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Microsoft Notebook: Microsoft has plans to take on ... Apple?

Time: 02:05 EST/07:05 GMT | News Source: Seattle PI | Posted By: Byron Hinson

Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs was asked during a November meeting with analysts whether the company would ever make its iPod music player work directly with something other than its iTunes Music Store. There was a noticeable sense of accomplishment in his voice when he answered. First he pointed out the dominant market position achieved by the iPod. Then he noted that the iTunes store had just captured more than 80 percent of the market for legally downloaded music.

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#1 By 7390 (63.211.44.114) at 1/5/2004 3:40:26 AM

I might tend to agree with you except for the fact that it is the same price as the IPOD (which I think is way over priced). $399 is a bit steep, knock $100 off the price and I will get one.

http://www.iriveramerica.com/products/iHP-120.asp

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?family=iPod

#2 By 2332 (65.221.182.2) at 1/5/2004 8:07:16 AM

I *just* bought an iRivier iHP-120 a couple of days ago. I should have it by tomorrow. :-)

#3 By 2332 (216.41.45.78) at 1/5/2004 10:25:09 AM

From what I've read, the iRiver uses a lithium polymer battery that lasts upwards of 14 hours in most tests. It's also rated for 5 years of usage without fail.

5 years sounds good to me.

#4 By 7390 (198.246.16.251) at 1/5/2004 1:15:02 PM

#10, I think that the responsibility is on the author to provide data/links to back up his claim. I call it verified trust.

#5 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at 1/5/2004 2:07:46 PM

RedHook, the journalist was simply quoting, or rather paraphrasing, Jobs. He did say it. A few tens of thousands of people listening to the financial call is generally accepted for its veracity and doesn't require citations. (What would the data/links be for "proving" a quote besides "Jobs said..."? Hmmm? "I had a tape recorder with me, you can come to my house and listen to it.")

Phaedrus, parker's pathetic "that's a bald faced lie" claim is based on the fact that Jobs can only possibly comment on known data and some companies are still not providing data to Nielson-Soundscan. However, yes, Nielson Soundscan has reported that the iTMS has 80% of legal downloads for all services reporting. Napster is now included in this data. The only service which I conclusively know is NOT reporting to Nielson is BuyMusic, but this I largely hold as inconsequential since they are probably doing the worst (despite jumping on the copycat game earliest) and are simply afraid to let the public know that.

#6 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 1/5/2004 3:09:58 PM

Copycat game? I had a feeling that's how history would be interpreted... Apple started it and no one else had thought about it, and after seeing their success went out to copy them. But of course, in reality, there was a very natural evolution to the introduction of all of these services, and many players were involved early on besides than Apple. Copycat? Not really.

#7 By 3 (81.100.93.4) at 1/5/2004 3:25:46 PM

Not sure where Parker comes up with the "its a lie" comment - its pretty much fact that iTunes music store blew the others out of the water when it comes to legal sales, not much to say apart from that. Personally I couldn't care who came up with the idea, I'm just pleased that the company that is doing the best, is one that is doing it with some cool style this time, let's hope the new cheap ipods do the trick even more tomorrow.

#8 By 1845 (67.161.212.73) at 1/5/2004 5:15:29 PM

WalMart's service, though still in beta, has better prices than iTMS (or anyone else for that matter). Better still, they offer WMA.

#9 By 1845 (67.161.212.73) at 1/5/2004 5:19:34 PM

Regarding players, a month ago, I bought a Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 30 GB for about $270. It's a great device. Don't know why ppl waste so much money on iPods when cheaper, larger capacity options are so plentiful.

#10 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 1/5/2004 5:24:02 PM

Personally, I like the general concept of these stores, but I don't like the idea of paying for compressed-format music, regardless of the compression format (except for lossless, perhaps). At low volumes with most popular music, it's hardly noticeable, but for some music (especially at the bit rates commonly offered) and higher volumes, it can be distracting. I'd rather purchase the CD and compress at an acceptable rate given the music and situation.

