Napster and Ericsson announced today a global partnership to offer the first complete, fully integrated digital music service available for mobile operators. The service will carry the universally known Napster brand and combine elements of Napster�s popular PC offering and Ericsson�s personalized music service, currently utilized by more mobile operators than any other in the world. The Napster and Ericsson business model accommodates mobile operator participation in all revenue streams. The service is scheduled to go live in Europe over the next 12 months and will initially be offered to operators in select markets in Europe, Asia, Latin America and North America. The new service will support coordinated wireless and PC downloading of digital music in both subscription and a la carte models, and phone-based initiation will ensure convenient and easy music library access for both mobile and PC usage. The service scales to current handset models and networks but can also accommodate next-generation technology for newer handsets on higher-speed networks and is designed to work on mobile phones from all major manufacturers that support content protected by digital rights management.
Few technology sectors sit as close to the center of gravity in today's artificial intelligence (AI) economy as semiconductor manufacturing. Every AI chip that trains a frontier model, every GPU that powers a data center inference workload, and every power management IC that keeps hyperscaler facilities running traces its origins back to the global Foundry ecosystem. IDC's latest market study throws that reality into sharp relief, projecting that the broadly defined Foundry 2.0 market will surpass $360 billion in 2026, a 17 percent year-over-year gain that would have seemed optimistic even two years ago. For anyone advising boards or investment committees on technology and AI infrastructure strategy, this growth trajectory demands careful consideration. Foundry 2.0 Market Development The umbrella term covers four distinct verticals: pure-play foundry, non-memory integrated device manufacturer (IDM) production, outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT), and photomask fab...