Microsoft music store overtakes iTMS?

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
AS you probably havea heard, microsfot music store is now in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland as well. ITMS is only in Finland. It seems as if MS also has more countries and is growing faster (in terms of new countries). THis may be a huge problem to Apple; being first is a good thing.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 24
    telomartelomar Posts: 1,804member
    Apple was neither first to bring out a music store or first to bring out a music player. They have had the greatest success with both however.
  • Reply 2 of 24
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dividend

    AS you probably havea heard, microsfot music store is now in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland as well.



    But all MS is doing is linking to CDON.com which has been there for a long time.
  • Reply 3 of 24
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dividend

    AS you probably havea heard, microsfot music store is now in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland as well. ITMS is only in Finland. It seems as if MS also has more countries and is growing faster (in terms of new countries). THis may be a huge problem to Apple; being first is a good thing.



    But the iPod has around 80% marketshare and won't play MS's format. How can MS overtake the iTMS?



    Apple isn't going to sit idle either. So it's unlikely MS will ever overtake the iTMS...just like the Mac will never overtake Windows.



    Microsoft lost this one...but they shouldn't cry over it.
  • Reply 4 of 24
    over here, 90% of the people you see with mp3-players are flashbased.... ie., they play win-media and not aac.



    no itms here, and probably not coming for a long time



    when ms starts tying everything into xp or longhorn, then they get, for free, 95% of compute users, few of them are going to download itunes, unless they buy iPod.

    ------

    so: people will have to buy an ipod and d/l itunes to make use of it... since they already have flash + (shitty) winamp/wmp; guess what happens?



    it is like saying, mac os 1-9 was never in a position to be competed out because 1) mac os was better, 2) mac hardware was better. Well, all true. So, why doesn't apple have 95% market share of hardware? Luckily, 5% of the mp3-player market is still money for apple.



    perhaps i am pessimistic, perhaps it is the music industry that does not want the competition from apple or wants to create competition so they may dictate the rules of the game.
  • Reply 5 of 24
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Telomar

    Apple was neither first to bring out a music store or first to bring out a music player. They have had the greatest success with both however.



    This is totally correct.



    Apple was a late comer to the digital music scene.



    They weren't the first to produce an MP3 player. They weren't the first to sell music online. They're still the most expensive... yet they're the envy of the entire industry.



    One of the reasons I like Apple products is that market dominance isn't Apple's only concern. Instead, Apple likes to put out quality products which allow them to remain profitable. There truly is a difference in corporate culture between Apple and companies like MS. If apple were to start doing business like MS, then they wouldn't be able to produce things like iTunes/iPod/iTMS.
  • Reply 6 of 24
    flounderflounder Posts: 2,674member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dividend

    over here, 90% of the people you see with mp3-players are flashbased.... ie., they play win-media and not aac.





    I'd wager the vast majority of tracks they're playing are.......... mp3!
  • Reply 7 of 24
    well its important to note that apple would have tons of music stores as well if they didnt care about making everything one flat price. MS is all over the place with their song prices.
  • Reply 8 of 24
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:

    over here, 90% of the people you see with mp3-players are flashbased.... ie., they play win-media and not aac.



    so basically you all are in the stone ages.
  • Reply 9 of 24
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ipodandimac

    well its important to note that apple would have tons of music stores as well if they didnt care about making everything one flat price. MS is all over the place with their song prices.



    Really?



    I have never checked out the MS online music store. I thought they duplicated Apple's pricing strategy and made individual songs $0.99 and albums $9.99?



    Mike
  • Reply 10 of 24
    they do have $0.99 songs, but not all of their albums are $9.99. A few are more than that.



    I don't think Microsoft is gonna focus too much in their music store if it doesn't show some immediate success. And I don't think it has.



    There are rumors that Google is preparing to get more deeply into the desktop business; people are speaking about browser wars. If Google one days decides to create a browser, and perhaps an OS, I think Microsoft will be concerned with fighting Google over their current share of the market, than trying to capture someone elses market, albeit, not necesseraly the music market.



    Things are gonna get pretty interesting.
  • Reply 11 of 24
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Gene Clean

    There are rumors that Google is preparing to get more deeply into the desktop business; people are speaking about browser wars. If Google one days decides to create a browser, and perhaps an OS, I think Microsoft will be concerned with fighting Google over their current share of the market, than trying to capture someone elses market, albeit, not necesseraly the music market.



    If you look at what google has out at the moment, it's very easy to imagine them releasing something in the way of music. They'd have to be clever and market it as "Works with every player" type affair... Don't know how they'd do that, but if anyone can, it's Google.



