Why does the Napster logo appear on the Microsoft screens posted by A.I.?
I wondered about that, too. It doesn't show up in Microsoft Windows Media - Sleek New Design screenshots. Was it Photoshop'd in (the .uk site's not responding so I can't look at the shots more closely)? Or hmurchison may want to retract his "Microsoft is going to kill napster" comment.
It wasn't Photoshopped in. WMP10 lets you browse music stores from within the player. In this case, the Napster store is the one enabled.
With a 90% duplication of songs the idea of browsing stores is decidely microsoftian and banal. Exclusive content is generally rare and not too desirable.
With a 90% duplication of songs the idea of browsing stores is decidely microsoftian and banal. Exclusive content is generally rare and not too desirable.
Exclusive content is probably rare, but its not what's important. When you walk down the street you get to buy your music from any number of stores, whether it be for price, service or trust. Why should it be any different on line?
Exclusive content is probably rare, but its not what's important. When you walk down the street you get to buy your music from any number of stores, whether it be for price, service or trust. Why should it be any different on line?
First, because an online store can have everything in their catalog "in stock" so things like physical store size don't matter. Second, because every online store is as close every other, so location doesn't matter. So, two of the most crucial variables in retail are moot.
What about the last one? Well, brand only goes so far. The Microsoft stores all license exactly the same back end (so except for the most trivial cosmetic differences, the shopping experiences will be interchangeable), they'll probably wind up with exactly the same catalog (or close enough as no matter), the same DRM (too restrictive), the same file format (WMP), and since they're identical in every other respect, the prices will probably end up the same, too. I shouldn't even use the future tense. This is already true. That moots a third crucial variable in retail: Specialization; or if you prefer, "brand identity."
Why did iTMS succeed? Because Apple didn't just license some other solution, put lipstick on it, and push it out the door. They busted their asses working on everything from the presentation of the site to how it's accessed (through iTunes, not through a browser) to the DRM (liberal, and uniform, so you don't get too many nasty surprises using the music you've licensed), etc. Microsoft is hoping that a large number of what amount to commodity stores will overwhelm one really good store, and they're probably evoking the PC metaphor to justify it. But you know what? The exact subset of the PC market that most closely mirrors this model — the low end — is brutal and unprofitable. Any number of would-be competitors, including huge brands like IBM, have bailed out, and consumers have shown no brand loyalty at all - hardly surprising, given that the only substantive differences between the machines are the logo and a few bits of plastic. If it weren't for the top-down, socialist enterprise market, and MS riding IBM's coattails into that market, the PC hardware market might look a lot different today. Since the music-store market is in the more democratic consumer market, I don't see how this approach will get anywhere.
So what will happen? The Microsoft-allied stores, forced into the same interface, will all compete for the same slice of the pie, whose size will be determined by the quality of the WMP 10 user interface, which is completely out of their control (just as the interchangeability of low-end PCs is due to the hardware standards enforced by the commodity market, which are beyond any vendor's control). I expect the same thing to happen to these stores to happen to the Microsoft allies: They'll eat each other, until maybe one or two remain, and if MS has carved out enough of the overall pie to allow them to remain profitable, they'll soldier along. If not, they'll die.
Their entire strategy is built around contempt for the consumer. They assume that you can bamboozle them with "branding" instead of doing the work involved in offering real, substantive choices.
Locally, every music store in town has a specialty. There have been chains that offered the same catalogs in the same size store, and all but one is gone. Why? Because if consumers are going to have to make a decision, they'd like it to be a meaningful and substantive decision, and they'd like the choices to be quality.
Heck...I though SP2 was supposed to come out on automatic update...has that happened?
I don't know. I downloaded it three weeks ago. Microsoft had a site for IT professionals or something, so I just downloaded it from there. I put it on two machines. They wanted regular consumers to wait for the Windows Update to give it to them, but I didn't want to wait.
Comments
Originally posted by Messiahtosh
They called the legal online download business, "iTunes and the 7 dwarfs."
Originally posted by MacsRGood4U
Why does the Napster logo appear on the Microsoft screens posted by A.I.?
