HP Licenses Apple's iPod & iTMS

grouchomarxist writes "According to the press release here and this article at Forbes HP is licensing Apple's iPod technology for its own MP3 player and use the iTunes Music Store. 'HP and Apple today announced a strategic alliance to deliver an HP-branded digital music player based on Apple's iPod, the number one digital music player in the world, and Apple's award-winning iTunes digital music jukebox and pioneering online music store to HP's customers.'"

Comments

Re:Attack of the Clones, Part II

[Llywelyn]

Before you get moderated too far up by people who want a Mac clone and have wanted it despite that it would kill Apple, let's look at what this deal actually entails.

The HP_iPod will be the same as a 3rd gen iPod in terms of hardware. That is, AFAIK, the extent of the hardware side of this "cloning." Apple probably gets a percentage of the profit from this (I don't see them as the type to go for a one-time fee).

This either doesn't undercut Apple at all or barely does so. If HP produces them on top of that (haven't read the article yet) it just provides additional iPods when Apple already has trouble meeting demand.

As a plus, HP is also going to install iTunes all HP systems. That's of tremendous value to Apple, since then nobody will need to download them.

This is not cloning, is not vaguely related to cloning (more like Apple licenses the right to produce a specific model of Apple computer with rebranding), and Apple is not going to be undercut or suffer cannibalization of sales as a result of this.