lmgr's Profile

I don't know what Apple's long term intentions are, obviously this is an evolving market. Unlike Sony and the Walkman which used cassettes that were an open standard, ipod is very proprietary so I don't think Apple has the same worry of quick loss of market share (even with the use of compatible formats, Sony was able to charge a premium for Walkman and Discman products that made those brands more profitable than their generic equivalents-- something Apple is definitely able to do with iPod, I know we all talk about technology, but the concept of Brand is still a big deal and Apple has created a premium brand of portable digital music player). I wouldn't count Microsoft out of the running, there are favorable reviews of the interface for XBox360, even reviews that call it "Apple-like". The assumption that Microsoft wants Windows to be the brand for home PCs seems questionable to me-- why not let the competition, Dell, HP, etc. develop all their media options around Windows XP MediaCenter, then pull the rug out from under them with a well integrated suite of software and hardware to manage multimedia content based around XBox? Certainly there will come a time when iPod is dethroned or market share gets divided up more along a Coke/Pepsi type of share. The important things are: 1. Apple has saved the company, when the iPod first appeared the future of Apple was still in doubt. 2. Apple has created a premium brand of music player that looks likely to hold off the competition for years. 3. Even if people are not buying from iTMS, they are busy converting their CDs for iTunes and iPod-- this may not involve more money, but it is a commitment of time and effort... I certainly cannot enivision starting afresh and converting all my music again-- It would be several months before I had all my music on a different player. 4. Thus far Apple's video experiment is winning-- the folks at Google have made key mis-steps with their "open market" for video, they have failed to understand that the "open market" could impair the Google brand as a whole if people don't like paying high prices for low quality video submitted by third parties (Indeed, Google's decision to become a consumer brand may be their first big mistake-- once people are paying money for a service, they expect more). No brand is predominant forever, but it appears likely that iPod will have a reign of dominance of at least ten years and many years after that when it can command a premium price... That is an amazing thing that anybody in business would be proud of. [I don't discount the importance of the iPod's used interface... I can imagine trying to navigate a 5,000 song music collection with the interface from my cable box-- it would be ten minutes just to scroll through the artist list! The iPod scroll wheel is simple, intuitive, clean, and fast and thus far nobody has come up with anything nearly as straightforward and functional].