Microsoft says sells 1 million Kinect devices - Reuters

Assistants demonstrate the game ''Kinect Adventures'' for Kinect for Xbox 360 during a media briefing at the Wiltern theatre in Los Angeles, June 14, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni

SEATTLE | Tue Nov 16, 2010 3:20pm EST

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Monday it has sold more than 1 million of its new hands-free Kinect gaming systems in the first 10 days since launch, putting it on track to beat its target of 5 million sales by the end of the year.

The world's largest software company is hoping the Kinect will help revitalize sales of its Xbox game console this holiday shopping season and counter competing motion-based gaming systems from Nintendo Co, which makes the Wii, and Sony Corp, which introduced its Move product two months ago.

"It's a strong start," said Don Mattrick, head of Microsoft's game unit, in a telephone interview on Monday. "Consumers are loving it."

The Kinect -- a sensing device you plug into the Xbox which allows you to play games just by moving your body and speaking commands -- is priced at $150 for a standalone unit and $300 bundled with a 4 gigabyte Xbox console.

It went on sale in U.S. stores November 4, although many customers had pre-ordered units, likely causing a spike in early sales. Microsoft is hoping sales will stay hot as the day after Thanksgiving -- one of the biggest shopping days of the year, known as 'Black Friday' -- approaches on November 26.

More than 30,000 U.S. stores are selling Kinect in the United States, including branches of Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Target Corp, Best Buy Co, GameStop Corp and online at Amazon.com. It went on sale on November 10 in Europe and is due to go on sale in Asia on November 18.

Ultimately, Microsoft is hoping the new technology will help extend the role of its Xbox 360, which has sold 45 million units, and introduce a concept that is expected to feature in forms of electronics and computers in the next few years.

Microsoft shares were trading unchanged after hours, after closing down 7 cents at $26.20 on Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Bernard Orr)

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Web 2.0: RIM CEO Says Apps Unnecessary For Web - InformationWeek

Moments before Web 2.0 Summit co-chair John Battelle invited Research In Motion CEO Jim Balsillie on stage, he asked attendees how many had BlackBerry mobile phones and somewhere between 10% to 20% of the audience members raised a hand. Then he asked how many used to have BlackBerry mobile phones and noted that the number of hands was comparable.

The perception is that RIM's grasp on its market is slipping as adoption of Apple's iPhone and Android phones surges. That may not jibe with reality: Earlier on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker presented a slide showing that RIM's smartphone market share had grown from 7% in Q1, 2006, to 15% in Q3, 2010.

But RIM is at a transitional moment and concerns about the future health of its platform deserve some consideration.

Asked about his view of Apple, Balsillie did not mince words: "We think many customers are getting tired of being told what to think by Apple," he said.

"We believe you can bring mobile to the Web," he said. "You don't need to go through some control point SDK. You don't need an app for the Web."

Balsillie made it clear that he's all for native apps on mobile devices. But he stressed that proprietary tools are not necessary to make content mobile.

"It's really not about a set of proprietary tools," he said. "We completely disagree with that point of view."

He predicted that proprietary mobile computing would be a passing phase like the DRM era for music.

Balsillie talked up the performance of his company's forthcoming PlayBook, noting how well it performs in a video that has been posted to YouTube. "It's like three to four times faster than an iPad," he said. Yet asked whether he had one to show, he demurred.

Balsillie also balked when asked to comment on a competitor that isn't Apple. During a few minutes of audience questioning, David Levin, CEO of United Business Media, which owns TechWeb, asked whether it is over for Nokia (Levin was previously CEO of Symbian).

Balsillie initially declined to comment. Prodded by Battelle, he allowed that big shifts, like the shift from feature phones to smart phones, can be tough.

Asked to define RIM, Balsillie flashed his company's enterprise credentials. While recognizing that IT has been consumerized, he said you still can't dismiss enterprise requirements. "We sell performance," he said. "We sell Web fidelity and Web tools. We sell CIO, professional-grade requirements."

RIM, he said, is about "innovative performance and constructive alignment."

And someday soon, RIM will sell the PlayBook. Just not today.

Unified communications isn't just for the big guys; it can be extremely useful for smaller companies looking to streamline operations and improve productivity. Read our report and find out more. Download it here (registration required).

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Beatles finally allowing digital downloads on Apple's iTunes - Washington Post

I'm sorry, were you expecting congratulations here?

This absurdly overdue development happened shortly before 10 a.m. - slightly in advance of the vague prediction posted on Apple's home page Monday.

Apple now offers all 13 remastered Beatles studio albums and the three major post-breakup compilations as multimedia-enhanced "iTunes LP" downloads, plus a $149 "box set" that includes all those releases and a video of the band's 1964 concert at the Washington Coliseum. (You can watch that last item for free in iTunes through the rest of the year.)

Individual songs cost $1.29 each, while single albums sell for $12.99 and double releases cost $19.99.

Apple's news release only cites that concert film as an exclusive. But the Fab Four's work doesn't show up on Amazon's MP3 store, Apple's main rival in the digital-download business. You can, however, continue to buy their CDs off the Seattle retailer's site - in some cases, for $3 to $5 less than what Apple charges.

That seems a fitting conclusion to this band's history of digital denial.

It's been almost seven years and seven months since the iTunes Store opened for business as the iTunes Music Store. The Beatles would have looked like visionaries to join Apple in this venture, and I'm sure Apple chief executive Steve Jobs would have given every black turtleneck he owns to have them. But they held back.

Three and a half years ago, Apple announced that it would stop requiring "digital rights management" restrictions on iTunes downloads - just a few months after Apple and the Beatles' Apple Corps record label had settled a long-running dispute over their similar names and logos.

The Beatles would have been hailed as pioneers for following up on that resolution by bringing their music to the Internet free of DRM shackles (even if that credit properly goes to the independent labels that never sought DRM in the first place). But they stayed aloof.

Just a year and a half ago, Apple banished DRM entirely from the iTunes Store's music inventory. But the Beatles picked that very day - as if they were flaunting their obstinance - to announce they'd be digitally remastering their catalogue for another re-release on CD.

Last September, the band licensed its music for inclusion in the Rock Band video game. But download sites continued to stock only the occasional cover version of their work.

Tuesday, the Beatles finally ran out of excuses for not letting downloaders give them their money. Alas, seven years is a long time to cede the market to file sharers and CD swappers who readily provided something that they would not. Is there anybody left online who doesn't already have all the Beatles MP3s they want?

This is a point that often gets overlooked in entertainment circles: The market continues to function even if the logical and rightful supplier of a product refuses to participate. The ease of duplicating and transmitting digital data ensures that somebody else will fill that vacancy.

You can mope about the massive copyright infringement that results from this dynamic, but the best way for artists to reverse it is to get into the market themselves.

Now that the Beatles have finally ended their tiresome, we're-too-good-for-the-Internet act, perhaps that change of heart (or the money they'll make off iTunes downloads) will lead to a similar rethinking among the lesser musicians who have also boycotted the download market.

That doesn't justify any media celebrations or heartfelt Baby Boomer ruminations over a band's decision to let its customers pay them. It certainly doesn't merit Apple's overclocked hype machinery, which had its home page promising visitors that Tuesday would be a day "that you'll never forget."

We probably will. And in the end, the Beatles will remain great artists. They have, however, proved themselves to be lousy capitalists.

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