Posted by FatKat on 06/07/06 21:39

ZnU wrote:
> In article <s4Yeg.15439$Zc7.204783@wagner.videotron.net>,
> NRen2k5 <nomore@email.com> wrote:
>
> > ZnU wrote:
> > > In article <ZDJeg.11364$Zc7.133870@wagner.videotron.net>,
> > > NRen2k5 <nomore@email.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Jim wrote:
> > >>> NRen2k5 <nomore@email.com> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>>> Help me out here... Why should Apple pay a royalty to Microsoft
> > >>>>> for their DRM system, when they already have one that does what
> > >>>>> it's supposed to do?
> > >>>> Because their CEO is a madman.
> > >>> Define 'madman'.
> > >> Unwilling to follow conventions or accept reality.
> > >
> > > Reality is that Apple dominates the market and their grip shows no
> > > signs of slipping.
> >
> > Reality is that their hold on the market, and the way in which
> > they're keeping it, is unfair to competition - both in the MP3 player
> > market and in the online music market.
> >
> > > Given this, why should Apple deliberately help Microsoft, of all
> > > companies, get a foothold?
> >
> > It isn't about helping Microsoft. It's about helping the little guy.
>
> The iPod is a success because it's an amazing little piece of hardware,
> combined with amazing desktop software. There is no artificial barrier
> at all preventing any other company from developing a superior
> hardware/software combo and beating the iPod on the merits.

The merits being what, outside of the most generic of hyperbole? Not
that I don't believe it possible for the iPod to truly be on top, I may
even get one one of these days. I just have a problem with a machine
that seems to lose capacity with each successive generation without a
consequent price drop; that can't have its batteries replaced easily,
seems so fragile that it's spawned an entire industry devoted to
accessories that should have been built onto it (scratch-proof screen,
rubber skins - it's like that joke about why they don't make airplanes
out of the same stuff that those flight recorders are made out of), and
seems pricey when compared to CD/MP3. Not to say that CD/MP3 measures
up to iPod in terms of being able to hear what you want when you want
it, or labeling - but the price differential makes no sense to me, not
to mention the fear of it being even if I sneeze at it, let alone
accidentally drop it while jogging.

So where are these merits? It seems that every generation seems
destined to latch onto at least one kind of product or service simply
because of a cachet that exists solely in the minds of those who market
them, and those who believe that other group. Before the iPod, it was
"AOL" - because just going on the internet was too hard, and you needed
AOL to surf the web for you. Now we have the iPod, and people who buy
them do so because they just have to have the newest one. There's an
entire market of barely used iPods sold by people who need to be able
to get the very next one, simply because of bald statements that it's
the best.
>
> Of course, what some other companies would like to do is get into
> Apple's existing value networks;

WTF!?!? What value networks? What are you talking about?

> to have their own music sales services benefit from the iPod, or their own devices
> benefit from iTunes, so they
> don't have to start from scratch and build an entire integrated solution
> themselves.

They could just sell CDS/MP3 players that require no software solutions
at all, and can do so without haviong to start with anything. Of
course, they wouldn't be able to use iTunes, but so what? The same
consumers who compulsively bought every new iPod are probably the same
consumers who are getting their music from apparently legal/likely
illegal download services that operate in countries with
looser-to-nonexistent copyright laws. At a dime a song or a dollar an
album, these services are going to be the death of iTunes.

> But Apple doesn't want the market to work what way, because
> Apple is *good* at integrated solutions.

Over-priced object integrated with gullible consumers - it's the
perfect solution...for Apple. If you want to be more convincing, why
not actually compare solutions that are good for the people who pay for
them.
>
> I really don't see anything wrong with this.

Says more about you than iPod.

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