“Dell and Napster said they will provide colleges with a legal online music hardware and software package. The offering combines Napster’s digital music service with Dell’s PowerEdge 1855 servers that will boost network bandwidth at schools. Colleges will be able to use the servers to store music from Napster’s library locally, allowing network processing speed to remain fast while hundreds of students simultaneously download music. Under the deal, Dell will sell Napster subscriptions to additional colleges and universities at a discounted academic rate and also offer special prices on bundles that include Dell’s digital music players,’ Wired News reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Any school that takes Dell and Napster up on this “offer” should also post signs around campus that read, “Mac-using and/or iPod-using students not welcome here.”
Napster does not work with Macintosh or iPod. And nobody except Michael Dell seems to want a clunky, ugly Dell DJ. Doing such a deal would be akin to a U.S. school replacing all of its library’s English books with Chinese versions.
School officials should offer their students a completely cross platform solution. Apple’s iTunes is the only music solution that all students on Macs or Windows PCs can use. Fact time: 80-90% or more of students own and use iPods, not Dell DJs. Do you even know anyone who owns a Dell DJ? And, surely, students would like easy access to thousands of podcasts, right?
Students who do not wish to be excluded from (and potentially still charged a fee for) their school’s legal music system should inform decision makers of Apple’s iTunes on Campus program.
According to Forbes, “The University of Washington is the first school to sign up and will market the service and Dell’s portable players to students. Napster will offer discounted rates on its subscriptions, as will Dell for PCs and players.” Full article here.
Send a comment to The University of Washington here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Napster, other Windows Media-based music services ‘chasing a niche opportunity’ – June 29, 2005
Napster To Go Soon? Reports $24.3 million net loss on $17.4 million net revenue – May 12, 2005
Napster users admit sharing passwords to save on subscription costs – April 08, 2005
Napster is a joke – April 05, 2005
Napster raises fourth-quarter revenue forecast from $16.5 to $17.5 million – April 05, 2005
Colleges offering students music services that aren’t cross-platform, don’t work with iPod – March 22, 2005
Mossberg: Apple’s iTunes Music Store vs. Napster To Go – March 18, 2005
Napster CEO Gorog: Steve Jobs ‘must be pretty frightened’ of Napster To Go – March 14, 2005
Apple’s iTunes Music Store downloads pass 300 million songs milestone (with chart) – March 02, 2005
Napster’s math does not add up – February 28, 2005
Napster’s dirty little secret: changing subscription services into downloads is easy – February 18, 2005
Napster feels the heat over flawed copy-protection scheme – February 17, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs warns record industry of Napster To Go’s security gap – February 16, 2005
Users thwart Napster To Go’s copy protection; do the music labels realize the piracy potential? – February 15, 2005
Napster-To-Go’s ‘rental music’ DRM circumvented – February 14, 2005
Napster CEO Gorog: ‘it’s stupid to buy an iPod’ – February 10, 2005
Report: Napster faces uphill fight to gain share, Apple prepared to run iTunes at a loss – February 10, 2005
Napster’s ‘iPodlessness’ doesn’t bode well for its future – February 10, 2005
$10,000 to fill an iPod? Napster’s going to end up with egg on their face – February 04, 2005
Why ‘Napster To Go’ will flop – February 03, 2005
Napster CEO: We’re ‘the biggest brand in digital music, much more exciting than Apple’s iTunes’ – February 03, 2005
Cornell University’s Mac users ‘uniformly unhappy’ with Napster – January 19, 2005
Cornell University wrestles with Napster’s exclusion of Mac and iPod-using students – September 08, 2004
Why are Cornell’s Mac students being forced to pay for useless Napster? – September 07, 2004
Napster schools to Mac-using students: bend over and take it – September 04, 2004
Apple launches ‘iTunes on Campus’ institutional site license program – April 28, 2004
What is the big deal???
I don’t see people complaining that PS2 games will not work on Xbox.
Or
Xbox Live not working with PS2
“can’t you just just burn the WMA songs to CD and re-rip?
This is the solution presented by iPod fanboys… why can’t the reverse be true?”
You’re the WMP/Napster fanboy, so why don’t you tell us?
