“Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker, will begin selling portable music players for as much as 80 percent less than Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod,” The Denver Post reports. “The Microsoft-branded devices will ‘look and feel’ as good as the iPod for as little as $50, said Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of MSN at Microsoft Corp., at the Goldman Sachs fifth annual Internet Conference in Las Vegas. The iPod sells for $249 to $499.”
“Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., will release a number of music players when it launches its online music service later this year, giving customers more choices than Apple, Mehdi said,” The Denver Post reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This from Microsoft, a company that thought Windows 95 had “caught up to the Mac” and currently thinks Windows XP “looks and feels” as good as Mac OS X. Microsoft, a company that’s working on Longhorn, trying to debut it in 2007, that’ll attempt to “be as good as or close enough” to Apple’s Mac OS X that debuted six years earlier in 2001. Thanks for the good laugh, Yusuf! FYI: We’re happy to have the most choices in online legit music, with iTunes Music Store’s 700,000+ online tracks available and growing, that work perfectly with the market-dominating, best-in-class devices, Apple’s iPod and iPod mini. Microsoft is going to offer more choices (as long as it’s Microsoft) how exactly?
When has one company copied so much so poorly and gotten so many suckers to pay them so handsomely for the privilege of suffering with second and third-rate knock-off products?
Related MacDailyNews article:
Mac users should not buy Microsoft software – May 16, 2003
“2) With the X-Box, M$ has shown that they are willing to lose money to buy market share. Microsoft still loses money on every X-Box console they sell.”
Well, that’s true for EVERY console. Sony, Nintendo, whoever, they sell consoles at a loss and profit off of licensing and game sales.
If M$ does take this route of selling the player at a loss to profit at it’s music site, it would definitely have to use it’s control over it OS to effectively force it’s victims to buy from it’s service. Like they did with Explorer. That’d the only way it would make any money.
If their plan works, it really might give Apple a run for it’s money. I hope that it not the case.
yeah they’re taking the desktop wars to the mp3 players… but this time, it’s apple who’s way in the lead and microsoft is the underdog…. but like the desktop situation, apple has the better product…..
i don’t think microsoft has the same clout in the music device market as it has in the software market. people want their music and their music players to be cool….. m$ is not cool at all.
“hey, i got a microsoft TV/DVD player”, nah
hell, people will probably eat up an Apple TV….
Microsoft sucks at hardware…. stick to OS and office…. save face, Bill
NoPCZone, just because m$ has huge amounts of cash, doesn’t mean they are gonna use it to subsidise a market which is worth next to nothing, anyway they need to save the money for when longhorn comes out, everyone knows its gonna have shit sales.
the reason microsoft sells x-boxes at a loss is so they can make money from selling the games, which make large profits. You get next to no profit selling music online until you start selling it in large numbers, and nobody is gonna use m$ music store because it doesn’t work with the ipod.
Hmmmm….
Maybe for $50 the device will hold, say, one song?
1. Reverse engineer ipod, steal proprietary technology if necessary.
2. Lose $249.00 minimum per device to gain market share
3. Make it compatible with all current music formats so even ipod owners can switch over.
4. After selling 10 million devices raise prices to current levels.
5. Stretch out Apple’s lawsuit until 10 million devices are sold.
6. Cave in to Apple and settle lawsuit cause we don’t care we have billions to spend.
7. The Apple ipod is dead.
Well, if M$ are gonna sell in Europe and not ignore us like Apple then I say good. A bit of price competition wouldnt do any harm either.
It is of interest that M$ just lowered it’s benefits for employees. That must be where they are going to get the money to sell the product for a lot less than it costs to produce.
The truth is now coming out……..marketshare is more important to than customer satisfaction or employee moral.
A real deal with the Devil.
Ok, M$ you’ve got a deal, I’ll take you up on your big bold claim. Show me your digital music player with 4GB of capacity that’s just as good as the iPod mini and sell it for $50 and I’ll buy it.
Or better yet, show me your digital music player with 40GB of capacity that’s just as good as the 40GB iPod and sell it for $100 and I’ll buy it. Ok M$, I’m waiting………..
