U-turn on computer games tax relief may lead to a dead end
The games industry is facing a brain drain after the coalition government reneged on its promise to give it tax breaks The British video game industry is in shock. Barely two months ago, Alistair Darling planned a series of tax breaks for the sector in his final budget
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U-turn on computer games tax relief may lead to a dead end
We must make e-books pirate-proof | Seth Freedman
Publishers must learn from the mistakes of the music industry and protect e-book copyrighted content from thieves On Monday, I said the traveller's prayer when getting on the bus, as I do every time I go on a journey out of Tel Aviv. Rather than carrying a prayer book with me, I have an e-siddur installed on my phone for just such occasions, allowing me instant access to the necessary text. Likewise, I don't bother buying a paper anymore, preferring to sit and read the news via my phone's LCD screen; over the space of the 40-minute bus ride, I'd devoured articles and op-ed columns from a plethora of publications with the greatest of ease. By using my phone in this way, I play my part in contributing to the slow death of both the media and publishing industries , not to mention all the related trades which suffer in the wake of their decline. Publishers of prayer books miss out on the revenue from potential purchasers who opt instead for free online versions; likewise, newspapers have lost control of their own content, and are paying a heavy price for their incapacity. As far as newspapers are concerned, there appears little that can be done to stop the rot, save for desperately trying to salvage some scraps of revenue from online advertising and subscription. For the publishing world, however, there is still time to address the potential catastrophe awaiting the industry, if only those at the helm of the flotilla are willing to chart a course out of earshot of the e-book sirens' song. It is no secret that the moment the music business sold its soul to the compact disc devil, the industry was in serious trouble. CDs, followed by MP3s, meant that the listening public now had access to high quality files of their favourite music, and could pirate copies at will, should their desire to save money prove more compelling than their sense of ethics. The music industry went into near-terminal decline in the Napster years, thanks to an inability to keep control over, or make money from, the copyrighted material for which the record companies had paid through the nose. The lure of forcing consumers to "upgrade" from vinyl to CD, then from CD to MP3, was financially expedient in the short term, but in the long term was a modern-day equivalent of Dorian Gray's fateful pact. The publishing world is teetering on the brink of a similarly suicidal drop today. With the advent of the Kindle , along with all manner of related new royalty systems and e-publishing deals, the industry is being lured into a trap from which it might never escape – and it's easy to see why they're tempted. Borders' latest financial results showed a 12% decline in revenue at its bookshops, largely due to the impact of the credit crisis, and in a climate where the public has less disposal money to spend, low-cost models such as e-book publications are seen as a natural way for publishers to ride out the economic storm. With resistance weakening towards the concept of e-books, Amazon reported a 24% increase in earnings in the first quarter of this year, driven in no small parts by sales of its Kindle e-reader
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We must make e-books pirate-proof | Seth Freedman
Smartphones seen as industry saviours
Executives from across the mobile phone world will converge on Barcelona tomorrow for the start of the industry's biggest annual trade show. But behind the glitzy exhibition stands and the over-hyped press announcements there is a growing sense of panic as the effects of the global economic downturn start to show. Sales of mobile phones are expected to be at least 10% down this year – according to the world's largest manufacturer Nokia – at little more than a billion, and cash-strapped consumers are demanding ever cheaper deals. Attendance at the four-day Mobile World Congress is expected to be down on last year as companies, cutting staff and slashing costs, balk at the £2,600 price of a delegate pass. Organiser the GSM Association is still hopeful of a last minute rush, but by the weekend 47,000 people had registered, down from 54,000 last year. Even Carphone Warehouse boss Charles Dunstone has decided to give the show a miss with his yacht – scene of many an industry party – missing from the harbour. Representatives of the GSM Association will meet many senior figures from the mobile phone networks at a "Leadership Summit" to discuss strategies for meeting the biggest economic challenge the industry has faced in its relatively short life. "The business model of the mobile operators is creaking right now," according to Patrick Bossert from customer service experts Convergys, who has been watching the industry for years. "They are having to look at where new revenue is coming from and they are on the back foot." Research house TNS reckons that in Britain the average spending of customers on monthly contracts has dropped by £4 in the last year as they squeeze better deals from their supplier. Vodafone and O2 have admitted recently that many mobile phone customers are holding on to their existing handsets and 'trading down' to SIM-only packages or even abandoning contracts for pre-pay deals. The traditional heartland of the industry – the mid-range phone market – has all but disappeared in the more mature markets of Europe, while growth in new subscribers is slowing across the world. The glimmer of hope that many in the mobile phone industry see is the paradoxical explosion in the so-called smartphone market in the wake of the arrival of Apple's iPhone a year and a half ago. The number of smartphones – handsets with multimedia functions, web browsers and high-specification cameras – purchased has doubled in the last year, according to TNS. They accounted for about 13% last year according to Juniper Research – but are bucking the overall gloomy trend. This fact, however, means that competition is increasing among manufacturers as electronics companies that have not traditionally made phones move in to grab market share. American electronic organiser maker Palm, for instance, hopes to resuscitate its fortunes with the Palm Pre Smartphone while this year's conference will play host to the release of the first smartphone from Toshiba – with the TG01 touchscreen Windows Mobile device – as well as handsets from Taiwanese notebook producer Acer
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Smartphones seen as industry saviours