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What do McDonald’s and Apple have in common? Not too much really I guess with Steve Jobs great like for health food. But, Apple announced that they have served 500 million downloads in just over two years. They recently added Podcasting to iTunes (version 4.9) helping it to become mainstream. With the addition of Podcasting Apple has a potential to even give satellite radio a “one up.” All while the rumors persist that video enabled iPods and music video sales are coming. Seems the subscription services from Yahoo, Napster, and Real have still not made a dent in the iTunes Music Store. Apple has been racking up big sales of iPods even ahead of Wall Street analysis.
Let us remember during the iPod/iTunes revolution. OS X has been updated five times in four years, iLife and iWork has been introduced and updated. Apple has introduced several new versions of the iMac. Developed the Mac mini, new iBooks, and PowerBooks. Switched to IBM G5 chips and now are moving to Intel. All while some have said Apple was ignoring the Mac! All this takes hard work and much innovation.
Microsoft’s Bill Gates seems miffed at Apple’s success. He predicted the demise of the iTunes Music Store when Yahoo, Real, and Napster licensed Microsoft Janus technology for “music-to-go”. But so far they still have not hurt iTMS much. Of course Apple could always introduce subscriptions if they feel they need to. The next big fight will be video. Apple is well positioned to deliver high quality video to customers.
Microsoft missed the legal download music revolution. Windows users main outlet for legal downloading of music and Podcasting has been Apple iTunes for Windows. In the two years since the iTunes Music Store launch. Microsoft has still not delivered a product of their own. Still no RSS feed capability in a Microsoft product! And no portable player of their own. Longhorn is still not delivered. Many Windows users have already been converted to Macintosh users proving the “iPod Halo” effect was real as reported in Apple financials last two quarters.
Sound familiar? It should. Remember Netscape? Microsoft missed the online revolution and had to play catch up. Eventually, using their desktop monopoly to kill off Netscape, or so they thought. Microsoft went to sleep again and Firefox is making big gains due to innovation, security, and better features. Of all the latest browsers Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera, OmniWeb, Netscape, and many others. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer lags behind them all in mostly all categories.
Bill Gates vows that he will control video delivery. As per a recent LA Times story. So far they have made inroads to deliver software for IPTV and have signed some cable TV providers. They have tried their best to control HD-DVDs with Windows Media and have pushed their digital rights management technology onto CDs, DVDs, and even Office documents. They are pushing hard with X-Box. All the while telling the consumer that Apple needs to “open up” the iPod.
Fact is the iPod supports more formats than most of the competition. Apple does not have a proprietary digital music format. The iPod can play virtually all industry standard digital music formats including AAC, Protected AAC (what you get from iTunes Music Store), MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV.
AAC, is based on MPEG4, developed by a coalition headed by Dolby Labs. It is an industry standard not controlled by any single company. The only popular format the iPod/iTunes doesn’t support is WMA… from its competitor, Microsoft. WMA ( Windows Media Audio) IS OWNED and controlled solely by Microsoft and Microsoft alone gets the fees from that licensing. The company that has a proprietary digital music format is Microsoft, not Apple!
The only thing proprietary about Apple’s iPod/iTunes Music Store is the DRM (digital rights management) system encoded in the AAC files. This is needed to protect from piracy and is required for the record companies to agree to sell their music online. Same as Yahoo, Napster, and Real that use WMA from Microsoft. The Creative Zen, one of the leading iPod competitors only supports MP3, Windows Media, Audio (WMA), WAV, IMA ADPCM (very low quality compression). Not a very impressive list. I might mention that although Windows Media Player can play MP3. It cannot rip CDs to MP3. As Microsoft has seen no reason to support an “industry open standard.” Most Windows users need to use a third party application to rip their CDs to MP3. Many use Apple’s iTunes for that.
Will Microsoft again be able “catch up” and dominate using their desktop monopoly? Lack of innovation and addressing customer needs has never mattered before for Microsoft. Their desktop monopoly and killing off competition has served them well over the years. It has done wonders for Microsoft’s bank accounts and little for consumers. Choice is nothing Microsoft has ever liked. Consumers are making their choice in downloading of music so far, and this is NOT good for Microsoft. So we will have to watch closely.
This is the main reason I am a Macintosh user. As I want to use the latest technology now. Not a watered down controlled version much later. With Microsoft, it has always been “years later, and NOT as good!
