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Where do you think the record profits come from

Just a "DREAM"

I hope the iPod dies!! I it is pure monopolistic evilness. I have long felt that as online music stores become more popular and we start seeing more cool devices that iPod users will begin to scream about its incompatibility. If that day comes, hopefully Apple will use a fireware upgrade to unlock the iPod for use with other stores.

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I hope the iPod dies!! I it is pure monopolistic evilness. I have long felt that as online music stores become more popular and we start seeing more cool devices that iPod users will begin to scream about its incompatibility. If that day comes, hopefully Apple will use a fireware upgrade to unlock the iPod for use with other stores.

Keep in mind the ipod came well before the music store... and they are being no better or worse than any other company. Apple makes liitle to no money on the music store and it is used to support the harware business. Do you also with Microsoft would die?

All other manufactures have updated their media players to support a verity of music stores. When you ask if I think MS should die, I assume you are implying that they are doing the same thing; which is patently not true. Microsoft is making every effort to make all the players and music stores compatible with each other; Apple just doesn't want to play ball in that court.

Being monopolistic is using one product to force users to buy another; like what MS did with Windows 95 and Internet Explorer. Maybe Apple is not making much money from iTunes (I seem to remember it was about 1¢ per song), but they know in the long term that users with huge iTunes collections are not likely to buy anything but another iPod when it comes time to upgrade their music player.

Say what you like about Microsoft, but I think their digital music format is great (I would think differently if they didn’t allow other companies to use it). I just think these companies like Napster, Dell, Music Match and so on need to be slapped for allowing Apple to get such a strong head start. Windows XP included all the support needed for an online music store (almost 2 years before the iTunes store opened), but no one built a store around that support.

A variety of music stores? You mean they support stores other than WMA based ones? Oh, wait, you think variety means taking a product, licensing exactly the same thing to other companies just so they can slap on a different sticker. Yeah, that different brand name creates variety alright. Even if they used WMA but were allowed to freely define/negotiate terms of service with the labels, you might have a point. It seems like the TOS on all the WMA stores are more or less the same.


I'd like to see more stores with "more" formats, especially some with no DRM. I know the last is a pipedream but it would be nice and all players could support them without being locked into either MS or Apple DRM schemes.

Don't fool yourself. There are really only two choices: Apple or MS.

BTW. How do you feel about MS competing directly against its licensees with MSN Music? Is that fair?

Yes there is a verity of music stories and they are largely similar with small differences. Putting format aside, there is almost no difference between iTunes and the others. This is because the record labels are controlling what is and is not allowed to be done with their music, and why you will never see a music store not using DRM. (Hopefully DRM will someday allow users enough flexibility to not hinder legitimate use)

You seem to be implying that just because a store uses the WMA format that it is controlled by Microsoft. That is almost as silly as making the claim that all software apps written for Windows are just MS apps with a "different sticker". WMA and DRM are Microsoft's platform for media. Most companies have chosen to use it because it is cheaper to pay Microsoft's licensing fees then to develop their own DRM.

Windows Media is to computer media what Blu-Ray is to high-def video. You can use a non-Sony player to play a non-Sony movie on your non-Sony high-def TV just as you can use a non-MS store to buy music with your non-MS software and transfer it to your non-MS player. In both cases Sony and Microsoft respectively would be getting royalties, but I would not make the claim that you are dealing with a single company and different stickers.

As for your options, you are right, you have two. You can choose a company like Apple who will only ever support its own products, or you can choose a format supported by everyone else.

I can understand why so many people may be confused about Microsoft’s involvement in the PlaysForSure label and other stores using WMA. MS wants to see Windows Media become an industry standard (so they can profit from licensing fees), so naturally they are promoting the heck out of the entire industry.

Well Apple is not really concerned about making money on the music store as they are for pushing standards such as AAC and MP4. The MP4 standard just happens to be based on the Quicktime container structure, so obviously Apple would be pushing that standard.

Since both AAC and MP4 are industry standards, you don't have to have Apple specific software/codecs in order to use them on your device be it a cell phone or set top box. There in lies the advantage.