I wondered about that, too. It doesn't show up in Microsoft Windows Media - Sleek New Design screenshots. Was it Photoshop'd in (the .uk site's not responding so I can't look at the shots more closely)? Or hmurchison may want to retract his "Microsoft is going to kill napster" comment.
Originally posted by Steve
It wasn't Photoshopped in. WMP10 lets you browse music stores from within the player. In this case, the Napster store is the one enabled.
With a 90% duplication of songs the idea of browsing stores is decidely microsoftian and banal. Exclusive content is generally rare and not too desirable.
Originally posted by hmurchison
With a 90% duplication of songs the idea of browsing stores is decidely microsoftian and banal. Exclusive content is generally rare and not too desirable.
Exclusive content is probably rare, but its not what's important. When you walk down the street you get to buy your music from any number of stores, whether it be for price, service or trust. Why should it be any different on line?
Originally posted by kim kap sol
Is the Microsoft music store up and running? The week has come and gone.
I was wondering the same thing. I'm too lazy to turn on my XP box.
Originally posted by ibook911
I was wondering the same thing. I'm too lazy to turn on my XP box.
Heck...I though SP2 was supposed to come out on automatic update...has that happened?
Originally posted by ajmas
Exclusive content is probably rare, but its not what's important. When you walk down the street you get to buy your music from any number of stores, whether it be for price, service or trust. Why should it be any different on line?
First, because an online store can have everything in their catalog "in stock" so things like physical store size don't matter. Second, because every online store is as close every other, so location doesn't matter. So, two of the most crucial variables in retail are moot.
What about the last one? Well, brand only goes so far. The Microsoft stores all license exactly the same back end (so except for the most trivial cosmetic differences, the shopping experiences will be interchangeable), they'll probably wind up with exactly the same catalog (or close enough as no matter), the same DRM (too restrictive), the same file format (WMP), and since they're identical in every other respect, the prices will probably end up the same, too. I shouldn't even use the future tense. This is already true. That moots a third crucial variable in retail: Specialization; or if you prefer, "brand identity."
Why did iTMS succeed? Because Apple didn't just license some other solution, put lipstick on it, and push it out the door. They busted their asses working on everything from the presentation of the site to how it's accessed (through iTunes, not through a browser) to the DRM (liberal, and uniform, so you don't get too many nasty surprises using the music you've licensed), etc. Microsoft is hoping that a large number of what amount to commodity stores will overwhelm one really good store, and they're probably evoking the PC metaphor to justify it. But you know what? The exact subset of the PC market that most closely mirrors this model — the low end — is brutal and unprofitable. Any number of would-be competitors, including huge brands like IBM, have bailed out, and consumers have shown no brand loyalty at all - hardly surprising, given that the only substantive differences between the machines are the logo and a few bits of plastic. If it weren't for the top-down, socialist enterprise market, and MS riding IBM's coattails into that market, the PC hardware market might look a lot different today. Since the music-store market is in the more democratic consumer market, I don't see how this approach will get anywhere.
So what will happen? The Microsoft-allied stores, forced into the same interface, will all compete for the same slice of the pie, whose size will be determined by the quality of the WMP 10 user interface, which is completely out of their control (just as the interchangeability of low-end PCs is due to the hardware standards enforced by the commodity market, which are beyond any vendor's control). I expect the same thing to happen to these stores to happen to the Microsoft allies: They'll eat each other, until maybe one or two remain, and if MS has carved out enough of the overall pie to allow them to remain profitable, they'll soldier along. If not, they'll die.
Their entire strategy is built around contempt for the consumer. They assume that you can bamboozle them with "branding" instead of doing the work involved in offering real, substantive choices.
Locally, every music store in town has a specialty. There have been chains that offered the same catalogs in the same size store, and all but one is gone. Why? Because if consumers are going to have to make a decision, they'd like it to be a meaningful and substantive decision, and they'd like the choices to be quality.
Originally posted by kim kap sol
Heck...I though SP2 was supposed to come out on automatic update...has that happened?
I don't know. I downloaded it three weeks ago. Microsoft had a site for IT professionals or something, so I just downloaded it from there. I put it on two machines. They wanted regular consumers to wait for the Windows Update to give it to them, but I didn't want to wait.