Apple iTunes Music Store has claimed its first victim.
“Online music distributor Ecast Inc. has closed its downloadable music operations, saying it couldn’t afford to spend the marketing dollars needed to compete with Apple Computer Inc. and other suppliers of songs online,” Jon Healey reports for The Los Angeles Times.
Healey reports, “The move comes two months after Apple launched its much-ballyhooed iTunes Music Store, whose success has spurred Amazon.com Inc., Yahoo Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other major players to explore competing offerings.”
Full article here.
Ecast was a privately-owned, relatively small company which wasn’t doing very well anyway; their demise was inevitable. But the iTunes Music Store certainly accelerated the process so I suppose we can score a small victory for Apple. I wonder who will be ahead of this interesting game come next year this time?
Everyone who’s heard of Ecast raise their hands.
This announcement is like saying Apple Computer put “Bob’s Computer” out of business; Bob’s Computer being a mom and pop operation in Arkansas. “We just couldn’t compete,” Bob admitted.
Only problem is…this article was meant to make Apple look bad by putting out of business ‘another’ well-meaning company. I agree though…who is Ecast? It ticks me off a bit when these ‘companies’ who are barely holding on, or swimming in red ink decided to call it quits when Apple starts a product similar to theirs. Besides, didn’t Roxio and many other wanna-be online music store owners say “they [Apple] has 2% of the market, we’ll be happy to take the other 98%”. Seems to me, Ecast just found their scapegoat.
Yeah seriously, Apple could buy Roxio and the rest of the online music stores –with cash! Are they doing that? no. Nice Apple
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iTMS is still just a rock on the landscape. Its level of sophistication and licenses must have intimidated Ecast as to the work required to make some impact in the field.
Actually, the article says they’re not going out of business, they are just not going to waste more money in the donwloadable music business. Instead they are going to go rocketing to bankruptcy by trying to compete with Musak by suppying “restaurants, bars and other gathering places with jukeboxes stocked with music and other digital media from the Internet.”
Looks like they haven’t learned their lesson.
Accelerated their demise? Apple can only sell to Apple computer users. Surely this other music company could sell to windows based computers? Blame Microsoft and not Apple.
Didn’t Apple buy Roxio a couple of weeks ago…