#11 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at 1/5/2004 5:24:27 PM

bluvg, I don't recall saying iTMS was first. I called out BuyMusic as a copycat. If you don't feel that the BuyMusic site (in organization, layout, wording, features) is a ripoff of the iTMS, I wouldn't know what to say to that.

BuyMusic clearly and obviously thought they could ripoff the look of iTMS and resell it (all the way down to commercials) and be successful without doing anything (which people still seem to think...) And it's been a colossal failure.

As for originality, I will not and have not claimed it for Apple, but I do think it's rather lame and wrong to claim that earlier services which did not use the same purchasing model, nor the same rights model, nor the same layout, nor the same platform at all (integration with the player app rather than a web site) were original, and Apple just did the same but got lucky or timed it right. Apple was the first to have the same agreements with all the studios, they were the first to offer their generous rights offering, they were the first to do these things with an individual download model that was worthwhile, they were the first to have a complete solution of player app, player device, store.

#12 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at 1/5/2004 5:30:12 PM

"WalMart's service, though still in beta, has better prices than iTMS (or anyone else for that matter)."

BuyMusic has had $.77 tracks for a while now. Yes, they have a horrible hybrid menu, but price doesn't necessarily help.

As for price, why would I want to save $60 - $100 (which averages out to less than $.10 a day for what I expect to be the life of the product) for something that is bulkier, heavier, less intuitive, less well supported (there are hundreds of peripherals and accessories for the iPod), that doesn't integrate seamlessly with the software, etc... Personally, I don't see how people can claim they are "saving" so much...

By the way, who has a player that's bigger than 40GB?

#13 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at 1/5/2004 6:21:05 PM

This comment has been removed due to a violation of the Active Network Terms of Use.

Since someone doesn't like the truth, I'll repost:

"Where did Apple get the 1.5 million figure? Especially when Nielson is only saying 827,000."

The question should be where did Gorog get the 827,000 figure? Nielson reports by month, but we are talking about a 5 day period between October 29 and Nov 3 or 4. Since Nielson doesn't provide figures for arbitrarily selected 5 day periods spanning two months, where did Gorog get the number? Could he have possibly interpolated this figure from a monthly figure? Could he possibly be wrong since Apple has had anywhere from 80,000 to many hundreds of thousands of downloads in a single day?

And what is the CEO of a major corporation doing talking to a crappy rag like TechNewsWorld whihc has a couple of twelve year olds writing for it rather than Forbes, Fortune, CNET, Wired, BillBoard, Reuters, and many other FAR more legitimate news services who are actively covering this story? Could it be that TechNewsWorld is the only crappy outlet that would swallow his story?

And Apple did over 4 million downloads in less than a month a while back... that means that Napster's impressive 25% of the market must have led to 1 million downloads by now. Why haven't they reported ANY numbers sicne the first week. Why hasn't BuyMusic EVER released any numbers. Apple has steadily stated what numbers they have done every few weeks or every couple of months since the beginning. Certainly, Napster must have 1 million by NOW... by their reckoning they should have a few million... but all we get is silence.

This comment had been removed BECAUSE SOMEONE DIDN'T LIKE IT.

This post was edited by sodajerk on Monday, January 05, 2004 at 20:20.

#14 By 1845 (67.161.212.73) at 1/5/2004 6:35:16 PM

"WMA is a not an open format, it is from MS."

I couldn't care less that it's not an open format. I care that my player can play WMA 9, since 1025 of my 1027 auido tracks are in WMA 9. WMA does exactly what I need and does it very well. In like manner, my Zen Xtra does exactly what I need (at a far better price) and does it very well. Oh, and its battery is very easy (and less expensive) to replace too.

#15 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 1/5/2004 6:35:31 PM

Sodajerk, the implication of your statement "despite jumping on the copycat game earliest" is inclusive of other services besides BuyMusic, whether you specified the names or not. Apple did it a different way, yes, but as was discussed at the time of the launch of iTMS, these services could not pop up overnight. Apple may have been out there with a service and total package unlike any other, but that doesn't mean that others weren't gearing up their similar offerings at the same time. About 1-2 years before iTMS was introduced, there were lots of rumblings and rumors about this model and type of service. In fact, long before the Internet was a viable distribution method (or even widely available), similar types of services were being discussed. All I'm saying is that making a statement like "jumping on the copycat game" is quite misleading.

