“Imagine buying a CD at Best Buy only to discover that it won’t work on the CD player you bought at Circuit City. Absurd as it sounds, this sort of situation is the rule rather than the exception in the world of legally downloaded music. This maze of incompatible standards is a threat to online services such as Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store,” Stephen H. Wildstrom writes for BusinessWeek.
“The situation is both baffling and infuriating. My iPod can play all the MP3s I rip from CDs or pull from KaZaA (if I used it), but when it comes to legal downloads, it works only with the iTunes store. The Roku SoundBridge that connects my stereo to my computer’s stash of digital music can play everything in my iTunes library that I digitized myself — MP3s and the like — but not iTunes Music Store purchases. Similarly, other players handle only music bought from a specific service,” Wildstrom writes.
“Microsoft holds the high cards in this game. Much as I hate to see the colossus of Redmond end up dominating yet another market, I believe that is going to happen, and given the current state of affairs, it may be the best outcome for consumers,” Wildstrom writes. “In the end, what consumers care about is getting the music… they want and having it play without hassles on the device of their choice. Microsoft’s big-tent approach offers a way out of this morass for everyone, except perhaps Apple.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Reality check time: over 90 percent of the players in actual people’s hands today are iPods. The iTunes Music Store works on both Mac and Windows and holds over 70 percent of the online music download market. Songs that aren’t available via iTMS can be purchased on CDs and ripped to your PC or Mac iTunes and then transferred to your iPod. Why would people use the Microsoft WMA “solution” when over 90 percent of them can’t use it on their player of choice, Apple’s iPod?
“The situation is both baffling and infuriating.” Yeah, to Microsoft perhaps, not to consumers. While Wildstrom’s theories might look vaguely plausible on first glance, but they just don’t stand up to the reality that Apple is currently moving over one million iPods into consumers’ hands every 30 days. That’s over 1,000,000 fewer people shackled to Microsoft with every month that rolls by. Microsoft had better hurry up with this domination before they run out of potential customers.
Wildstrom wrote, “In the end, what consumers care about is getting the music… they want and having it play without hassles on the device of their choice.” They already have that, they’ve overwhelmingly chosen iPod and they can get the music they want with the most seamless choices available today – Apple’s iTunes Music Store or a CD ripped to iTunes. If Apple keeps executing as they have with iPod + iTunes, Microsoft has already lost; some people just can’t seem to be able to wrap their minds around that reality, yet. Look at it this way: which cards in this game is Microsoft really holding today? Tens of affiliated digital music players that almost nobody is buying and tens of online stores that sell files that don’t work with the player almost everybody is buying. Doesn’t look like a winning hand to us.
Btw, there were many stories about Apple licensing Fairplay to Macrovision for incorporation in CDs back in August, with Q4 release stated. Well, we’re well into Q4–any updates? You’d think CDs for xmas-time release would already be printing or printed now.
****TIME FOR THE MOST VALID POINT ON MSFT’S ONLINE MUSIC****
Why is Windows so popular? Because they were the first to license their OS.
Why have they not lost marketshare? Because they kept that momentum.
Now apply the following to Apple’s success with iTMS. They are the first major release, largest resource of artists (which in turn could be compared to Windows software supply). Apple has such a huge marketshare that Microsoft will be spending decades to catch up, just as Apple has in the OS wars. But, Microsoft doesn’t have the “umph” to be cool, successful, or competitive without having their foot in the door first; which they didn’t.
My last outburst on the matter. Viva la revolution!
Frankly, if all the online music store offered losslessly compressed or uncompressed music as an option, we wouldn’t have a problem (and better sound qualify for those who listen to music with halfway decent system). If the RIAA wasn’t so absurd with DRM, we’d have more options.
But AAC is a true standard. WMA isn’t. So who really is causing an issue here? The DRM enforcers. Not the format supporters.
