Remember when Sega ruled in the computer games industry? Such is the dominance now of the Sony PlayStation that there is an assumption it was always that way. Sony's success is proof that the baton can change hands.

That will be Microsoft's hope after yesterday's launch of the much anticipated Xbox console to an eager US public. Hundreds queued in New York's Times Square to buy the $299 console and get it signed by Bill Gates.

It is not all about technical superiority. The Nintendo 64 was in some respects further advanced than the PlayStation but failed to catch on in any numbers. Sega's Dreamcast was even more of a disaster. The console, which gave players access to the internet and the ability to play people online on the other side of the world, has ended up in the bargain buckets at Woolies.

When you are aiming at teenagers the key is to have the marketing nous and spend to make the product cool and to produce the right range of games. Microsoft certainly doesn't lack the marketing bucks. The console has also been designed with aesthetics in mind and Microsoft knows a thing or two about tying up exclusive deals, which should help it with games suppliers.

Sony has sold enough PlayStation 2s to seem unassailable. The company was smart enough to get the upgraded console out and into enough homes before the Microsoft launch. But that doesn't mean Xbox will not put it under real pressure.

The one certainty seems to be that the games market is back on an upswing after a couple of years in the doldrums. Nintendo's latest assault, the GameCube, is set for US launch on Sunday. That spells nothing but good news for the likes of our very own Lara Croft maker, Eidos. If previous cycles are anything to go by, the industry is looking at four to five years of strong growth.

Cable switch

After years of giving the impression that the only thing it knew how to grow was debt, Telewest finally appears to be picking up momentum.

Britain's second biggest cable operator has been preaching the mantra of "Triple Play" for longer than many of its investors probably care to remember, but yesterday's quarterly figures showed that there may something in the hype after all.

Telewest appears at last to have found a way to communicate to customers the benefits of buying telephone, high-speed internet and television from a single supplier. An impressive 68% of Telewest customers now take two or more of the three services. The average monthly spend of those taking the whole package is a healthy £75.

Its new high-speed, always-on internet service has exceeded analyst expectations, attracting 70,000 customers and driving demand for other services.

Operationally the company is performing much better and marketing has improved immeasurably. Losses have fallen for the third successive quarter and management insists Telewest is fully funded to break even. Competitive pressure is abating, with BSkyB's decision to raise prices giving Telewest leeway to do the same. The migration of analogue customers to digital is progressing well.

Yet Telewest's management cannot afford to let momentum stall. That £5bn debt pile leaves little room for manoeuvre. Maintaining subscriber growth rates in a difficult economic environment will not be easy.

Customer service still needs to be improved. Chief executive Adam Singer says he is "customer obsessed" but by the end of the installation process many customers simply end up depressed.

Resolve that one and the Triple Players could really start to fly.

Harsh truth

If anything remained of Allen Yurko's reputation after his reign at Invensys - 23,000 job losses, a handful of profit warnings and a scorching of the share price - then the smouldering remains were firmly stamped on yesterday.

Rick Haythornthwaite did not spare his predecessor's blushes as he ran through an inventory of failure at what was a successful controls system manufacturer called Siebe before its fatal merger with the conglomerate BTR.

It seems that the problems included "production and project blackspots", "excessive restructuring," a "lack of customer focus," an "overly complex structure", "execution weakness in project management", and "failure to tackle underlying issues", to name but a few.

With this catalogue of disaster came big interim losses and a slashing of the dividend, yet the share price jumped almost 40% yesterday as investors concluded they were at last getting the real story.

However, we are still waiting for Mr Haythornthwaite's blueprint for success.