Not even close. Apple has sold less than 100 million iPods total since it first began in 2001. There's probably close to 500 million potential iPod owners in the prime markets alone (Japan-South Korea, US-Canada, Europe), and that's not even taking into account the folks who own more than one iPod, or who discard their old iPods in favor of newer ones as they become available.
The mp3 player and portable video markets are NOWHERE near saturated, and people know it - that's a big part of why Apple's stock price has been going up up up the past couple of years. Investors see the strong likelihood of Apple continuing to dominate what is an already large but still growing market. 8)
Xbox hemorrhages money out the ass to the extent that if Vista doesn't do well, Xbox will disappear. If the Zune people are shooting to be as successful as Xbox, they don't have much future.
Yeah, its funny. MS fans always point to the Xbox as a "success", but it's lost billions.
If that's a 'success', I'd rather fail thanks very much.
Just sharing the library much like iTunes does for any nearby ipod seems like a much better idea than just uploading a file that's going to expire. Much like sharing earbuds only using WiFi.
Maybe in three years when transfers can happen in 2 seconds and use insignificant battery power.
I am pretty sure Jobs has something under his sleeve to show us very soon. True video iPod?
That's why he might be cocky. But Zune IMHO doesn't pose any large scale competition to the iPod.
(black american voice) i hear you brother (end of black american voice). i realy do hope they have something that will not only blow the zune out the water, but make it obsolete. i would love that. probably wont happen, but there we go.
(black american voice) i hear you brother (end of black american voice). i realy do hope they have something that will not only blow the zune out the water, but make it obsolete. i would love that. probably wont happen, but there we go.
(this post is in no way ment to be racist)
I don't think they need something to blow it out of the water.
Not right now.
The estimates for iPod sales this quarter are running from 15 million to 19 million. If they are correct, there is no way that the Zune could even seem to come close, as MS has said that they will have 3 million for the entire world market.
Even if they did sell every one, few of those sales would come from Apple, as I and others have been saying. Most will come from non-Apple products.
If the Zune doesn't do as well as MS's $100 million campaign (their number) should have it do, it will be reported as having been a failure. That's even if it does ok. That will help to kill further sales, as few people want a failed product. That would be way too uncool, baby!
It will be a terrible uphill battle. I'm sure of it.
MS will have to decide whether it will be worth it.
Just remember that MS isn't coming out with the Zune to sell music players, or music and video's.
It's there for the MAJOR purpose of saving WMA, and their other codec's from oblivion. If Apple's AAC and Quicktime keep increasing their marketshare, MS's formats will disappear, and that would be disastrous.
The look on the girl's face as you use the ear bud wires to reel her in for a kiss: Priceless.
A week or so ago while arguing with Woody, the AI Zune guy, I started to describe the same "girl" scenario as Steve used in the interview . I was going to describe how much sexier it was to share an iPod with the cute girl than to leer at her will trying to make a connection with your Zune. She looks accross the crowded bus and you are staring at her while fumbling with something in you lap.
lol, when did you say that I never saw it.
I agree that Jobs makes a good point, would you rather share an earbud or send her a song so she can walk off and show it to some cuter boy she sees in the corner?
I think you missed the part where Microsoft told OEMs that they would no longer be able to license Windows to include as the OS on their PCs if they included Netscape as the browser on their systems.
Etc Etc
But the Netscape/IE battle resulted in MSFT becoming neutered thanks to all the anti-trust troubles that it got into, all over the world.
MSFT has not been the same company since. I think they will think long and hard about trying to pull something like that again -- it could be suicidal this time.
MSFT has not been the same company since. I think they will think long and hard about trying to pull something like that again -- it could be suicidal this time.
It would have been good if MS had been neutered, but the opinion in the industry has been that MS was far from being neutered.
If the Bush administration hadn't ended the case just when they won, things would be different now. But they did, and so it isn't.
You can find plenty of articles from back when the case ended, and ongoing. I don't have to look them up.
I don't mean to bore everyone to tears with this side discussion on MSFT and antitrust, but I was sort of referring to their being "neutered" around the current time frame.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
The UE and S Korea aren't doing much to MS either. It's more smoke than anything else.
Again, that's just an assertion. I hope you are right, but I would like to see some evidence. I am always persuaded by -- and ever willing to change my opinions based on -- evidence.
I don't mean to bore everyone to tears with this side discussion on MSFT and antitrust, but I was sort of referring to their being "neutered" around the current time frame.
Ongoing means now.
