“Apple’s strategy for a new set of consumer electronics devices seems to be beyond the grasp of most industry analysts. That should really come as no surprise, because they don’t seem to understand what made the iPod a success over the last five years either,” Daniel Eran writes for RoughlyDrafted.
Eran writes, “Since its release, analysts have been falling all over themselves to identify the next ‘iPod killer.’ They still throw out the phrase every time Sony releases a new version of a Walkman branded phone or Microsoft renames its latest version of Janus DRM, to suggest that the iPod is on the verge of being eclipsed.”
Eran writes, “In reality however, the iPod is not only experiencing dramatic growth, but also moving into new markets and new form factors. Not only are there three lines of iPods, but there are at least two more iPod cousins on the way: the already announced iTV device, and the rumored iPhone.”
“The iPod’s success is a combination of a lot of elements: effective marketing, a simple and easy to use product, retail availability, and just plain good business. Those are the factors that will enable Apple the opportunity to continue to broaden its iPod success into other product categories,” Eran writes.
“Competitors have a few elements in place, but nobody has anything approaching an equal product lineup, matched with sales momentum and an installed base, and an established service back end for media and software sales,” Eran writes. “Apple has a integrated network effect in place, and each node it adds to its network simply makes the entire system more useful. The next article will examine this network and show how services and products all fit together in an integrated strategy.”
Full article here.
Related articles:
More blood on Apple iTunes Store’s play button: MSN Music stops selling music downloads – November 03, 2006
More blood on Apple iTunes Store’s play button: Japan’s Oricon bows out – November 01, 2006
More blood on Apple iTunes Store’s play button: Tower Records liquidated – October 09, 2006
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Dell’s ‘DJ Ditty’ flash-based MP3 player is dead – August 22, 2006
More blood on Apple iTunes Music Store’s play button: MyCokeMusic is dead – June 20, 2006
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: iRiver gives up on digital media player market – May 23, 2006
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Sony’s Walkman Bean is cooked – February 13, 2006
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Dell dumps ‘DJ’ hard-drive MP3 player line – February 04, 2006
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: iRiver pulling out of Europe? – February 01, 2006
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Thomson gives up on MP3 player, CE markets – December 12, 2005
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: BenQ withdraws from MP3 player markets – November 28, 2005
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Olympus halts production of portable digital music players – November 09, 2005
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Rio is dead – August 26, 2005
Apple’s iPod has blood on its Click Wheel: Virgin Electronics is dead – March 08, 2005
Apple’s iTunes Music Store has blood on its play button: BuyMusic.com is dead – March 28, 2004
hold on to your seats boys and girls. it’s gonna be one heck of a ride!!!
Does anyone know if that really lame “iDont” site is still up?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”rolleyes” style=”border:0;” />
I predict that Apple will extend the Front Row label to the device shown with the working Title of iTV earlier this year. It’s gonna be huge.
Daniel Eran of RoughlyDrafted.com is good, very good.
Many tech analysts stink. So do many sports commentators picking the Super Bowl in the summer. SI said Carolina vs. Miami. So SI=Enderle, right?
So what do you call yourself? Blogger? Reporter? Interested party?
Apple’s strategy isn’t beyond the grasp of anyone paying attention. Some people in the tech industry just don’t pay attention or have another agenda, and they just happen to been well known or get picked up in the media.
So what’s next. An Apple e-paper to download and read books on?
hmm that would actually be cool.
I just wasted a few minutes of my life confirming that the idont website still exists, and reminding myself what it’s about.
Sandiscs mp3 player.
I particularly like the 360 degree rotatable view, where you can see the lovely screws on the back of the mp3 player… very elegant.
Wow. Someone who writes about Macs on the Internet who isn’t on crack. Will wonders never cease?
If analysts had talent, or even intelligent, they’d be creating something themselves instead of merely analyzing what others have created.
i am sure he is right about most analysts.
Apple doesn’t work in the same way as other companies, therefore as seen by analysts, Apple is wrong.
The only problem for the analysts is that Apple are doing rather well and that baffles them. Furthermore, the nature of an analyst is to analyse stuff that has already happened. Therefore they put too much emphasis on how things used to be and don’t have the foresight to see how things are changing.
Unfortunately…everytime these idiots spew something, it effects the stock!
I spend a lot of time in coffee houses where the #1 competitor to ipod is… iTunes on a laptop.
It’s also an environment that shows how meaningless the 3% (or whatever) marketshare stat is. Amongst students hanging out with laptops, mac marketshare is more like 33%.
The problem with “3% marketshare” isn’t that the 3% is wrong, its the quest of what is a “market”. Every machine capable of running some sort of PC operating system is not a meaningful market.
But i digress..
Actually, I like the L’il Monster player. If iPod weren’t as good as it is and if I were trapped into using Windows Misoperating System, I would buy it. It’s pretty hip looking…to me. Which, of course, condemns it to dyshyptopia.
Daniel Eran of RoughlyDrafted.com is a blogger. He loves to spout opinions on matters in which he has zero expertise or qualifications.
However, he does make his living through Macs, so in this particular article at least he is on relatively home territory, for him.
Read Eran’s blog carefully, though. Eran is prone to making assertions, selectively citing favorable facts while ignoring facts that point the other way, and selectively quoting only those people who support his point of view.
Summary: Eran here is at least talking about something that he should know something about, but his past track record is poor when it comes to making reasoned and compelling arguments.
Interesting article, My next post will examine the reasons why I said it is interesting. And the one after that will go even further. Hello? Helloooo….
Daniel Eran is very good, I can’t believe he’s been banned from posting his articles on Digg.
Obviously the Windows drones on Digg cannot accept the truth, so through a concerted campaign they got his articles blocked, whilst pro-Windows & pro-Zune articles, full of mistruths proliferate.
Kevin Rose, who is apparently a Mac-user, should be ashamed of himself.
Digg was fine when it was launched, but it’s now controlled by a significant minority of anti-Apple users who jump on most Mac-news and bury it. They’re really pissed that Apple news keeps making the front page (and also because there isn’t even a Microsoft topic to put articles under), under the illusion that it must be due to Mac zealots digging it to the front page, when its obviously because Apple produce the most interesting news.
It also doesn’t occur to them that they can simply block the Apple topic, and have an Apple free digg if they want.
But they don’t want an Apple free Digg, they want a Digg where they can bully any pro-Apple digger and make themselves feel superior.
Windows users are a very strange breed.
I don’t have any opinion about Digg.com, but based on reading numerous Daniel Eran’s postings at roughlydrafted.com, it is apparent to me that Eran is biased and an unreliable source. His web site is not where I would choose to go for either objective facts or reasoned arguments or incisive analysis or compelling commentary.
Eran is very much an Apple partisan and prone to making ideological assertions, and while his writings may attract an audience predisposed to agree with him, it quickly gets tiresome and wearying to everyone else.
Not to let the bias of Carefully Speaking be the last word, Daniel Eran writes some of the most thought provoking pieces I’ve seen anywhere on the web. Of course he has a bias, but every one writing anything everywhere has a bias, it’s just clear that Carefully Speaking’s bias doesn’t line up with Eran’s.
That’s fine but it’s disingenuous at best, and dishonest at worst to claim that there’s anyone who doesn’t have a bias, including me and including “Carefully Speaking.” The whole entire point of writing any analysis of any topic is to have a bias and to logically support it. Daniel Eran does a fabulous job of this, including numerous links and examples, whereas Carefully Speaking utterly fails because no examples, links or evidence is sighted or given.