million and $25 million for hardware, software and services that can be used by computer-science professors and students.

 So-called cloud computing — which lately has attracted the attention of many tech giants, including Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. — allows computers in remote data centers to run parallel, increasing their processing power. 

The cloud can run many software applications and can be accessed by many users. It promises to allow companies and universities to share resources and not have to expand their own costly data centers. However, the concept poses daunting questions about security, reliability and ease of use. 

In this case, IBM and Google will start by providing some 400 computers, with plans to expand to 4,000, at a number of locations. The computers will be accessible from six universities, led by University of Washington in Seattle, where some of the programming techniques were developed. The other pilot universities are Carnegie Mellon University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley and University of Maryland.

  Mr. Palmisano said the idea for collaboration between the two companies developed when he and Mr. Schmidt met at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., last December. They realized they held similar views on the future of cloud computing, which forms the basis of the computer architecture Google uses for its popular search service. 

 Mr. Palmisano said scientists from each company have expertise that will aid the project. He pointed to IBM’s skills at running data centers and managing computer security. Google provides “complementary expertise in Web computing and massively scaled clusters,” he said. 

The two men said they also shared concerns that computer-science schools were focused on teaching students how to program a single server and not giving them opportunities to learn about parallel programming. 

Frank Gens, an analyst with market-research concern IDC in Framingham, Mass., said the companies also are united by a rivalry with Microsoft, and “they’d like to influence the future of online business before Microsoft extends its influence.” IBM and Google stressed that much of the infrastructure will be open-source programs that are freely available, rather than proprietary software programs such as those sold by Microsoft. 

 Microsoft is developing its own approach to cloud computing, as is Hewlett-Packard Co., said executives at the companies. Microsoft hopes to use its expertise in operating systems to develop ways to manage the large numbers of computers used in cloud computing, executives at the software maker said. 

Mervyn Adrian, an analyst with Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., said, “This is the next generation of computer architecture, and IBM wants to get in front of it.” He noted that many students use Google applications and said that “IBM wants to leverage that.”  Google’s Mr. Schmidt said “IBM doesn’t get credit for their architecture because they’re held back by the image of the mainframe.” But he said IBM’s expertise in running data centers and developing software that many companies use to run their computer infrastructures makes it “the logical leader in cloud computing.”  

Mr. Palmisano said the firms are trying to “take these two sets of skills — IBM’s understanding of how enterprises use computing and Google’s understanding of massive data flows and high-speed connections — and we believe we can create something significant.” He jokingly characterized the project as combining Google’s young engineers and “the old fat guys” at IBM. Write to William M. Bulkeley at bill.bulkeley@wsj.com

Source: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119180611310551864-55slpWwDncT1vmG_6OJJdxxeF4E_20071107.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

for more info please visit our site: http://www.semaphore-software.com/offshore-outsourcing/offshore_outsourcing_services.html