Quote:
Again, that's just an assertion. I hope you are right, but I would like to see some evidence. I am always persuaded by -- and ever willing to change my opinions based on -- evidence.
We'll watch it. But, I'm willing to bet that whatever MS does, won't affect anything it really wants to do.
After all, they never abided by the federal decision in the '90's.
You go girlfriend!!! Steve Jobs is da man. Watch, friends, as instead of defending company losses or dodgy share options or talking about how he pimped his private jet, he wistfully paints a picture of lying in the soft spring grass, your friend and you sharing a tune - "If I just lay here.... Would you lie with me.... And forget the world...." (Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars). No squirting things at each other and watching hourglasses on the screen, just sharing earphones. Then maybe when the time is right, locking lips under blue skies dotted with lazy white cottonball clouds drifting in the warm wind. Love. Music. Life. iPod. A soft sunset starts to spread its wings on the horizon, as you cuddle a bit more closely and watch the streams of people go by.
you forgot riding down a rainbow astride a beautiful pair of unicorns.
Zune is a serious misstep. Apple makes tons of money on the iPod, but the endgame is about controlling the media formats, and that's especially what MS is interested in. I'm betting Apple will soon open iTunes to the many companies that MS just screwed over. Apple will continue to sell iPod music players, but the main push will be the next generation of the full screen iPod and the iPhones. Notice Steve drops the hint that iPods will evolve, but music will always be at their center. There will also be a push to get licensees to offer things that Apple will not. For instance, car stereo makes will begin offering models with built in storage and wireless updating from iTunes. Of course part of the equation is making money on licensing for devices, but with market domination, they will begin to make money on songs and other things sold through iTunes. With the Zune, MS is squirting the very thing they wanted over to Apple. Of course this is only one of Microsoft's worries. Another shift in power has already happened. For years MS dominated Apple by threatening to drop office. Now, with Dell and other major PC makers wanting to make Macs, with Google and Apple playing footsie, and with Open Source looming, most of the squirting will be sweat from Steve Ballmer's pores. Apple can now actually threaten MS. Push Steve Jobs too far and he might just begin licensing the Mac OS.
Zune is a serious misstep. Apple makes tons of money on the iPod, but the endgame is about controlling the media formats, and that's especially what MS is interested in. I'm betting Apple will soon open iTunes to the many companies that MS just screwed over. Apple will continue to sell iPod music players, but the main push will be the next generation of the full screen iPod and the iPhones. Notice Steve drops the hint that iPods will evolve, but music will always be at their center. There will also be a push to get licensees to offer things that Apple will not. For instance, car stereo makes will begin offering models with built in storage and wireless updating from iTunes. Of course part of the equation is making money on licensing for devices, but with market domination, they will begin to make money on songs and other things sold through iTunes. With the Zune, MS is squirting the very thing they wanted over to Apple. Of course this is only one of Microsoft's worries. Another shift in power has already happened. For years MS dominated Apple by threatening to drop office. Now, with Dell and other major PC makers wanting to make Macs, with Google and Apple playing footsie, and with Open Source looming, most of the squirting will be sweat from Steve Ballmer's pores. Apple can now actually threaten MS. Push Steve Jobs too far and he might just begin licensing the Mac OS.
We always think Apple will license proprietary stuff when they feel the heat, but mostly they don't so I'm not sure that scenario will play out. If they did, it would be very limited, but then who would you choose? Sandisk who would be a good partner, but who would also be able to design well enough to compete with iPods, or with someone else who won't be good enough to eat into Apple sales ... like Moto with phones.
In the end it seems to me Apple would make plenty of money selling licenses and pocketing a portion of every "iTunes-ready" device that comes out, but then it would be tricky when Apple keeps jumping from company to company from whom they buy their components. It is almost as if Apple has to standardize hardware just a bit more before the market is set enough to start licensing things, or else it could devolve into Plays4Sure Gehenna.
I kind of hope it is in Apple's long range plan, because I would love to know that Sony and friends would begins supporting FrontRow and Dashboard and iPods with mini-apps and content just as Wiindows implodes and people wake up to the fact that they don't need Microsoft to do anything other than Word and Excel.
Comments
Everyone already has an iPod...
Not even close. Apple has sold less than 100 million iPods total since it first began in 2001. There's probably close to 500 million potential iPod owners in the prime markets alone (Japan-South Korea, US-Canada, Europe), and that's not even taking into account the folks who own more than one iPod, or who discard their old iPods in favor of newer ones as they become available.
