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Technology Stocks : e.Digital Corporation(EDIG) - Embedded Digital Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Starlight who wrote (11609)	3/20/2000 10:58:00 AM
From: mark cox	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18366

Time and time again we read articles stating that EDIG is required but they don't know that it exists yet. YET Mark From Todays, WSJ - Battle of the Formats Monday, March 20, 2000 Page R14 By Martin Peers So record Companies want to sell music online, But an important question is till up in the air. What system will they use? Right now, companies are still debating how best of offer music digitally. While digital sales are expected to be available by the middle of the year, shortly after the new portable music devices hit the market equipped with protections against piracy, executives expect a bumpy introduction. The record companies will be using different formats for their downloading systems, ensuring that not all music will play on the same devices. "It's going to be initially a cumbersome experience," says Sony Music executive Senior Vice President Al Smith. For downloading to take off, however, the different software pieces must work together in a way that is invisible to the consumer, including being upgraded when necessary. "The goal is that everything ends up being seamless to the consumer," Says Warner Music Executive Vice President Paul Vidich, Record companies are pursuing different strategies to figure out which software system is the best. Universal Music, for instance, which plans to start digital distribution in the second quarter, is at least initially going with just one system, relying on technology developed by interprets Technology Crop to manage the "digital rights" attached to its music. Other companies, such as BMG and Warner, are expected to sell their music using two different systems, giving them more flexibility as the systems are put to the test in the market place. Over the past several months, the big record companies have been experimenting and meeting with the various software developers. The experiment has ranged from individual downloading or streaming promotion (EMI for instance offered David Bowie's album "hours..." for sale through downloading in the two weeks before the album hits the streets) to lard scale tests such as the Madison Project. Madison involved all five big record companies and International Business Machines Corp. selling music directly to consumers along cable-system lines. Jay Sammie, senior vice president for new media at EMI, says the company learned a lot from the David Bowie downloading, "Such as how many people needed tech support, that people who used the Microsoft Windows format needed tech support far less often then the other format." It also learned "how many bought the physical album as well" and how easy it was for people to get around geographic restrictions placed on downloading. None of the companies involved will specify results of the Madison results, but Warner's Paul Vidich says that what came through clearly was that the "consumer has the desire to own music in a permanent form" Still market researches say consumers need time to understand the new technology. Ric Dube, a researcher with Webnoize Inside, a unit of Digital Music Network Inc., says consumers top concern about downloading music is weather they can play the music outside of their computer.