Microsoft to ship over
10 million Xbox 360 units

Microsoft Corp has said it expects to have shipped more than 10 million Xbox 360 video game consoles to retailers by the end of calendar 2006. "This holiday, we expect to have sold in excess of 10 million units worldwide," a Microsoft spokeswoman said.
That "sold" number refers to units "sold into retail," which refers to units in transit, units sitting in store inventories and machines sold to consumers. The Xbox 360 debuted in November 2005, roughly a year ahead of machines from rivals Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. Ltd. whose PlayStation 3 and Wii consoles went on sale in the United States in November.
Microsoft has previously forecast global shipments of 10 million by the end of 2006, as well as shipments of 13 million by 15 million by the end of its 2007 fiscal year that ends June 30. The company's latest Xbox 360 shipment count stands at around six million units.
Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell spoke at a Nasdaq investor conference in London recently and his accompanying power point presentation included a slide showing the Xbox 360 outpacing the original Xbox, which launched in November 2001.
That presentation showed Microsoft had shipped more than 5.7 million Xbox 360 units in the three quarters following the launch period, compared with 4.7 million Xbox units in the same post-debut time frame.

Zune sales to cross
one million by June '07

Microsoft Corp. has forecast that sales of its Zune music player will exceed one million units by the end of June 2007 despite a tepid start for the device. Recently, a report from market research firm NPD Group showed that Zune's share of the U.S. digital music player market fell to 2 percent and fifth place in the week ended November 25, the second week of sales since its release.
Zune was second with a 9.0 percent market share in the first week after launch.
"While this is expected, our focus is less on week over week numbers, and more on the incremental sales that are leading to overall growth of the category," said a Microsoft spokeswoman in a statement. Microsoft, which had never announced a forecast for Zune sales, said it is now on a path to sell more than one million units by June 30, the end of its current fiscal year. The slow start for the 30-gigabyte Zune underscores the huge challenge Microsoft faces in trying to crack into the digital music player market, dominated by Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod.
Apple has sold more than 70 million iPods since its introduction in October 2001 and the iPod commands more than a 70 percent share of the U.S. market for MP3 players, as they are also known.
The Zune, shaped like a pack of playing cards and selling for $249, comes with wireless technology that allows users to beam photos and songs to one another. Microsoft has said it plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and market the Zune, while acknowledging that the investment may take years to bear fruit.

It's Cyber Santa boosting
X-mas Online retail sales!

Santa Claus is as likely to be coming through cyberspace in Europe this year as down the chimneystack. Online retail sales are predicted to hit a record high in Europe's three big economies -- Germany, France and Britain -- this Christmas and are proving one of the few areas to bring some cheer to an otherwise gloomy outlook for shopkeepers.
"Internet is booming at the expense of the high street stores," said James Roper, chief executive of London-based online tracker Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG). "The story that we've heard in the past, that Internet retail won't take off because people want to feel the fruit and touch the cardigan is just not true."
British Internet tills are forecast to ring in sales worth 3.6 billion pounds by the end of December. More than 180 million pounds was spent online this past Monday alone, the traditional start of the festive shopping season, double the amount of ago year ago, according to IMRG.
In a sure sign of market confidence in the trend, Tesco, the world's fifth biggest retailer with stores in 12 countries, chose this week to expand its one billion pound online sales business beyond food to clothing. "It's performing very strongly, over double what we did last year," Tesco's Strategy and Finance Director Andrew Higginson said about its non-food offer of teddy bears to sofas.
It is a similar story in Germany and France. French cyber shopping traffic jumped 79 percent in the past week with a quarter of online shoppers visiting sites run by retail giant PPR whose stores span entertainment and electronics mecca Fnac.com to the luxury Gucci Group.
In Germany, where traffic rose 63 percent last week compared with the pre-holiday period, according to tracker comScore Networks, with search site Web.de seeking out bargains from lipgloss to i-Pods.
Yet, as online stores show blistering growth -- up as much as 22 percent for the PPR group and 90 percent for British department store John Lewis -- many in the real world are slashing prices in a desperate effort to lure shoppers. Euro zone retail sales rose 1.1 percent in October from a year ago, below a consensus estimate, and September growth was revised down, as more recent data showed, confirming household spending remains the economy's weak link.
Internet executives argue concerns over rising house prices, interest rates and taxes are helping their businesses to blossom with the promise of bargains and price comparison a boon to Christmas shoppers concerned about shrinking disposable income. "As consumer debt remains an issue, more people are turning to the Internet to help them plan how much they're spending," said price comparison site Kelkoo's shopping chief Bill Rowley.
Better broadband coverage, improved delivery times and Internet security, greater ease with search engines and social networking sites like MySpace.com, as well as less stress are helping to fuel European online shopper confidence.
A survey this month showed 85 percent of British shoppers preferred clicks to bricks because they could avoid the "too stressful" high street. European stores are also finally establishing brands to rival Amazon on their own turf. DSG International, Europe's leading specialist electronics retailer and owner of chains including PC World, Elkjob and Kotsovolos, is running a campaign promising "The Best of Both Worlds": instore shopping at Internet prices. However, striking a balance between the worlds isn't easy.
Woolworths, the venerable high street store, issued a pre-Christmas profit warning on Tuesday after shoppers' instore visits plunged. Still, Chief Executive Trevor Bish-Jones said he was "blown away" by demand for its new multichannel offer that allows customers to buy online and pick up in store.
“If I had said to people three months ago that we would now be the fastest growing internet retailer they would have said 'Trev, you are on drugs'," Bish-Jones said.

