EMI exec hints at Euro launch date for major music stores

EMI's head of music publishing has given the biggest indication yet of when the major online music stores can be expected to launch in Europe. William Booth said at a conference in Cannes, France, that he expects a single royalty deal covering most of Europe's music publishers to be agreed within three to four months. This news followed comments by Chris Gorog, CEO of Napster-owner Roxio, who said that music studios are 'rolling out the red carpet', and publishers remain the 'primary obstacle. ...more

Palm sidesteps Graffiti

PalmSource has announced it is licensing CIC's Jot handwriting recognition software for its Palm OS platform. It will be embedded into current versions of the OS as 'Graffiti 2 powered by Jot'. Jot will appear in its standalone form in Palm's Tungsten-W GSM-enabled PDA, which will launch early this year. ...more

palmOne boosted by Sony PDA demise

palmOne and Medion benefited most from a slight increase in PDA sales during the second quarter of 2004, according to the latest figures from IDC. While total shipments were up 3.2 per cent on the previous quarter, palmOne's sales grew 14. ...more

NEC, Mandriva develop corporate Linux

French Linux builder Mandriva and NEC computers have announced a joint initiative to develop customised Linux solutions for the corporate and public sectors. NEC already runs a variety of Linux platforms on its Express5800 server range, mainly Red Hat, but also Novell SUSE and Japan's Turbolinux. However, the deal inked with Mandriva will see the open source operating system deployed beyond servers and into desktops and notebooks. ...more

Evesham outraged by Compaq contract

UK PC vendor Evesham.com has spoken out over the Government handing a ?2m PC contract to Compaq. Members of Parliament are now restricted to buying their PCs from US company Compaq, which has recently cut 700 jobs at its Erskine fab in Scotland to move operations to Czechoslovakia. ...more