The mp3 player and portable video markets are NOWHERE near saturated, and people know it - that's a big part of why Apple's stock price has been going up up up the past couple of years. Investors see the strong likelihood of Apple continuing to dominate what is an already large but still growing market. 8)
.
Xbox hemorrhages money out the ass to the extent that if Vista doesn't do well, Xbox will disappear. If the Zune people are shooting to be as successful as Xbox, they don't have much future.
Yeah, its funny. MS fans always point to the Xbox as a "success", but it's lost billions.
If that's a 'success', I'd rather fail thanks very much.
.
Just sharing the library much like iTunes does for any nearby ipod seems like a much better idea than just uploading a file that's going to expire. Much like sharing earbuds only using WiFi.
Maybe in three years when transfers can happen in 2 seconds and use insignificant battery power.
Yeah, I'm going to disagree with Jobs on this one. The Zune really should pose a rather large concern.
Now isn't a time to be cocky, Jobs. Now's the time to demolish the product through the company's actions, not its words.
I am pretty sure Jobs has something under his sleeve to show us very soon. True video iPod?
That's why he might be cocky. But Zune IMHO doesn't pose any large scale competition to the iPod.
I am pretty sure Jobs has something under his sleeve to show us very soon. True video iPod?
That's why he might be cocky. But Zune IMHO doesn't pose any large scale competition to the iPod.
(black american voice) i hear you brother (end of black american voice). i realy do hope they have something that will not only blow the zune out the water, but make it obsolete. i would love that. probably wont happen, but there we go.
(this post is in no way ment to be racist)
(black american voice) i hear you brother (end of black american voice). i realy do hope they have something that will not only blow the zune out the water, but make it obsolete. i would love that. probably wont happen, but there we go.
(this post is in no way ment to be racist)
I don't think they need something to blow it out of the water.
Not right now.
The estimates for iPod sales this quarter are running from 15 million to 19 million. If they are correct, there is no way that the Zune could even seem to come close, as MS has said that they will have 3 million for the entire world market.
Even if they did sell every one, few of those sales would come from Apple, as I and others have been saying. Most will come from non-Apple products.
If the Zune doesn't do as well as MS's $100 million campaign (their number) should have it do, it will be reported as having been a failure. That's even if it does ok. That will help to kill further sales, as few people want a failed product. That would be way too uncool, baby!
It will be a terrible uphill battle. I'm sure of it.
MS will have to decide whether it will be worth it.
Just remember that MS isn't coming out with the Zune to sell music players, or music and video's.
It's there for the MAJOR purpose of saving WMA, and their other codec's from oblivion. If Apple's AAC and Quicktime keep increasing their marketshare, MS's formats will disappear, and that would be disastrous.
^^ yeh but it would be funny if it did though.
MS is quite obviously concerned that it might happen.
And I should, of course, have said disasterious for MS.
A boon for Apple, and possibly even for Real, though on a lesser plane.
The look on the girl's face as you use the ear bud wires to reel her in for a kiss: Priceless.
A week or so ago while arguing with Woody, the AI Zune guy, I started to describe the same "girl" scenario as Steve used in the interview . I was going to describe how much sexier it was to share an iPod with the cute girl than to leer at her will trying to make a connection with your Zune. She looks accross the crowded bus and you are staring at her while fumbling with something in you lap.
lol, when did you say that I never saw it.
I agree that Jobs makes a good point, would you rather share an earbud or send her a song so she can walk off and show it to some cuter boy she sees in the corner?
By the time you do all that, Bono, Oprah will be gone... quick! Just share the buds...
Stop bogarting the bud, man!
I think you missed the part where Microsoft told OEMs that they would no longer be able to license Windows to include as the OS on their PCs if they included Netscape as the browser on their systems.
Etc Etc
But the Netscape/IE battle resulted in MSFT becoming neutered thanks to all the anti-trust troubles that it got into, all over the world.
The effects still linger, and very vividly (e.g., the continuing Vista hassles with EU and S. Korean antitrust authorities -- see, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/14/te...=1&oref=slogin)
MSFT has not been the same company since. I think they will think long and hard about trying to pull something like that again -- it could be suicidal this time.
But the Netscape/IE battle resulted in MSFT becoming neutered thanks to all the anti-trust troubles that it got into, all over the world.
The effects still linger, and very vividly (e.g., the continuing Vista hassles with EU and S. Korean antitrust authorities -- see, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/14/te...=1&oref=slogin)
MSFT has not been the same company since. I think they will think long and hard about trying to pull something like that again -- it could be suicidal this time.
It would have been good if MS had been neutered, but the opinion in the industry has been that MS was far from being neutered.