Maybe it will be bundled with a subscription service and fixed minimum subscription period, in which case, saying it will be 80% cheaper is deceitful. Anyway, I don’t believe in a free lunch, especially if Microsoft is offering it.
They could include an OS manual in it somehow, then bundle it with the OS package included in every PC. Have it convert all mp3s into WMAs, degrade AACs during conversion. Add some innovation: instead of scrolling the track title, have a little wizard voice over the track. Give the wizard some artificial intelligence (genre recognition): “Feeling a bit moody today, huh? Want to talk it over?” And then the hard sell: “Would you like to sign up for the extended service?”
Remember Netscape?
The iPod is next…
MS bundles MP3 player with the Longhorn OS (for FREE). This is why Microsoft is a wonderful monopoly, they bring more features for less money to the average computer user. Apple charges $49.00 for a dv-editor, MS includes one with XP. QuickTime doesn’t play full screen WMP does!
Why would anyone think of buying an overpriced Apple product with less features, the new MS MP3 player is going to have a color screen and play movies all for around $100.00 now thats cool.
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microsoft can’t make an easier to use interface than the ipod… no way…
microsoft can’t make a sleekier design. we’ve all seen the xbox…. yuck
microsoft can’t beat itunes with WMP in ease of use (but they’ll beat it in installed base)
ITMS is way to cool to be beat
Apple right now is like the lakers…. they’ll only lose if they let themselves lose…
This is great news. Now Dell and Sony and all those other people that make mp3 players will be shaken out of the market.
I just hope apple has learned from past dealings with MS
they should be afraid…with good reason
This for those poor souls (pun intended) who bought COBY cd players instead of SONY cd players.
Sputnik, yeah and for that $100 MSFT will give you a freaking BRICK to carry around. Did you SEE the pictures of their “video iPod killer?”
Sputnik-iLife is included with all current Apple computers, so they get DV editing as well as music editing, photo management and dvd creation.
True, QT doesnt play full, but for $30 QT pro does, and much better than WMP does.
Sputnik, Apple does not charge $49 for a DV editor. It charges $49 for a package including a great consumer DV editor, a great consumer photo app, a great consumer music app that connects to the best online music store, a great DVD creation app, and an awesome consumer music studio program.
Show me the “more features” you talk about.
I haven’t figured Sputnik out yet – is he for real or is he really a Mac fan that is here just to get people riled? I have not seen him post anything that a real MS fan would post in defense of that platform. I think he’s a shill.
the sad part is… people will believe them and they will control this industry in a few years too.
Who is this Sputtternik dude? Talking FUD about vaporware!
MS MP3 player doesn’t exist
Longhorn OS doesn’t exist (one really doesn’t want to count the flaky pre-alpha builds! Who knows when it will ship!) and when it does it probably should be free as it will be a POS!
Serious DV-editing folk are more likely to use FCP (or even iMovie) rather than the Windoze rip-off! Quicktime is full screen capable as are a number of freeware utilities (based on using the Quicktime libraries) and the quality of playback far exceeds W(i)MP!
I guess the reason Sputterniks opinions are out of this world are
self evident! Really off the planet! 😎
Wow, yet another “iPod killer”.
Well of course they will sell an iPod killer for $50. After all They have been practically giving away Microsoft Office to the windows users for years. Right! I wonder if all the parts suppliers know that Microsoft plans on buying 4-20 gig HD’s at the $3.oo price level.
This release by Microsoft is their typical marketing method. They promise the moon in future software and devices with hopes of slowing any movement away from their products.
The article says they will sell a range of players with pricing “as much as” 80% less than that of an iPod. I think they plan to have an entry model based on compact flash cards and at the high end will be pricier, disk based players.
It will look and feel like an iPod. have they said anything about putting in any electronics ?
So how are Microsoft gonna make any money from the sale of these ‘ipods’?
If they are using the same internal drives etc as the ipod then they will be selling these devices as a loss!
Maybe thats their strategy – sell the crap at a loss just to get the market and then treble the price!
And of course – it wont be compatible with Macs or Itunes!
I ripped a hole in my Bill Gates blow-up doll. 🙁