“After watching the rest of the high-tech industry unveil its coolest electronic gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, Apple Computer Inc.’s Steve Jobs stands poised to unveil his own company’s latest and greatest at this year’s Macworld Expo,” Matthew Yi reports for The San Francisco Chronicle. “While Apple’s size may pale in comparison to some of the high-tech heavy hitters like Sony, Samsung, Microsoft and Intel, the Cupertino company remains the team to beat when it comes to digital entertainment, particularly in music, analysts say. ‘Everyone has Apple in its crosshairs,’ said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research, a market research firm.”
“Tech industry analyst Rob Enderle agreed that Apple’s success with the iPod and its online iTunes Music Store — which now sells popular TV shows like ABC’s ‘Lost’ as well as music — has made the firm an easy target,” Yi reports. “In fact, Enderle said he believes Apple’s success may prove to be a ‘massive problem’ as competitors gang up on the firm. Just last week, more digital content providers were announcing additional deals with competitors like Microsoft and others that use the software giant’s Windows operating system. ‘Some of the big announcements like the Microsoft-Starz Entertainment deal (to make TV shows and movies available online) will not work with Apple products,’ Enderle said… ‘It is the entire market. Pretty much everything at (the Consumer Electronics Show was) going back to Microsoft and its Plays for Sure (digital rights management scheme). And that’s going to be a long-term problem for Apple,’ Enderle said.”
Full article here.
Rob Enderle: an idiot savant minus any extraordinary skills.
Again, when the time is right (and early 2006 is nowhere near the right time), Apple will license FairPlay and the also-rans that are still around will maul each other in the mad dash to sign on the dotted line. Online music outfits will drool, so they can sell their content to what will soon be 100 million+ iPod owners, and/or media player makers will meekly ask Jobs how high to jump, so they can finally play billions of dollars of iTunes Store content.
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Related articles:
MacDailyNews to present live coverage of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ Macworld Expo Keynote – January 09, 2006
Harvard professor: Apple’s iPod may not stand the test of time, Mac won’t continue to gain share – January 09, 2006
Microsoft debuts ‘PlaysForSure’ logo to signify incompatiblity with Apple iPod, iTunes Music Store – October 15, 2004