Until your article mentioned a problem I didn’t know there was a problem. My children seem to like their iPods and have no problem obtaining music from iTunes. If they can’t get the music from iTunes they obtain it in mp3 format by other means. It seems that the two standards AAC and mp3 are plenty. Anyway I don’t think it really matters too much because like CDs distribution is changing rapidly with the advent of these small devices. I haven’t bought a CD recently and my children don’t use a CD player. CDs are for back-up. I read the article but it is a stretch to say… the problem is ‘incompatibilities’ between some management formats(?) since I understand that most of the legal catalogs are all the same. I am sure differences will ‘self correct’ any discrepancies since the kids will get their music someway.
I don’t know what a Roku SoundBridge is, but my children just plug their iPods directly into their small stereos via the line out cord. I understand that I can broadcast to a stereo with what Apple calls an Airport Express, maybe this is similar to the SoundBridge(?), however, the kids don’t really care since they have their music on their pod already.
If most of the latest music is made available directly to the pod via some other, simpler(?) mechanism rather than a computer I believe the kids will go for it. Direct to ‘pod downloading is the future and an RF ‘pod is only a matter of time with the music distributors adopting some sort of distribution model to provide a direct conduit to the iPod.
For this year, if a few more iPods are sold it’s a moot point concerning the current DRM models… the game is pretty much up for MS and Real.
Here is my e-mail to the author:
“Music purchased from the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) will work on any modern PC or Macintosh that is equipped with the FREE iTunes software Apple provides. Hewlett Packard/Compaq is now distributing all of it’s consumer PCs with iTunes and QuickTime (the media engine behind iTunes) and Media Center PCs with additional software to allow integration of iTunes content and the Windows Media Center functions.
Apple is not the “bad guy” in this story. Micro$oftopoly currently distributes a version of Windows Media Player for Macintosh that does not allow Macintosh users this same functionality. This is not a repeat of the mid-to-late 1980’s when Steve Jobs was not at Apple. Apple will license FairPlay DRM when the time is right and Steve Jobs has not yet seen that time as being right now.
Apple is in the process of building up a market that it largely created (legal music downloading) through a number of efforts.
1- Mac & Windows versions of the iTunes software.
2- The iPod, iPod mini, and HP iPod.
3- Motorola smartphones that will be able to play AAC/FairPlay content.
4-BMW iPod integration
5-Aftermarket Car Stereo Manufacturer iPod integration.
At current, Apple holds greater than a 90% market share (with HP iPod included) of disc based portable music players and almost a 60% market share when flash-memory players are counted. The market has obviously shown a strong preference for the iPod regardless of what Desktop OS the consumer uses. The iPod will drive iTMS sales just as PC sales drive the purchase of Windows PC software.
Microsoft sees this as a roadblock to their plans for their proprietary Janus DRM system. M$ wants to attach Janus DRM to all forms of media and sit back and get rich off of the royalties. The success of FairPlay DRM puts a huge dent into their plans for future profit. The issue is DRM- not music. The current battlefield is music, but the War is over DRM. FairPlay is available to all Mac OS X & Windows 2000/XP users while Janus is Micoro$oftopoly only. The problem is a familiar one: Micro$oft trying to leverage it’s near monopoly in Desktop OS’s to kill off a competitor in the marketplace. Open your eyes.”
“over 90 percent of the players in actual people’s hands today are iPods”
Refresh my memory: Is that 90% of Hard Drive players or 90% of ALL players? Becuase there’s a BIG difference…
I guess with this type of logic, one should be able to buy everything that is available at any store. Perhaps WalMart should be selling Porsches and Filet Mignon!
Someone tell me how Microsoft can be the best choice for consumers????
Since when has Microsoft been PRO consumer when their totally iresponsible bullshit CEO says in a press statement that “All Ipod owners are thieves”.
At the end of the day if a company gives consumers what they want, at a price they can afford then consumers will buy it!
Just so happens Apple is the ONLY IT/software company in business today that understands this very basic rule of business.
If Microsoft wasn’t so busy concentrating on theying to block innovation, rip-off it’s customers and totally screw up the worlds reliance on computers maybe they would learn this rule!!