    Also anyone with a PC, have a look at Picasa - the most obvious iPhoto copy I have seen. But it actually has some features which are slightly better than iPhoto :O
  • Reply 12 of 24
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    so basically you all are in the stone ages.



    That's what I'm thinking also. In the US and in Canada (which doesn't even have iTMS yet), 90% of people with MP3 players have iPods. I swear, 9 out of 10 people have white earbuds coming out of their backpacks or coat pocket.
  • Reply 13 of 24
    Sweden is one of the most developed IT-countries. Stone age... well, maybe, or poor marketing... it is very difficult to find ipods in normal supermarkets/tech-shops. They all sell flash or other HD-players, not iPod.
  • Reply 14 of 24
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dividend

    Sweden is one of the most developed IT-countries. Stone age... well, maybe, or poor marketing... it is very difficult to find ipods in normal supermarkets/tech-shops. They all sell flash or other HD-players, not iPod.



    Maybe like the Japanese market then? Don't like "outsiders" technology...
  • Reply 15 of 24
    no, don't think so, although we have a somewhat stylish flash-player here, made in sweden:



    http://www.jensofsweden.com/



    it is only that iPods are not available in normal stores... and for some reasons people think they are expensive... Apple needs to do a nice drive about these things....
  • Reply 16 of 24
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dividend

    no, don't think so, although we have a somewhat stylish flash-player here, made in sweden:



    http://www.jensofsweden.com/



    it is only that iPods are not available in normal stores... and for some reasons people think they are expensive... Apple needs to do a nice drive about these things....




    Would I be wrong in saying that Swedish folks are just generally cheap? I mean IKEA is pretty much synonym to cheap furniture. I'd even go as far as to say most of the IKEA furniture is crap. But I don't think your market really reflects the reality. A lot of people shop in IKEA stores around the world but not everyone wants cheap junk in every market.
  • Reply 17 of 24
    gavrielgavriel Posts: 175member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    Would I be wrong in saying that Swedish folks are just generally cheap?



    Since when is a harsh generalization of the population of an entire country, based on nothing but the success of one multinational store chain, anything other than wrong?



    America gave Wal-Mart to the world, so by your logic; americans are cheap too?



    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    I mean IKEA is pretty much synonym to cheap furniture. I'd even go as far as to say most of the IKEA furniture is crap. But I don't think your market really reflects the reality. A lot of people shop in IKEA stores around the world but not everyone wants cheap junk in every market.



    With IKEA, as with most things, you get what you pay for.
  • Reply 18 of 24
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MPMoriarty

    Really?



    I have never checked out the MS online music store. I thought they duplicated Apple's pricing strategy and made individual songs $0.99 and albums $9.99?



    Mike




    No, the MSN prices are more expensive, usually around 1.20 from what I remember. I don't know how many CD's you can burn, or how many computers can share, but Apple still has the best offering.



    It is highly improbable Apple will ever give up being #1. Look at Ebay, everyone and their dog opened up an online auction, and they all eventually folded. Sony stayed #1 with the walkman, how many portable cassette players where there? Tons.



    MSN can open all the stores it wants, but the fact is, their just not selling music.
  • Reply 19 of 24
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Gavriel

    Since when is a harsh generalization of the population of an entire country, based on nothing but the success of one multinational store chain, anything other than wrong?



    I whole heartedly agree and apologize for my insensitive countryman's comments... and McDonalds.
  • Reply 20 of 24
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    The thing that helps Apple so much is the iPod. I think getting revenue directly from this helps Apple more than it helps MS and more than even the hardware makers that have a bunch of devices and none with the sales of the iPod. It's pennies here, pennies there in an atomized market outisde of the iPod. Even MS has to work this way. Persistence is Microsoft's best threat to Apple's dominance here. Microsoft can wait out a lot of competitors until they either run out of resources or they make a mistake that MS can capitalize on.



    The people who worry about Apple's success with a closed DRM having a parallel to Apple's early PC success base their worries on the idea that Apple didn't license the various Apple OSes and Microsoft took over from there. But the truth in the earlier battle between MS and Apple was that MS got in on the penthouse floor by getting their OS on IBM's PCs. It wasn't that MS' licensing strategy was better, it was that they started on top by proxy, and in trojan horse fashion, took control of this market from IBM. Since Sony is the closest thing to IBM in this market, I'd say that avenue isn't avilable to Microsoft this time. Doesn't mean it won't be a struggle, but I don't think analysts have the situation pegged correctly.
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