“Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said its sales on Saturday were slightly weaker than those posted during the post-Thanksgiving ‘Black Friday’ kickoff to the holiday season,” James Covert reports for Dow Jones. “Sales on Saturday were ‘OK,’ but saw ‘a slight drop in the slope’ from Friday’s levels, Wal-Mart Senior Vice President and Treasurer Jay Fitzsimmons told investors Tuesday at a conference hosted by J.P. Morgan & Co. that was made available by Webcast. But the day-over-day decline partly reflected the fact that last year’s Black Friday was disappointing, Fitzsimmons said. Sales for this year’s post-Thanksgiving weekend overall were better than in 2004, he said.”
“He noted that Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod digital music players were among the items conspicuously absent from Wal-Mart’s shelves last year. The reason was that Wal-Mart was in a ‘philosophical argument’ with Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs over whether the iPod player should play music from more varied sources, Fitzsimmons said,” Covert reports. “‘He won, we lost. Now we have Nanos in the stores,’ Fitzsimmons said, referring to the latest, smallest version of the iPod.”
Full article here.
Advertisements: The New iPod with Video. The ultimate music + video experience on the go. From $299. Free shipping.
Connect iPod to your television set with the iPod AV Cable. Just $19.00.
The “philosophical argument” goes like this: iPods can’t play music from our Windows-only-Mac-users-be-damned Wal-Mart online music store, so we’re not going to sell iPods. We’ll sell other brands. Result? Wal-Mart didn’t sell much of anything. Virtually nobody bought the also-ran players and since virtually everybody with a portable music player owned an iPod, nobody bought from Wal-Mart’s – or any other outfits’ – ghettoized online music stores. So, rather than continuing to leave money on the table on both hardware and content, Wal-Mart revised their “philosophy” (back to the familiar “make money hand over fist” mantra) and decided they’d damn well better carry Apple iPods even if their own online music store doesn’t sell iPod-compatible music files. Apple’s iTunes Music Store, of course, sells iPod-compatible music and serves both Mac and Windows users, which is why it dominates the market so effectively.
Jeremiah, mp3 == !DRM;
I hate Wal-Mart!!! They paved over my Pappy’s grave!!!
Maybe they sold out of iPods and just didn’t want an empty case sitting there. My local Walmart has the same case and it was empty a couple weeks ago—except for an obsolete iPod mini—but now has been filled.
I think it is pretty amazing that Walmarts even have a case dedicated to iPods. How often does Walmart lose an argument with a supplier?!
…right now, short term and limited vision, its about ipods.
…but long term, this DRM issue and which format to use is about a whole lot more than some soon-to-be-forgotten device and where I can play my music.
It is about who is going to control all network-based content and its delivery into the home via the next generation of devices. And the revenue from that delivery which, if some have their way, will be “re-charged” for every end device you want to play it on. Cell phone, ipod, TV, PSP, computer, etc.
DRM is required because:
1. You don’t own it
2. You will steal it if it is not nailed down
This is the latest, maybe last, chance to break the MS strangle hold over all things digital. The internet was the first and the monopoly power of MS allowed them to recover pretty quickly. Google is the only one still engaging them directly on that front.
Even Apple can’t rely on making the hottest, coolest devices everytime. There is always going to be a better mousetrap, You need to take advantage and leverage while you can.
In the digital content delivery area, if Apple opens up too soon and/or without a dominant partner, the MS monopoly and its cash reserves will crack it like an egg….just like they did to Lotus, Netscape, Sun, IBM, Novell, etc, etc.
ponder this….if a martian came to earth and was given the task of picking the OS for all of the universe and reps from MS, Apple and Linux were asked to present their case without regard to who had what percent of the market. Without the monopoly card and given what you have to go thru everyday to safely use a windows OS, is there any conceivable way MS would even be considered? I don’t think so. But yet, in our “real” world they win almost every time.
…so for Apple, milk it as long as necessary.
caddisfly,
“…but long term, this DRM issue and which format to use is about a whole lot more than some soon-to-be-forgotten device and where I can play my music.
It is about who is going to control all network-based content and its delivery into the home via the next generation of devices.”
-and how would allowing other companies to use FairPlay threaten the adoption of FairPlay as a standard?
“Even Apple can’t rely on making the hottest, coolest devices everytime. There is always going to be a better mousetrap”
…which we will be locked out of
If Apple licensed their DRM to other stores, it would require them to license it to other manufacturers also. Why do they want to allow anyone else to sell iTMS compatible players? That is the issue at this point. At some point iPods will be *really* cheap and become a commodity, like TVs, CD/DVD players. Then it will make sense for Apple to license FairPlay.
MW=”note” Do I detect a note of jealousy in your voice?
I don’t like apple wanting to be bff’s with walmart because they are a pretty aweful company. Aweful to their employees, their customers, and to the communities they infect. I think apple making a deal with walmart is like making a deal with the devil.
“If Apple licensed their DRM to other stores, it would require them to license it to other manufacturers also”
– Why would they have to license it to manufacturers as well?
Was the jealousy question directed at me, because it makes no sense, or was that supposed to be merely a clever usage of your magic word that had no real application to anything in this thread?
actually, I think FairPlay is the defacto standard now. At least that is what the market numbers/shares are showing. Whether that remains, is another story.