Mobile phone ownership among British children of primary-school age has soared to almost 60 percent in the past year, new data shows. Some 57 percent of seven to 11 year olds now have a mobile phone, compared to just 43 percent 12 months ago, according to figures from Halifax.
The increasing number of younger children with a mobile phone has pushed the overall ownership figure for children aged seven to 16 to 77 percent -- up from 68 percent in 2005.
Mobile phone ownership among older children -- those aged 12 to 16 -- has remained static at 94 percent in the past 12 months.
On a regional basis, children in London are the biggest mobile phone owners -- 97 percent have one, against just 56 percent of those in the West Midlands. There has also been an increase in the number of parents paying for their offspring's mobile phone usage.
Just 40 percent of children say they are responsible for paying their own bills, compared to 47 percent last year.
And more parents are also giving their children extra money to spend on their mobiles. A quarter of children said their parents gave them extra money to meet the costs of the phone, up from 16 percent in 2005.
The length of time children spend on their mobile has changed little in the past year, according to the figures. Three-quarters spend up to five hours a week on their mobile and almost half spend up to two hours. Pay-as-you-go phones remain the most prevalent, accounting for 79 percent of handsets.The findings are part of Halifax's annual pocket money survey, for which almost 1,200 children aged seven to 16 were surveyed.

LifeSize HD video tech facilitates
real time casting of film actors

When casting director Charlie Bogdan was recently in Brazil casting a Toyota commercial and needed approval on the Amazon Indians he wanted for the spot, flying them to Hollywood never crossed his mind. Instead, he uploaded live video of them via the high-definition video communications technology known as LifeSize and received instant feedback from producers.
In the Hollywood of old, seeking the right actor for a commercial or any role often meant the cost of first-class tickets and hotels to get both directors and actors in one room, not to mention an even costlier commodity: time. But with HD video at 1280x720 resolution, full-room coverage audio, a camera, wireless remote and a video-conferencing phone, the LifeSize Room has attending directors, producers, actors and models in one location conducting a meeting or audition with those at a separate location. Video and data are captured in real time and sent instantaneously through an IP address using any bandwidth.
"We're doing more stuff out of the country, and because it's in real time it's going to revolutionize casting and the way people do business in the future," Bogdan says.
Kendall Henry, who produced Lance Armstrong's Subaru campaign among other commercials, agrees and refers to its use as "casting live online," crediting its popularity to advances in technology including the advent of broadband. "The only reason we didn't use it a long time ago was that the technology wasn't fast enough and the picture was too pixilated," Henry says, noting that in the old days you were only getting a third of what you should be seeing because technology could handle only 10 frames per second compared with 30 today.
"Now because of all the high-speed lines, you can actually have a real conversation in real-time and actually direct in real-time."
Henry says the only problem with that is that talent may sometimes need to catch up to the technology. For a model to act to a TV screen, it takes them a while to warm up to it," Henry says.
But commercial talent agent Mike Casey, who has represented clients ranging from Elle Macpherson to Uma Thurman, says that the quality of the LifeSize picture is such that it can actually benefit those in front of the camera. "I've had girls audition in person for shampoo jobs where the client was disappointed because their hair didn't shine," Casey says. "But this system's lighting is superior."

