Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
It really has not been a good month for Apple on the PR and legal front and the issues stem exclusively from one product - iPod.
First came the alleged patent infringement lawsuit from Singapore-based
MP3 player manufacturer Creative Technology, followed by two counter
suits launched by Apple. Then a Scandinavian coalition of three
countries launched a bid to break the exclusive link between iTunes and
iPod. This was followed shortly after by the US International Trade
Commission (ITC) voting to launch an investigation of Apple over the
Creative patent infringement claims.
The latest iPod migraine to make its presence felt is an article that
appeared the UK newspaper, Mail on Sunday, that described sweat shop
factories being run in mainland China by Taiwanese iPod assembly
company Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd. According to article, young
women from rural regions are being paid just $50 a month, which is half
the usual rate, are housed in dormitories and have to pay half their
wages in rent and board. What's more, the article claims that the
hapless workers are required to do 15-hour shifts.
The sweat shop story has sent Apple into damage control, with the
company stating publicly that it is looking into the allegations raised
in the article and that the company would not tolerate violations of
its supplier code of conduct.
On the bright side for Apple, the Scandinavian countries are a sizeable
but not a huge portion of its market, the ITC investigation is a long
way from finding in favour of Creative and the sweat shop charges go
with the territory for any large manufacturer operating in low cost
markets. Then again, the iPod is beginning to appear to be a high
maintenance product.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
How to Make Business Discovery Work for Your Business
Business Discovery takes its cues from consumer apps. Like Google, it encourages us- ers to hunt for and explore data without worrying about or even noticing the underly- ing technology. Their entire experience is working within an intuitive interface to get real-time, self-service results with only minimal training. ...more
Try an easy-to-use set of web-enabled
tools for business-class productivity services. Office 365 provides
anywhere-access to email, important documents, contacts, and calendars
on almost any device.
It really has not been a good month for Apple on the PR and legal front and the issues stem exclusively from one product - iPod.
Latest Headlines from IT INDUSTRY