What Apple wants to do is to leverage the adoption of these standards in devices (which makes Apple no money) to try to expand their market in the area of content creation/management by selling mac hardware/software to the various industries involved in content distribution and content creators/artists.

This is a different approach/strategy from what MSFT is using. You don't see MSFT producing any real content creation tools. They just provide the codecs/libraries.

That sounds nice, if it were true. Unfortunately Apple's DRM is proprietary; so files purchased from the iTunes Music Store can only be played on iTunes, an iPod and any future device Apple decides to bless with their support (such as that newly announced cell phone).

You are correct in that Microsoft is not trying to sell media creation products; they are not currently in that market. That is why they have partnered with Adobe and a few other big names to provide options in their products to create Windows Media files.

To each his own, different companies have different ways of making money. Apple is using the popularity of the iPod to lock uses into their digital media world; Microsoft is using its weight to create a digital media platform. Out of the two, I prefer the Microsoft idea of allowing others to play inside their digital media platform, unlike Apple who wants to be the only player.

*Shrug* On the Apple side of things, there are a lot of third-party products and add-ons for the iPods. I bought my iPod back in 2002. That was years before iTMS came to Canada. You're right that the DRM is licensed only to Motorola so far but that point was largely moot for Canadians until Dec 1st 2004 as we got out music from CD's.

I don't think this DRM'ed music is necessarily the major source of music for people, even iPod users at least at this time.

DRMed WMA is windows only. That is more of a concern to me as I cannot use those stores/player at home as a mac user. I can use iTunes and iTMS purchased songs at home on my mac and on my windows workstation at work.

Ok so for me, there is cross-platform compatibility, and a choice of many third-party upgrades/addons for iPods. As you say, to each their own.

Well, there are WMA players (that support Microsoft's DRM) for the Mac OS, but I don't think Microsoft's Mac version of the Windows Media Player does (go figure). You are right that if you are primarily a Mac user, then iTunes is probably your best bet for now. I am more speaking for the large number of iPod buyers who run Windows.

I use DRM a lot and think we will be seeing more, not less of it. There are a few issues I have with it (you should be able to let friends barrow your music, and you should be able to use songs in home movies), but for the most part I think it is a good idea. It will not be too long before we start sing DRM movies for download (one company is already doing that with Microsoft’s technology, but it currently has an extremely limited selection).

Same old misguided notion that marketshare is all that matters. Apple has been and will continue to be about profits and keeping their brand strong. Marketshare is certainly nice but not at the expense of profits, a lesson Apple learned in the 90s.

That is a lesson that IBM unfortunately did not learn. IBM should have stuck to a strategy of offering corporate desktops and value added packages to consumers instead of chasing after the same market eMachines, Gateway and Dell were after.

I'm not saying that the market Dell and those guys is necessarily bad but companies should stick to what their good at.

Last edited by 18285 on 13 Jan 2005 - 18:26

Misguided? I'm saying they're extremely successful, that they could possibly move into market-share gain, two entirely different things.

I think was Himosan is concerned about is how some companies sacrifice long term profitability to gain marketshare in the short term. When you don't rely on other companies like MSFT and Intel/AMD to drive innovation, you have to make sure you earn enough of a profit margin to pay for R&D.

agree

Which products are so overpriced?

Quite frankly, every single one of them.

If so they wouldn't be experiencing record profits. People buy because they perceive it to be worth the price, not overpriced.

So their iLife software is overpriced? Where can you get multi-channel sequencers with multi-channel recording an realtime music notation+iDVD quality DVD authoring+iMovie quality HD movie editing for the price of 79.00 USD on the PC?

Are their iBooks overpriced when you add up the software and hardware bundled with it?

Is this new Mac Mini over priced when you consider it's formfactor, included hardware and software (such as iLife and Appleworks)?

In that conference call, Apple said that their profit margin on the eMac and mac mini were the same and both were below the company average.

Last edited by 18285 on 13 Jan 2005 - 18:28

I shopped for high-end laptops for a couple of months before deciding on a PowerBook. It was comparably priced to anything out at the time, and had more features. I think it was maybe $200 more than a comparable Dell. A bonus is that my resell value, if I decide to sell it, will be decent.