TCS, Wipro bid for C&W's outsourcing agreement

Domestic IT majors Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro are believed to be front-runners for a multi-million outsourcing deal from UK-based telecom and networking major Cable & Wireless.
The telephony major is outsourcing around 2,000-2,500 non-core jobs to India, which according to industry estimates would be in the range of $70-100 million (Rs 315-450 crore).
C&W is looking at outsourcing core work, including accounting, financing and billing services to India and had earlier invited bids.
A host of Indian companies had applied for it, but TCS and Wipro are believed to have been shortlisted, according to sources, who indicated that there were two other Indian companies in the race.
If awarded, the winner of the contract would have to commence outsourcing work from the last week of December or early January. TCS has also roped in its sister concern Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd as partners for the project and the Tata group company will provide bandwidth requirements of the project.
When contacted, a TCS spokesperson said, "TCS is in discussions with C&W on a range of business issues, just as we are with a large number of global corporations.
The current industry outsourcing rate ranges between $20-30 per hour for an 8-hour shift. Indian outsourcing companies have normally three shifts, while some have even four.
Analysts, after a back-of-the-envelope calculation, estimate that contracts range somewhere between $75-100. This is not the biggest single outsourcing contract to India, as TCS and Infosys each had earlier bagged a $400 million deal from ABN Amro.
It was part of a $2.2 billion contract, of which TCS got around $260 million, while Infosys got around $140 million and the rest went to global major IBM.

Indians being recruited in big numbers

China plans 10 outsourcing
bases by '10 to serve MNCs

China has decided to develop 10 outsourcing base cities by 2010 to transform the Communist giant as the most-favoured outsourcing destination of multinationals.
The ambitious plan would encourage 100 multinationals to shift outsourcing services to China and foster 1,000 large and medium-sized service outsourcing enterprises, Assistant Minister of Commerce Fu Ziying has said.
The first base cities would be Shanghai and Dalian in east China, Xi'an in northwest China, Chengdu in southwest China and Shenzhen in south China. The government aims for a fourfold increase in its service outsourcing export volume during the 11th five-year Plan period (2006-2010).
"The ministry of commerce is to channel social resources into innovation-oriented enterprises, and support policies will focus on enterprises rather than export products," Fu said.
The global service outsourcing market stood at between $300 billion and $500 billion. The market is expected to reach $1 trillion in 2008. In 2005, China's exports of service outsourcing were worth 900 million dollars. A report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said China was already a favourite choice for multinationals' research and development and could build on that to provide a range of outsourced services.
Indian software industry sources said the Chinese government is paying high attention and investing a lot of funds in developing software bases as well as outsourcing centres around the country.
Chinese IT companies are also recruiting Indians in large numbers so as to overcome the English-language barriers and winning contracts in the US and Europe, traditionally the major markets for Indian software companies.
The Chinese government's long-term plan on outsourcing comes after Beijing recently stepped up activities to establish export-oriented software bases in the country.
The Chinese ministry of commerce has just granted the status of national software export base to Guangzhou in southern China, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Jinan in east China and Chengdu in southwest China. With the six existing bases -- Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Xi'an, Shenzhen and Dalian -- China now has 11 national software export bases.
Indian software giants like Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Satyam, Wipro, NIIT and i-flex are already present in Chinese cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Dalian, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.
Another Chinese vice-minister of commerce, Yi Xiaozhun said the ministry will help these bases develop software brands for the international market.
Support for the bases will include interest rebates, research & development funding, personnel training, corporate qualification certification, export credit loans, credit insurance, commercial information and protection of intellectual rights.