Microsoft always seems to be "Johnny-on-the-spot." Apple rolls our OS X five years ago and in early 2007 all of you Windows XP users will be Vista users and will be able to do all of the wonderful things that we Mac users have had since 2002.
After Apple has made billions of dollars selling iPods and fueled their sale with the ingenius and wonderfully addictive iTunes, Microsoft is creating a music player.
I don't have a problem with Microsoft trying to do this, but what do they thing they are going to be able to do that's better? Apple, according to the Today show this morning, has 80 percent of the portable music player market and they've sold like $500 million worth of songs on iTunes.
The reason that the iPod is cool is because it's simple. Sure it has developed over the years with smaller models and larger models with video, but anything that Microsoft can come out with will have to be very similar.
I've heard that they want bigger video screens which hinders portability in my eyes. The one thing that is interesting is self contained online connectivity for songs on their iTunes-like service. Sure it sounds great, but you are going to have to pay for that just like on a cell phone along with the price of a song. And on top of that, I'm not going to surf the net for songs on a super small screen.
And anything they can come up with to possibly improve the a portable music player can be added to the iPod anyway.
I also don't see how Microsoft will be able to combat the range of iPods that are out there. I dropped $70 for my iPod Shuffle and totally love it. Nanos are now as cheap as $150. And then you have the full blown iPod video for $300. How can Microsoft expect to compete with that?
And iTunes is such a force, that I question the sanity of the dude at Microsoft who thought that they could bring it down and dip into the market very much.
I hope they give it the old college try, but I wish Microsoft would come up with some ideas on its own. Apple is what it is because of well designed stylish hardware and wonderfully simple and powerful software rolled out and supported by one company.
Microsoft has a lot to learn, especially since Macs can run Windows now.
Monday, July 10, 2006
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1 comment:
The way I look at it, you can't blame a guy for trying. Microsoft may not be able to unseat the IPod, but I bet they have a plan to make money. They don't need to all the pie, but they would like to have a good chunk of it when the digital music scene really explodes.
Sure they may come up with something that is not near as good as the IPod, but it's worth a shot and they have more than enough money to pour into this.
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