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Cool Mac Gear• iPod Video • iPod nano • iPod 1G-2G • iPod 3G • iPod 4G • iPod Mini • PowerBook-iBook • Garageband |
By Applelinks Senior Editor John H. Farr
So says Andrew Orlowski, writing for the Register. For our money, if you'd like a nice, clear picture of just what's really at stake in this digital download saga, this is a great article to check out first. There are a number of fascinating lines of reasoning to play with in Orlowski's piece. For example, why has Microsoft been so slow to respond to the very real threat of what Apple is trying to do? And just what is Apple up to? Right now Apple's proprietary digital rights management system (DRM) only facilitates portable tunes on the iPod itself, although Windows users can still download tunes and burn CDs. If iTunes for Windows takes off the way some people think it will, there could be huge pressure on Apple to license the DRM, but then the iTunes downloads could be played on other portable music devices. Apple makes much better money on iPod sales (higher margins) than from selling digital music. If they sell tons more songs, would that make up for (in effect) letting the iPod out of their hands? Is the iPod so cool that more and more Windows users will just buy iPods, download zillions of songs, and let Apple build a successful vertical musical empire? Don't know the difference between horizontal and vertical business organization? Hint: Microsoft is horizontal. Of course, whether this means anything outside of business school orthodoxy is a whole other question, also an issue on which Orlowski has good points to make. As corporate dramas go, this one is pretty juicy, or could be. Read the Register article and see.
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