Bluetooth and network revenue

IXI Mobile has announced details of what it says is a world first - the Personal Mobile Gateway (PMG) Seminar. The full-day event on 16 June takes place in Amsterdam, as a prelude to the Bluetooth World Congress (17 to 19 June). Confirmed event speakers include representatives of leading mobile operators, PMG and Sleek Device manufacturers, industry analysts and retail experts.

Key players in the PMG marketplace will come together for sessions discussing business drivers, the PMG in action and making the PMG a reality.

The emerging PMG is meant to alleviate interoperability issues between various types of platforms and devices, while offering operators new avenues for revenue and enabling lower cost of ownership per `function` for consumers via `thin` products," said speaker Joyce Putscher, director at In-Stat MDR.

Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Computer, has dominated the personal computer market and is moving into new areas, including data storage systems, handheld gadgets and printers.

Reuters reports that he is now also eyeing one lucrative part of the computer sector not usually connected with the manufacturing set - computer services. Dell is creating a range of services that it hopes will help it reach its goal of nearly doubling overall sales, to $60 billion, in the next five years.

It already helps companies design, install and manage information systems, a business that grew 45% in the first fiscal quarter. But these services bring in only a couple of billion dollars, compared with total revenue of about $35 billion in fiscal 2003.

Suddenly, the major labels have a new mantra on digital distribution: let someone else do it, reports Reuters. That`s the lesson industry insiders are drawing from the surprise decision by Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group (UMG) to sell their service, Pressplay, to Roxio.

"The marketplace has changed," Sony Music executive VP Robert Bowlin says. "We are in the content business. We don`t have to own the highway necessarily unless it is strategic to do so."

Sources say the move is neither a direct reaction to the early success of Apple Computer`s new iTunes service nor a response to a recent court decision allowing the Grokster and Streamcast peer-to-peer (P2P) services to continue operating.