“The iPod is doomed. Not this month, not this year, and maybe not the next. But soon enough, Apple will lose its hold on the marketplace for both digital-audio players and digital songs. It’s inevitable,” John J. Sviokla writes for Fast Company.
“Already the iPod’s features are being copied by Samsung, Dell, iRiver, Sony, and others. Competitors are adding tuners, cameras, gaming, and more to devices. They’re rolling out a host of new music services. Meanwhile, the iPod has not changed much since its debut four years ago — and Apple’s latest iteration, the iPod shuffle, has met with limited success. The competitors will win. Why? Because they have created an economic ecosystem that powers innovation. Apple hasn’t,” Sviokla writes.
“Apple should be opening up the iPod and licensing iTunes to others so they can build out the ecosystem. If it doesn’t, the iPod will lose, just as the brilliant Macintosh computer ceded market leadership years ago to IBM’s dowdier — but more accessible — personal computer. The iPod and iTunes, like any closed system, can give Apple outsized profits — but only for a time. Ultimately, no one company can out-innovate the market,” Sviokla writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Supposing that the market will remain stagant for 20 years is foolish. Apple’s iPod will change and evolve; it isn’t a Sony Walkman cassette player that stays virtually the same for 20 years. And the iPod isn’t the Mac, so stop trying to compare them. Also, please explain how the Apple iPod by HP (with 8% of the market, making it the number 2 digital media player) and the upcoming Motorola iTunes phone line constitute a closed system?
The Macintosh platform required and still requires huge investments by developers to create compatible software. So, when faced with budgetary contraints, they chose and still sometimes choose to go with the most popular platforms. The iPod simply plays music that can be encoded, for very little cost, in any format the “developers” (musicians and labels) desire: AAC, MP3, WMA, etc. The music doesn’t need to be rewritten, recorded, and remastered. It’s like writing Photoshop once and then pressing a button to translate it for use on Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. To draw an analogy between Mac OS licensing and the iPod/iTunes symbiotic relationship simply highlights the writer’s ignorance of the vast differences between the two business situations.
[UPDATE, 10:55pm: And, as “CDN guy” brings up below, what about the iPod economy of third-party accessory and peripheral makers? See related article below.]
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Report: Apple may be meeting goal of selling 1 million iPod shuffles per month – July 15, 2005
Apple’s iPod shuffle takes nearly 60 percent of US flash-player market in March – May 04, 2005
The iPod is not the Mac, so stop trying to compare them – August 13, 2004
Apple iPod owners spend millions on accessories, keep ‘iPod economy’ churning – March 04, 2005
When you put the words “may” or “possible” in ANY sentence it is by definition ALWAYS true.
This is another example of the “dumbing” down of the media in general.
eg:
“It is believed that a group of terrorists may have been planning a possible terrorist attack…”
YEP – 100% true.
It is POSSIBLE we will all be dead tomorrow… You cannot deny that this is a truth, however unlikely.
So here we have Mr Sviokla making the INCREADIBLE prediction that on an OPEN ended time scale Apple will EVENTUALLY lose dominance in the digital music game – WOW!!! I am 100% sure he is absolutely correct!
WATCH THE NEWS TONIGHT and listen out for how many times the words “may” and “possible” are used. In doing this news agencies no longer have to check for accuracy, or validate their information!!!!
I remember the first time someone pointed this out to me, and I watched the news that night, 1st up was a story “The New South Wales (state) government have said that terrorists may have been planning to attack various landmarks in Sydney”. This is worrying stuff, but when you look at the language it is simply speculation. Remove the word “may” and you get “The New South Wales (state) government have said that terrorists have been planning to attack various landmarks in Sydney” – notice how this “news” would require a MUCH higher burden of PROOF.
This is a CLASSIC strategy in propaganda, broadcast “news” with a whole heap of “may” and “possible” in the content. It is also the way fortune tellers “read” your future… “I see a possible encounter with a tall dark….” “you may travel to…”
The print media is generally better, but even they are getting hooked on the absolute truth that lies in “may” and “possible”.
The problem is the AVERAGE Joe and Jane don’t have enough knowledge of the language to discern this subtle difference, and so they take the information as fact, rather than the SPECULATION (and headline sensationalism) that it is.
I don’t think you should IGNORE the news, just be very cautious to believe anything as FACT, when the magical words of “may” and “possible” are included in the “reporting”.
my 2 cents,
Luke
PS I don’t usually do this, but the magic word is “stop”, as in STOP, listen and assess the language used to reprot “facts”.
>Chris wrote: (insults snipped) What part about – buy a song from iTunes, rip onto a CD, re-rip into any format with no DRM (as many times as you please)- DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND??
Read your license agreement. Think about it for more than a split-second so that maybe you can gain a better understanding of things beyond the ultra-simplistic view you hold.
Then come back and comment.
Have a nice day.
>Chris wrote: (insults snipped) What part about – buy a song from iTunes, rip onto a CD, re-rip into any format with no DRM (as many times as you please)- DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND??
Read your license agreement. Think about it for more than a split-second so that maybe you can gain a better understanding of things beyond the ultra-simplistic view you hold.
Then come back and comment.
Have a nice day.
>Chris wrote: (insults snipped) What part about – buy a song from iTunes, rip onto a CD, re-rip into any format with no DRM (as many times as you please)- DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND??
Read your license agreement. Think about it for more than a split-second so that maybe you can gain a better understanding of things beyond the ultra-simplistic view you hold.
Then come back and comment.
Have a nice day.
Well said, Luke in Oz!
“John J. Sviokla is former Associate Professor and Baxter Fellow in Information Technology at the Harvard Business School. He received his B.A. from Harvard College and his M.B.A. and D.B.A. from Harvard University with a major in Management Information Systems.”
Well, that says it all ” Management Information Systems.” are the crowd at the denser (ironically more well paid) end of most campuses despite knowing bugger all about computing (generally they use IBM-PC compatible systems and legacy IBM mainframes as they struggle to comprehend anything else.
Recently a Business School was put in at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Oz by cutting funding to key areas such as Chemistry, Geography, Physics, Mathematics so that the military graduates can come out with a Business degree but not any useful knowledge about the above areas which might be more useful (e.g. chemical warfare).
Needless to say, this is the nature of the current world … but there is still hope … winter in Canberra here and a shaft of sun-shine has appeared in my kitchen … cool … spring (MW) is not too far away!
(Sorry about that digression, but after before recent surgery I wasn’t sure I’d see Spring coming … blooming wattles etc … and hopefully some new Apple boxes to play with when I can get back to work!