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Monday, December 13, 2004 |
Who Will Sue Apple First Over The iPod Monopoly?
s I scanned the net for interesting music and player news, I came upon this statistic in MacNewsWorld. Apple and the iPod hold 90% of the hard drive player market. That is an interesting number because it is very similar to the percentage of the PC OS Market Microsoft holds with Windows.
Apple[base ']s success means they need to stop thinking like Apple and start learning the lessons of Microsoft. With rumors of a new 5GB iPod mini and smaller flash-based iPod on the horizon, Apple is clearly looking to expand and strengthen the iPod brand.
The strong exclusive ties to iTunes and the new offerings of exclusive iTunes / iPod only tracks from U2 are all smart aggressive business decisions. The problem is, by the end of 2005, Apple could be facing lawsuits over exclusive and exclusionary tactics, because what is smart and legal for most companies, under law can retroactively be ruled monopolistic and illegal when a company is too successful.
Cluelessness is clearly setting in amidst the iPod success. Not only are we seeing the usual staple of articles claiming that Apple will lose because... Well, because it has lost before... As if selling personal computers and Music players were exactly the same thing (Clue 1: There is no corporate market for music players). But this one is a new twist. Apple will get sued because Apple sells 90% of the hard drive based Mp3 players and... (wait for it) that is exactly the same as Micro$ucks owning 90% of the operating systems market...
Of course, it isn't, not even close. An illegal monopoly is defined by three things: High Market share of a whole market not a part of it (Micro$ucks even tried to have handhelds included in order to reduce their market share numbers. Apple has nothing of the sort, once you include Flash-based Mp3 Players), a high barrier of entry (Again, Apple has nothing of the sort), intention of preserving or extending the monopoly through illegal means (eg, tying. Since the other two are void discussing this one is futile). One thing that is coming for sure: More articles of people that know nothing about Apple and, hence, are amazingly wrong about its future, most of them negative, God knows why.
5:30:49 PM 
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Fight against phishing moves to a new level. The announcement last week of a new antiphishing consortium that includes financial services firms, Internet service providers, IT vendors and law enforcement agencies represents one of the most concerted efforts yet to curb the growing problem of e-mail data-theft scams. [MacCentral News]
Huh? It seems to be the same old level of there is nothing we can do about phishing! And, really, there isn't, either people learn or they will be fooled.
11:29:19 AM
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In U.S. Market, Cellphone Users Are Often All Talk. Users in the United States continue to think of a cellphone as a device for talking, not text messaging. Marketers, however, hope to change that as soon as possible. By By KEN BELSON. [NYT > Technology]
Another part of this story is the price difference between SMS and voice, in Europe three SMS message cost the same as one minute of voice, in the US the proportion is less, sometimes one to one, so people prefer to talk since you can clear a lot in one minute talking that may require two or three messages. Another factor in the US is that you already have unlimited plans so you can call without extra cost, why spend time writing if talking doesn't cost more?
10:59:07 AM
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© Copyleft 2005 Alfredo Octavio.
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