I agree, although I don't use Mac computers myself (maybe someday) I do like seeing more competition in the computer industry. The more ground Apple gains the less ground other companies will have and that will force them to start making better products to compete against Apple. In the end the consumer wins and that is all that matters to me.

I didn't realise the Mac had seen a 5% increase in usage in the last month- interesting...

That's a bad analogy because it can be easily debated. Here's a better one: Mac is to PC as Starbucks is to Nescafé.

Those are pretty ignorant coments, Ambience and jagedEdge, considering a Mac is a PC.

Since I'm such a nice guy, allow me to correct them:

Mac is to PC as Firefox is to Web browser.

Mac is to PC as Starbucks is to Coffee store.

Umm Mac is to PC as VW Beetle is to Hummer?

Ooo Ooooo I got it, Mac is to PC as Nice Girlfriend is to $20 Prostitute (alot of viruses there)

More like Mac is to PC as BMW is to Dodge.

(Not to be taken seriously)

Hey Balablebaldo... that's gotta be one of the funniest things I've read this year!

Ummm, SVT, although you are correct in the litteral sence as PC stands for personal computer, the term was origanally used in reference to IBM compatible computers. In this sence, PC is the alternative to MAC. I am very surprised to see that you are noy familiar with this common term.

Oh look.. Is that a pig I see flying before my eyes?

And I just checked the tempurature in Hell, it seems to be dropping

*Note: Don't take what I say seriously, its all in good humor.

Well hell froze over already when iTunes was ported over to windows.

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My predictions are begining to come true. Apple will come to dominate the IT sector by the end of the year, mark my words.

Some people just don't think before they talk. What would it take for Apple to "dominate" the IT sector? Well, in my book they would have to have a market share almost as big as Microsoft's for it to be considered domination. It takes Microsoft almost 3 years for a new OS to “dominate”; so even if we figure that every Windows user in the world wanted a Mac, it would still take at least 3 years for the transfer to happen.

Anyway, not going to happen. Sorry. Maybe in 10 years.

true.

I agree there. Right now I'm typing this on a Sony VAIO TR3A laptop, was it over priced? A little. Was it worth the extra money? Certainly! You ask most Mac users if Apple is over priced and they will say no becasue they feel the extra cost is worth what they are getting. And as long as people feel the extra money is worth it in the end neither Apple nor Sony will drop their prices. So really they do have a clue in pricing, they know what they can charge and still have a good customer base.

I think you are unaware that most PC brands are actually far too underpriced, the driving force behind the desktop PC has been price and nothing but, how much diversity is there in the PC industry these days? a green motherboard instead of a red one? a black case instead of a white one?, the low margins they have had to suffer are starting to cause the PC market to be consolidated into only a few well known names and this in turn has caused caused turmoil in the IT industry as a whole leading to massive problems with outsourcing and 9x% of all manufacturing sent to the pacific rim not to mention huge drops in R&D something that Apple and Sony are very big on.

Bottom line if you operate off a Wallmart type margin making only a few dollars per PC sold you have to make up the difference elsewhere. So next time you look at an Apple machine or even a Sony one that is honestly priced not overpriced take a moment to think about all your other complaints like Indian call centres etc etc.

The keyword in your post was SOME. Some Macs are overpriced, yes. Right now the PowerBook is overpriced since it hasn't been updated in so long, and some might say the PowerMac is overpriced but considering what you get with a PowerMac, they aren't bad deals at all.

If you want a Mac, you can buy one right now from Apple for $499.

Sadly engineeing software is still a problem. If you really want to try a Mac, the mini would make for a great second computer.

Smaller ammounts of people spend more ammounts of money on more Mac computers. Since for most models, the only way to upgrade is to buy another $1000+ machine, only the die-hard mac fans stick around for very long at all. Eventually, there can be only one...

your assumption is wrong. unless of course you really think every mac user bought 2-3 more macs in the quarter alone.

good point!

They do that all the time with "Microsoft" as well.