Apple has allegedly cornered the glass capacitive touch panel market, prepaying for 60 percent of the world’s entire capacity in 2011.
The move will leave many other companies fighting for the remaining 40 percent, which is expected to cause component shortages throughout the year and delays.
Apple has reportedly prepaid suppliers Wintek and TPK $3.9 billion for long-term contracts, enough money to cover 136 million iPhone displays or 60 million iPad 2 displays.
Gigaom explains that Apple has done this before:
Prepaying for a bulk, long-term contract allows Apple to control pricing, causing scarcity in the market, which raises the prices of remaining component stock. Apple’s pre-bought parts then give it a price advantage when it comes to production costs, and one that could grow as the contract progresses. It’s something Apple’s been known to do in the past, specifically with NAND flash memory in 2005.
Apple can successfully make moves like this because their devices (as history shows) are almost guaranteed to sell, and sell well. iSuppli is expecting 44 million iPad/iPad 2 tablet sales in 2011, after the company sold 14.8 million in 2010. Even the most radical analyst expectations in 2010 had sales at 9 million.
Result for: acts
According to an anonymous developer, the rumored WiiWare ‘threshold’ is real, but the press has misinterpreted the facts.
The so-called ‘threshold’ means that indie developers who create titles to sell via WiiWare have to sell a significant amount of the game to receive any revenue from Nintendo.
“I’m concerned this recent threshold news is generating an artificially negative wave of press. The spirit of the threshold was never to screw the developer - it was, as far as I can tell, a quality control mechanism to prevent the service from getting overrun with a bunch of crappy games,” says the source.
“Once the threshold is crossed, the developer is retroactively paid for every single unit sold below the threshold. I know there has been confusion on that point in the past.
“From the stats I’ve seen and heard developers report, the threshold is easily surpassed within the first day, or at least the first week, for many games.”
“I hear rumours within the dev community that Nintendo recognises a problem here, where occasionally an entirely legitimate game just doesn’t make it, and is looking for a way to make exceptions, to ensure small devs are paid even if the threshold is not reached. Just rumours though, so who knows.
“I just fear this is one of those things that sounds a lot more evil than it actually is,” concluded the source.
Result for: acts
The popular indie band MGMT has accused French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his party of using one of their songs without proper compensation and has threatened to sue the President if the situation is not rectified.
Sarkozy’s party, the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) confirmed that they paid a €53 fee to France’s music licensing body, but lawyers for the band say the compensation is not enough to cover the amount of times the song has been used, especially on the Web.
The party also admitted to using the track, “Kids” during the national congress speech in January as well as in two online videos and in a few political ads. The politicians offered to give the band €1 for copyright infringement.
Band lawyer Isabelle Wekstein has declined the offer and called it ‘insulting.’
“This offer is disrespectful of the rights of artists and authors. It is insulting,” said Wekstein. “We are dealing with acts of counterfeiting, an infringement of intellectual property.”
Noting the irony of the party’s actions, Wekstein added: “It seems that those who led the charge against Internet users are not the most respectful of copyright.”
The UMP has been pushing hard for a ‘three strikes law’ that would banish pirates from the Internet after two ignored warnings. French legislators are currently readying the 3 strikes legislation for final vote.