…MAYBE NOT!
Whatever happens im with APPLE all the way – I have been a windows user for many years and I have no intention of going back to that crap AND my kids are going to learn and be educated on Macs!!
iPod owns 65% of all music players market. And over 90% of the high capacity music player market. iTMS owns 70% of the legal download music market.
Currently, owners of the low capacity (aka low cost or flash-based) music players can only buy from iTMS’s competitors.
Even though Apple is the market leader in both the music players and legal download markets now but I am not certain about the future. Usually, the matured market is a commodity market where price is main determinant.
So, Apple has to be on the vigilance and better have a good answer to deal with the possible ultimate outcome as described by the author.
The write has a point. I cannot play AAC files through my TiVo with the Home Media option. This works fine with MP3 files. I can play my entire library through my stereo or any of my playlists. However, AAC files are absent. It would be nice if Apple would work with some of these third parties to give consumers more solutions for playing the music they by from iTMS.
iTunes, it’s even easy on Windows
—
hmm.. Apple’s new Slogan?
At this point it’s unlikely competing music services can even get exclusives like the iTunes service can (as it has with U2) since what artist is going to want to align themselves with a minucule market share online music service & WMA format that isn’t playable on the world’s most popular player?
iTunes is the only service with that kind of clout unless Microsoft starts spending some ridiculous amount of cash bribing artists over. Not likely though. Personally I think the online music/player war is over.
Apple needs to either make a Home Media Center or license Fairplay to makers of TIVO and Soundbridge to keep its momentum going.
I for one would like TIVO capabilities from Apple product.
Once again, compatibility appears to be only ‘compatible with Micro$oft.
Another thing to consider is this.
People don’t need to turn over a iPod every few years like they do a computer.
So everyone who buys a iPod is going to keep the iPod for a long time.
Third party manufactors realize this and that’s why they have picked the iPod for all their add-ons. Car stereo adapters, etc.
People like this don’t make business decisions unless they see a clear winner, and the iPod is it.
Apple put this show together and they intend to own it.
What will most likely happen is Microsoft will bundle a M$ Music Store with each copy of ‘doze and sell it’s format that way to newbies.
At least Apple has HP bundling iTunes with new PC’s, that’s good.
This chess match was well planned out by Apple.
Online music sales pale in comparison to illegal file sharing.
Apple has appealed to the mass illegal file sharers as well by not inflicting them with restrictive encoding schemes like M$ has with mandatory WMA and Sony has by not even supporting MP3.
Steve Ballmer: “We are going to make our DRM even harder and harder to crack” “Most iPod music is stolen”
Just what we Mac users wanted to hear, thanks Monkeyboy!
Sure 90% of music is stolen, doesn’t mean Apple is going to deny them use of their iPods or iTunes because of their choice.
Apple just want’s to sell a container, what people put into it is their choice, not Sony’s or Microsoft’s.
Apple rules!
Sooner or laer Apple will start to licence Fairplay and open up their system, otherwise a head of steam will inevitably build behind the WMA mob.
Apples strategy has always been to out innovate the competition and offer a better product – the iTunes/iPod combo will still be the best if they licence and will ensure they can never be isolated in the future like the Mac has in the past.
p.s. Just look at Real, their Harmony software is iPod compatible but they still have a shite percentage of the market – Apple have nothing to fear from opening up a tiny bit.
“Once again, compatibility appears to be only ‘compatible with Micro$oft.”
No, compatibility is compatibility. The difference is, if you want to be compatible with Microsoft you call Microsoft and Microsoft says, “Okay, here, and pay me X to be compatible.”
On the other hand, if you want to be compatible with Apple, you call Apple, and Apple says, “Eat me. Go pound sand.”