I don’t think MS has any interest in licensing fairplay from Apple or using the AAC format any more than Apple has in interest in supporting WMA on ipods or using the MS DRM.
I hypothesize that the universe of people who own an ipod, buy and download digital music, and who don’t use the itunes music store for their downloads is pretty darn small.
I would also like to see a venn diagram of tracks in itunes, tracks in napster, tracks in digital store A, B, C, etc and see how much is missing or already covered by itunes.
….and then plot that against sales for those missing tracks by folks who own ipods. Probably not a huge number and probably mostly in niche markets. those folks have a couple options: buy the CD or petition the artist to release their stuff on the itunes store or don’t listen to that artist.
how does it feel to be part of the sub-%5 dynamic?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
those of us on the Apple side have gotten used to it, but at least we had a better product with which to assuage our frustrations!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
“…a pretty aweful company. Aweful to their employees, their customers, and to the communities they infect…”
Yeah! I have no idea why hundreds of thousands of people remain employed there – much less why communities beg for a Wal-Mart presence to give them some alternative place to shop than Mom n’ Pop’s Screw -em store! Or why people shop there every day in droves! I mean, just because you can find it there and buy it for less doesn’t mean… well… wait a minute…
Actually, I still think there’s an easier way to do it: Support protected WMA, Real, Ogg Vorbis, and every other format that Apple can cram into an iPod.
When you buy your iPod, you still get iTunes and the iTunes Music Store. But if you want to use Napster, Wal-Mart, Rhapsody, or whatever, you can do that, too.
Remember, at Apple it’s about the music. It shouldn’t be about the format. Thus, the iPod plays “every” format: AAC, FairPlay, Apple Lossless, MP3, WMA, protected WMA, PlaysForSure WMA, protected Real, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, and a couple of other ones I can’t think of. This helps make the iPod “better” than those other players that only play MP3 and protected WMA.
Now, sure, when you buy your iPod, it comes with iTunes and the iTunes Music Store. iTMS still distributes music with FairPlay DRM.
What would happen? Probably a good 75% of the people buying iPods would continue to use iTMS exclusively. You doubt? Consider that at least 90% of PC users use Internet Explorer, when there are other better options available. Most people don’t buy software–they use the stuff that came on their computer. I’d also argue that most people use the software that came with the device they purchased–at least in the PC world. So I’m pretty sure that they would keep using iTMS.
Progeny,
Look at it this way:
Wal-Mart is the Microsoft of retail.
Enough said.
Steve Jobs slays Walfart, something even Billy Goat is unable to do.
gwm wrote:
“WalMart! The fscking holy grail of retailing venues!”
F WALMART! They’re an f-ing something all right, and it’s no holy grail.
Why oh why did Steve J do this? Why is he commoditizing one of Apple’s crown jewels, and the Apple brand itself? What happened to “If you want Apple, you buy from an Apple Store”?
How warm it is to think the iPod now sits alongside $19 DVD players and bottom-end Windows PC’s. What happens when Wal-Mart demands price cuts from Apple?
I don’t give a damn how much volume or exposure Wal-Mart has, if I were Steve I’d gleefully tell them to go to hell. Cupertino doesn’t need Bentonville.
Let’s have less union bullshit about Walmart. They are keeping millions of Chinese fed, clothed and a roof over their heads. They are giving millions of North Americans lower priced alternatives.
It’s called Globalization, get used to it.
My WM has a freestanding display case, and it had about five 30G white iPods last week. On Friday, it was empty, and the other mp3 player section was full of stock, but no one was standing there.
Given WalMart’s well-known intransigence in dealing with their suppliers, I have to say well-done on Steve for sticking to his guns. I saw a documentary on WM and Rubbermaid, and how Rubbermaid sales got killed when it didn’t succumb to WM’s heavyhandedness. This may be the first publically documented case where a vendor got the upper hand on WM.
MW: “used” as WM was so “used”!
be real. i am no fan of M$. but isn’t it time for a standard DRM? and since iTunes has obviously won that war, isn’t it time Apple licensed that damn thing?
A standard shall come forth soon in a DReaM…
http://www.openmediacommons.org/
Yeah! I have no idea why hundreds of thousands of people remain employed there – much less why communities beg for a Wal-Mart presence
—
a) yeah, I wonder why people work ANYWHERE.. i mean work is so annoying.. oh yea..money.
b)WalMart’s strategy early on, was to move into a small town and become the monopoly. this is the key to their success. once they move into a dinky town, no competitor can afford to come in.. splitting up the market would not be profitable for the ‘incoming’ firm. so WM stays and gets the whole thing.
They did this is all the small towns. If you live in one of these towns and.. gee.. need money (see a).. it’s likely that you know someone who works at walmart. and hates it.
as for towns begging for a walmart.. that is not the case. the way walmart treats its employees is precisely why towns beg the city to NOT let wal mart in.
it’s not that they’re a bad company.. it’s just that the pinnacle of capitalism shits on its employees, shaving their benefits and pocketing govt subsidy (while taking some of that and passing it off the customer, who keeps the whole nightmare going)
Its a shame Walmart gave in 🙁_