This, in turn, increases fuel economy by more than 25 per cent.Yesterday, Torotrak reported a pre-tax loss for the year to March of £8.2m, from an £8.5m loss a year earlier. With no sales yet, the most important gauge of Torotrak's staying power is its remaining £22.8 in cash enough for three more years. After hitting 602 last autumn, Torotrak crashed to 112.5p when Toyota pulled out of licensing the UK group's technology. Yesterday the stock hopped 21p to 163.5p on news that new versions of the gearbox are to be delivered to Ford and GM.With Torotrak now valued at nearly £190m, investors should await substantial further progress in the commercial take-up of IVT before buying the shares.. The battle lines are gradually being drawn in the online music market as the major record companies try to resume control of a business they regard as naturally theirs.
The battle lines are gradually being drawn in the online music market as the major record companies try to resume control of a business they regard as naturally theirs. The latest deal, announced at the weekend, has seen Vivendi Universal, the world's second largest media group, pay $372m (£258m) for MP3 , the American online music site which has been one of the scourges of the established music industry.The takeover gives Vivendi's music subsidiary, Universal, one of the best-known brand names in the business. It also gives it a site offering nearly 1 million songs from 151,000 artists with content drawn from all five of the major record companies.Ironically, Universal had been the only major record company that refused to settle with MP3 over copyright infringement. Only 10 days ago, MP3 was hit by a fresh $40.5m writ from a group of American songwriters, including Randy Newman and Tom Waits, who are claiming MP3 gave users illegal access to their songs.Internet purists will mourn a deal that means MP3 has suffered the same fate as Napster, the online music file-swapping phenomenon that rattled the whole industry before it was hit by an avalanche of writs.Napster caved in in February when it agreed to pay $1bn to the major record labels and start charging for its music instead of giving it away. The business had already been brought into the corporate fold by Bertelsmann, the German music giant which had taken a stake in the young upstart.Now MP3 has sold out completely, a far cry from the original plans of its founder, Michael Robertson, to champion young, unsigned acts and independent labels.Universal Music, whose artists include Eminem, Texas and Sting, is likely to use MP3's technology to power its online music alliance signed with Sony earlier this year. Called Duet, the venture is expected to be launched later this summer.The move on MP3 by Vivendi Universal's chairman, Jean-Marie Messier, puts his company in head-to-head combat with another major grouping seeking to dominate online music. AOL-Time Warner, EMI, Bertelsmann and Real Time Networks have already teamed up to form MusicNet.
MusicNet is intended as a kind of music wholesaler, which will supply content for distribution among participating online partners.The flurry of deals and alliances is a sign of the music majors' new approach to online music: after trying to crush it, they are now trying to colonise it. Rebecca Ulph, media analyst at Forrester Research, the internet specialist, says: "They are beginning to realise that they cannot control digital downloads of music Consumers don't want to deal with Vivendi or Sony. They want to deal with AOL or Yahoo!."EMI, which reports results today, has admitted this. Speaking after the collapse of its music merger with Bertelsmann earlier this month EMI's chairman, Eric Nicoli, said EMI had no plans to develop its own platform for the delivery of online music.However, Adrian Turner, managing director of Avantnoise, a music site specialising in independent artists, believes the music majors are trying to get as much influence as they can over a market that a year ago, looked to have slipped out of their control completely. He says: "What we are seeing with deals like MP3 , is a duplication of the oligopoly which already exists in the industry. It is part of its 'engulf and devour' approach."Analysts say the music majors would have a greater chance of success if they could all work together but individual companies keep breaking ranks First it was Bertelsmann, which struck a deal with Napster.