#16 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at 1/5/2004 6:39:54 PM

becker, AAC IS an open format. Fairplay is a protection scheme on top of that, that is not. However, of course Apple would license it ultimately... There was a conference call a ways back, I think the one that was first after the launch, where he fielded a bunch of questions, and he kept saying "For Now..." "For Now..." specifically in respect to FairPlay. Since we are just now seeing the first devices to support AAC, wouldn't it be premature to license FairPlay? That's like saying Apple isn't licensing nough FW800 users when the PC industry is struggling to catch up with FW. There are a ton of legal issues here, as well--I don't know why Apple would risk further liability at the moment when they've got 80% of the market without licensing.

But besides the strategy of acquiring and focusing attention initially and working out the kinks, of course they want to license it. That's like saying: Quicktime, Apple wouldn't like licensing QuickTime to anyone.

This post was edited by sodajerk on Monday, January 05, 2004 at 18:46.

#17 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at 1/5/2004 6:44:55 PM

bluvg, tell me one company that claims they achieved the same licensing agreements as Apple with all 5 (without actually being sued, invested in, partially bought, etc... like Napster) prior to Apple showing it was possible.

Don't tell me BuyMusic didn't have enough time time to rip Apple off--they specifically and clearly did.

And three of the services only came out in the last month or two. Two of them are still in beta. And most of them are still not going to come out until spring of this year. (Yes, Napster was coming, but yes, they had time to incorporate lessons learned from Apple as well.) By then, the ones which weren't copying Apple in some form will already be dead or subsidised by some other dying business.

" All I'm saying is that making a statement like "jumping on the copycat game" is quite misleading."

How the hell is it misleading? I never said Apple was first. I AM saying that most that follow them are copying them. Please make the foolish decision to oppose that statement, lose the support of the other softies. Every service post-iTMS is certainly copying it. And before the iTMS there wasn't much worth copying. And Apple's system was the most original in its entirety prior to everyone copying it. So don't tell me there is anything misleading about "jumping on the copycat game."

By the way, there "were lots of rumblings and rumors", things "were being discussed" about air flight, space travel and nuclear fission before they were actually achieved to... Are you suggesting the actual accomplishment of such feats were just "copying" the people who "talked" about it?

This post was edited by sodajerk on Monday, January 05, 2004 at 18:52.

#18 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 1/5/2004 7:37:43 PM

Hmmm, I really wish I had the time to go back and search those articles. How poor your (selective?) memory is, sodajerk. I recall countless discussions about his very topic, BEFORE iTMS was introduced. So, to say that everyone is "copying" Apple is ridiculous.

Look, a lot of players were trying to work it out at the same time as Apple. Apple got their service on the market first (of its type). How on earth do you deduce that they are "copying" Apple? Your deduction "every service post-iTMS is certainly copying it" simply does not follow. Many players were going for a similar goal at the same time, Apple just got to their particular goal first. That is NOT "jumping on the copycat game." Jumping on the copycat game would mean that those players decided AFTER the RELEASE (or product announcement) of iTMS to START looking into creating a similar service. That is simply NOT the case, and you know it.

This post was edited by bluvg on Monday, January 05, 2004 at 19:38.

#19 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at 1/5/2004 10:04:55 PM

parker, do we know when Nielson begin tracking Apple? If not, I see this as rather inline with known data.

Apple had reported 5 million prior to Nielson beginnning tracking at all (on the 23rd... they may have hit the number before the PR release though).

Apple probably did not get on board with Nielson right away (as it took Napster from 6 to 7 weeks to do so). Nielson has already reported that their data is imprecise but improving, that initially they were not able to capture all downloads for even the services they were tracking, and you cannot say that Apple was being tracked from the 29th on.