They are excluding Mac users with this offer. iPod users will not use the music on their iPods and they will not buy DJ’s but the Windows using iPod users will use the music on their computers. Some 15 to 20% of students, those with Macs or Linux machines, will not be able to use this service. Would there be screaming all over the nation if this 15 to 20% excluded was a visible minority? You betcha.
Totally true. Let’s lock out Mac users and iPod users by using Dulls.
iTunes let’s both PC and Mac users use their service. And it’s the only service to date that will let both platforms use its service. All of the others block Mac users by having to use IE6. Which I wouldn’t want to use anyway because it’s just like inviting the virus makers and spammers into your music library.
You can’t put subscription music on a CD then rerip it into MP3 or AAC. It’s all about subscriptions for the students, not free downloads. Idiots.
“Fact time: 80-90% or more of students own and use iPods, not Dell DJs.”
And where is the link or other reference supporting this “fact”? Or is the MDN Take just true by divine fiat?
Al wrote: “What is the big deal??? I don’t see people complaining that PS2 games will not work on Xbox. Or Xbox Live not working with PS2.”
Al, for your information, the problem with the Napster campus deals is that the universities in question charge EVERY student a semester/quarterly fee to subsidize the service.
To make your analogy correct, it’d be like Sony charging you an extra $5 for buying an Xbox game, which then goes to a PS2 owner as a discount on his or her purchase of a PS2 game. Think there’s anything fair about that?
Jerry T, your 2% figure is a strawman. The marketshare of the Mac is well over 10%.
But regardless, the marketshare of an OS is an entirely different issue than forcing students into a solution that excludes the majority of the student body. Having worked in the higher ed environment for years I can guarantee you that an IT solution that locks out most students will fly with them about as well as a campus Pat Buchannan for president club (no offense to Pat intended).
-B
i’m with beeblebrox, and it’s even higher than 10% on college campuses. i’d say around 20%, but thats just what i see around my campus. nothing scientific, of course, but you’ll piss off more than 2% of students at any campus if a college signs up to do this.
“Schools should not be in the music business. I have always disliked the tax on students in the form of a activity fee.” -brian allen
Best point in the thread.
“Since iTunes is a free download, does it really matter? I mean, any student who doesn’t want to use such a vapid solution as Dell/Napster are providing can just download iTunes.” -iTuner
Second best point in the thread.
These two comments lend to my own twist: [1] With no mention on exactly what the university does get in return (the servers reported to be for Napster bandwidth); [2] the Udub being known as a forward-thinking, somewhat cool mainstream university (at least, on the west coast) and the powers that be there MUST know what is and what is not popular among their students; [3] Redmond being just a few miles away……….
Taking up a building’s real estate, running more cable, more power to use, someone’s gotta maintain it, someone’s gotta support the service for the students, etc.-lots o’ hassle, little promotional value to kids. It would be interesting to see what parties paid how much $ to the school’s coffers.
Sour grapes, iPod fans!
If Apple wants to keep the share, it will have to follow suit and lower prices/offer something equally attractive.
It’s called competition and it’s an integral part of capitalism and it’s a good thing 😎
Evolution et al-
My logic isn’t flawed at all. If you read my post you’ll see that what my logic really deduced is that the schools should provide a solution for “all” users (i.e. iTMS “and” some wma solution), or provide none. Let each person download from whatever store they choose that fits their player and their individual needs. Is anything flawed or unfair about that?
Dell made an attractive offer to the schools; you can’t blame them for trying. If Apple loses out it’s because they didn’t make as good an offer period. Besides, it’s not like you couldn’t still download music just like you always have. It just wouldn’t come from the school server. From what I understand, the student doesn’t save any money either way.
Finally, the rest of my post was simply an observation that a lot of posters here “only” favor choosing the solution that fits the player with the greatest market share. My ramblings were really a question to these people, “would you apply that same market share argument if the schools were discussing computer platforms?” Assuming for the sake of the argument that Macs can’t network with the computers “most” people use.
All of this being said, I am a Mac user with 2 iPod minis (4&6 GB). I love them and wouldn’t use anything else.