As well as being EA's chief executive, Mr Riccitiello also chairs the US's Entertainment Software Rating Board - which decides what age guidance and warnings should go on games packaging - and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) lobby body.

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Industries from transportation to product packaging to retail analytics software would feel the impact immediately.

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Apple also showed photos and images that pointed out similarities in the two companies' packaging and icons for software applications such as music, phone, texting, and contacts.

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They are working toward goal of 100% electronic distribution of software with no packaging or shipping of products.

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The Redmond crew demands a paper contract signature (remember those?), agreements on work beyond the relevant software and a packaging process that complicates attempts to use open-source tools.

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This time they self- financed and set out the simpler task of refining and packaging the model for sale as software.

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Take, for example, the semiconductor market: Here you have a market that has created employment sectors on its own merit, but has also created support markets in software, fabrication equipment, assembly, packaging, test and chemicals, etc.

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The collaboration, which began in 2006 and resulted in two premium mobile phones being introduced in 2007 and 2008, focuses on key elements within the smartphone, including software and user interface down to its design and packaging.

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