So Apple could easily have achieved 10 million before Nielson was tracking them.

So... 25 days (at the maximum) to get to 5 mill (for known UNtracked downloads) + another 4 to 6 weeks (of unreported downloads) for another 5 mill (and/or a fair number of iTMS downloads which were not registered with Soundscan) + 80% of 19.2 million is 15.36 mill = 25.36 million.

So, again, where is this massive bald faced lie?

This post was edited by sodajerk on Monday, January 05, 2004 at 22:10.

#20 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at 1/5/2004 10:34:49 PM

A few interesting bits:

Nielsen reports weekly, not monthly; I apologize for that mistake. BuyMusic is included now as well. But as noted previously, Napster opened in between two different weeks so a single weekly reported number from Nielsen could not be considered accurate, and Gorog would have to be makign some assumptions about how to split two values for two different weeks and sum them for some total.

Nielsen can only capture an approximate 90% of sales.

"Nielsen SoundScan uses proprietary formulas to extrapolate the remaining 10 percent of sales and generate weekly totals. The formulas have evolved as the number and types of music retailers have changed since SoundScan's inception in 1991."

Nielsen also reports singles and albums separately. So... is Gorog magically calculating the number of tracks in each album downloaded (note that the number of tracks downloaded as a full album from iTMS has been between 40 and 50%) to determine a precise single track download figure? How is he doing that?

And, again, what makes the comments of Gorog to TechNewsWorld (a lousy web site) MORE reliable than what Steve Jobs is telling investors and the SEC?

#21 By 135 (208.186.90.91) at 1/5/2004 11:51:46 PM

JWM - I think someone needs to go back to school and learn what Open means.

Both AAC and WMA require licenses to be purchased in order to build players that uses the spec.

Once again, I provide links of grandeur to help you educate yourself...
http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/standard.html

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/create/licensing.aspx

Oh look isn't that interesting... WMA is about half the price of AAC to license.

#22 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at 1/6/2004 1:55:17 PM

soda, Dolby has this great piece of sound code that would go great in a media format, can we add it to WMA/V?

Oh wait, it's not quite open is it.

parker, everything stated by the CEO and CFO in financial meetings and press releases must be truthful. This information is reviewed by the SEC and investors. On the financial calls, you have representatives from large investors (CALPERS for example) who hold enough equity in the company that any questions or concerns they have are answered.

By the way, Jobs mentioned new Soundscan marketshare numbers and, adding MusicMatch, Napster, and BuyMusic, the number only fell from 80% to 70%... ACCORDING TO SOUNDSCAN. Still think Gorog is right to estimate their marketshare at 25%?

#23 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at 1/6/2004 5:10:33 PM

parker, I know you are trying to be a pain in the butt, but I'll still respond.

Jobs would look like a fool quoting Nielsen numbers if he is making them up. Let's see if anyone else has the balls to report data, or if any journalists do since you won't believe anything.

As for Listen.com (and this is presuming they are including a subscription service as well), you still don't understand: Nielsen is tracking paid for downloads. This is what matters to the studios. If Real is only getting a small monthly subscription for many hundreds of downloads per user, that doesn't really help the studio.

And again: Jobs has always quoted the figures as reported by Nielsen -- so when Nielsen wasn't tracking BuyMusic and others, there was still no lie -- he was quoting Nielsen's tracking results... when Nielsen is only tracking paid individual downloads, they are only tracking paid individual downloads and not subscriptions, and there is still no lie.

The fact is Apple has 70% of the market for digital downloads, and Pressplay, Listen.com, MusicNet, Liquid Audio, Napster, MusicMatch, and BuyMusic (7, counte them, 7 companies) are carving up the remaining 30% ACCORDING TO Nielsen Soundscan.

This post was edited by sodajerk on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 at 18:13.

#24 By 4240821 (45.149.82.86) at 10/26/2023 7:04:25 AM

#25 By 4240821 (103.151.103.150) at 10/30/2023 10:12:34 AM

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