Imagine if this story said “GE lightbulbs won’t fit in my Ford – and it’s all Ford’s fault” they would be laughed out of the house. Just because M$ is the biggest in PCs doesn’t mean QED they have to be the biggest in e-music. It’s a whole new ballgame; Apple has the ball and is running with it. I think we should go on the attack: we should start bombarding all the services with (polite) complaints that we just got a lovely new iPod and it won’t work with their service, and what are THEY going to do about it?! Once they see that a huge phalanx of iPod owners are spending money elsewhere they’ll run to Apple begging to license Fairplay. Oh, and let’s all buy a Dell “Digital Jukebox” and then return it because it won’t work with iTMS!!
Stevie Wildstrom does not write good and leaves the topic he is writing on seem far and sketchy. To be a good journalist you need to have a way to grab people and keep the topic interesting. I believe Steve might someday be able to write good, anything is possible. But so far that is not true.
Stevie Wildstrom has bad insights like he writes in an egg in a chicken coop. His insights don’t come from general fact, instead from hormonal conditions in his body. Sometimes he’s feeling happy, then he’s crying and hitting things and running into walls. Oh child! It’s awful.
Someday he might deal well with the fact/fiction stuff and bolster journalism’s flailing integrity. But so far that is not true.
The author writes: “Much as I hate to see the colossus of Redmond end up dominating yet another market, I believe that is going to happen.”
However he doesn’t say why. Yet another fatalist who believes MS will inevitable dominate any market it enters.
This time, thankfully, he’s wrong, due to Apple’s superb hardware-software integration and cross-platform availability.
I might add that iTunes is growing in popularity independent of the iPod. There have been nearly 100 million copies downloaded.
Just because something is popular and dominating the market does not justify that it is a quality product.
Just look at Windows right now.
Wildstrom is overwhelmed with crappy products he has to review for a living. It’s no wonder he gets confused and irritated. Consumers should care about their suppliers lest they be screwed in the future. Apple is not perfect; but it’s more consumer oriented than Microsoft, who put themselves first and second, enterprise third, and consumers last.
Janus and Longhorn will control your life … no thanks. The day I cannot deselect certain self-serving features of iTunes or any software / hardware product is the day I’ll opt for alternatives. And that goes for Business Magazines.
Just because something is popular and dominating the market does not justify that it is a quality product.
Just look at Windows right now.
—
hehe.. except that in the CE market certain things are valued in terms of quality and usability..
Windows is dominant for very boring reasons like compatibility and 3rd party software…Bill Gates doesn’t think Windows is a pleasure to use.. but he understands why businesses aren’t moving to the Mac. And businesses are exactly why Apple ‘appears’ to have a terrible marketshare.
People, please, stop your blind Apple defending for just one second.
As much as you may like the iTMS music distribution model, there is a problem: songs from iTMS only play on iPods or iTunes. I can’t choose to use another player (say a Rio or Audion or TiVo or Soundbridge). That sucks. (Well, I could burn to a CD then re-import back as an mp3. So there’s ways around it, but it’s a huge hassle.)
Also, I can’t choose to buy music from another store and play it on my iPod or iTunes.
Someone earlier made the comparison of two stores next to each other. It was a lame comparison. What if there were two music stores next to each other, and each had a slightly different catalog. They charged different prices, some higher, some lower. They each offered unique and entertaining shopping experiences. (Maybe one has couches and coffee and free chocolates, and one is all soft and fluffy and you shop in bare feet and get massages while you browse.) If they were CD stores I could shop at both, or just the one I prefered, and regardless of which store I shopped at, my CD would play on my Sony or Philips or Denon or Panasonic CD player.
With the Apple model, it doesn’t matter if a really great store opens up, I can’t shop there. And I can’t play my music on anything but my Apple player. And that’s lame.
No matter how much YOU love your locked-in situation, that doesn’t mean it’s the best situation. Yes, the Apple store is great. That doesn’t mean other stores can’t also be great, and different, and enticing. Yes, iTunes is great. But I can list plenty of things I wish it did, and my SlimDevices Squeezebox won’t play iTMS-purchased songs.
If DRM is going to be a necessary part of life, then it needs to be standardized and ubiquitous. Apple is in a strong position to license their DRM. I really hope they do it.