If the Bush administration hadn't ended the case just when they won, things would be different now. But they did, and so it isn't.
It would have been good if MS had been neutered, but the opinion in the industry has been that MS was far from being neutered.
If the Bush administration hadn't ended the case just when they won, things would be different now. But they did, and so it isn't.
1) Whose "industry" opinion is this? Some examples or cites would help.
2) If you look again at my post above, I was referring to EU and Korea, not the US. And, even in the US, Bush is (or soon will be), arguably, history.
1) Whose "industry" opinion is this? Some examples or cites would help.
2) If you look again at my post above, I was referring to EU and Korea, not the US. And, even in the US, Bush is (or soon will be), arguably, history.
You can find plenty of articles from back when the case ended, and ongoing. I don't have to look them up.
The UE and S Korea aren't doing much to MS either. It's more smoke than anything else.
You can find plenty of articles from back when the case ended, and ongoing. I don't have to look them up.
I don't mean to bore everyone to tears with this side discussion on MSFT and antitrust, but I was sort of referring to their being "neutered" around the current time frame.
The UE and S Korea aren't doing much to MS either. It's more smoke than anything else.
Again, that's just an assertion. I hope you are right, but I would like to see some evidence. I am always persuaded by -- and ever willing to change my opinions based on -- evidence.
I don't mean to bore everyone to tears with this side discussion on MSFT and antitrust, but I was sort of referring to their being "neutered" around the current time frame.
Ongoing means now.
Again, that's just an assertion. I hope you are right, but I would like to see some evidence. I am always persuaded by -- and ever willing to change my opinions based on -- evidence.
We'll watch it. But, I'm willing to bet that whatever MS does, won't affect anything it really wants to do.
After all, they never abided by the federal decision in the '90's.
You go girlfriend!!! Steve Jobs is da man. Watch, friends, as instead of defending company losses or dodgy share options or talking about how he pimped his private jet, he wistfully paints a picture of lying in the soft spring grass, your friend and you sharing a tune - "If I just lay here.... Would you lie with me.... And forget the world...." (Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars). No squirting things at each other and watching hourglasses on the screen, just sharing earphones. Then maybe when the time is right, locking lips under blue skies dotted with lazy white cottonball clouds drifting in the warm wind. Love. Music. Life. iPod. A soft sunset starts to spread its wings on the horizon, as you cuddle a bit more closely and watch the streams of people go by.
you forgot riding down a rainbow astride a beautiful pair of unicorns.
Amazing, the musical brilliance that Canada offers.....
Zune is a serious misstep. Apple makes tons of money on the iPod, but the endgame is about controlling the media formats, and that's especially what MS is interested in. I'm betting Apple will soon open iTunes to the many companies that MS just screwed over. Apple will continue to sell iPod music players, but the main push will be the next generation of the full screen iPod and the iPhones. Notice Steve drops the hint that iPods will evolve, but music will always be at their center. There will also be a push to get licensees to offer things that Apple will not. For instance, car stereo makes will begin offering models with built in storage and wireless updating from iTunes. Of course part of the equation is making money on licensing for devices, but with market domination, they will begin to make money on songs and other things sold through iTunes. With the Zune, MS is squirting the very thing they wanted over to Apple. Of course this is only one of Microsoft's worries. Another shift in power has already happened. For years MS dominated Apple by threatening to drop office. Now, with Dell and other major PC makers wanting to make Macs, with Google and Apple playing footsie, and with Open Source looming, most of the squirting will be sweat from Steve Ballmer's pores. Apple can now actually threaten MS. Push Steve Jobs too far and he might just begin licensing the Mac OS.
We always think Apple will license proprietary stuff when they feel the heat, but mostly they don't so I'm not sure that scenario will play out. If they did, it would be very limited, but then who would you choose? Sandisk who would be a good partner, but who would also be able to design well enough to compete with iPods, or with someone else who won't be good enough to eat into Apple sales ... like Moto with phones.
In the end it seems to me Apple would make plenty of money selling licenses and pocketing a portion of every "iTunes-ready" device that comes out, but then it would be tricky when Apple keeps jumping from company to company from whom they buy their components. It is almost as if Apple has to standardize hardware just a bit more before the market is set enough to start licensing things, or else it could devolve into Plays4Sure Gehenna.
I kind of hope it is in Apple's long range plan, because I would love to know that Sony and friends would begins supporting FrontRow and Dashboard and iPods with mini-apps and content just as Wiindows implodes and people wake up to the fact that they don't need Microsoft to do anything other than Word and Excel.