Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Just in time for the Superbowl ad and the Pepsi promotion thing.
I wonder what color the HP iPod will be.
Will it have the same font as the Apple iPod?
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
over the HDD music market.
apparently, the only thing that will be different about these devices is that they will be HP blue and have HP on the case. the rest of it is unmodified. the iPod firmware will be the same as the firmware that the rest of the product line uses.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
This is a pretty huge sign that the PC world is impressed with what Apple has done. From a company that clearly has the ability to enter a new market behind other market leaders and have success (iPaq PDAs), they recognize that they can't build something to defeat the iPod (unlike Dell's DJ move) and their best move is to join 'em.
Beter still, HP is preloading apple software on their systems. This will be a boon to Apple as it makes it even easier to access the music store.
With AOL, HP, and Pepsi all endorsing iTMS and the iPod, 2004 is shaping up to be a big year for Apple and On-line Music.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Apple tried this with their computer architecture, and they began hemoraging business. The licensed cloners undercut Apple's hardware prices, and Apple itself couldn't compete.
HP will, in all likelyhood, make a "cheaper iPod," and cut into one of Apple's darling moneymakers. Remember, Apple makes no money off of iTunes MS, but uses it as a way of promoting the iPod.
I give this one year, max.
Thomas Galvin
it would be nice if HP did a smaller one and sub $100, I would think that a $99 for 1Gb would be good for the low end market.
well if competition drops the iPod price, then Apple has jumped the gun and gets royalties, license fees, or whatever, which might exceed what which they would expect to make off sales of iPod at the lower cost which competition will force.
holy run-on batman. did any of that make sense? what i think i'm trying to say is that Apple expects the price of iPods to go down sometime soon. While they are a hot commodity, they license the technology at a very good price for themselves. the competing products will both be less expensive, and sales matter less to Apple now, since they get a peice of the competitions pie anyway.
Apple will certainly benefit from this... Many people that aren't "in the know" would write off the iPod as an Apple product that isn't compatible with the PC. Now they get to position their product to another group of people. Let's not forget about the old-timers ("bah, HP's been around longer than Apple, so the HP product must be better!"). They'll be transformed, too.
[sig] 10 + 10 = 100 [/sig]
Nope:
There are several things to license:
Why do you think we don't see lots and lots of 20 30 and 40 GB hard drive players? Apple co creates/researches with Toshiba and apparently now with Hitachi.
The iPod OS is very slick and even though there are close to similar copies - none are as easy - no other player has the games that I'm aware of either
Lastly, they license the implementation of Quicktime AAC - while AAC is open itself - the secure component of it Apple owns.
+ Apple licenses out the firewire name
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
how the hell do you respond to this? HP is the largest PC manufacturer behind Dell, correct? And Dell has its plans to do its own Music Store, correct?
So Apple, who has already made great inroads to the PC market, is going to make it in even deeper. I think this bodes well for Apple, and I don't know how even MS could fight this off, at least not without doing something that would violate the rulings or what not from the monopoly trial.
Of course, if they did do something that might violate it, and it wouldn't surprise me if they did and it went unnoticed, this time Apple might get into it...
Anyways, the only bad thing I can see coming out of this for Apple is the fact that it might stop people from switching to Apple computers, since, unless the marketing is done well, newbies might not realize this is an Apple product, not an HP product.
BTW, I didn't RTFA so feel free to flame me, but how will Apple keep the supply up? Is HP going to help manufacturing etc.?
Blake
With the iPod, iTMS, and now HP-branded iPods, Apple is working hard to keep WMA from controlling online music. That also makes it more difficult for MS to dominate in the video playback market as well, because one of the supposed advantages of WMP is that it acts as a playback mechanism for a wide variety of media, all delivered in Windows Media formats.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Sounds like Apple is going for mass-mass production of the iPod/iPod mini players to get per-unit costs down. Having a guaranteed buyer for a significant portion of them allows Apple to produce that many units without having to worry about excess inventory on their end.
Look for Apple to either make more per iPod on the ones that they sell, plus the revenue on units that they wholesale to HP. Also, I'd expect the recent shortages of iPods to be a thing of the past once manufacturing is ramped up. This is great news for 3rd party equipment manufacturers (like Belkin, and th replacement battery sellers) as they get to sell more product, at possibly lower prices.
Plus, Apple gets more clout with record distributors when negotiating future rates (or trying to get hard-to-license songs) since the available pool of iTunes/iPod users will grow.
This is win-win-win, for Apple, Apple partners, and iPod/iTunes buyers/users. The only people this would be bad news for are Microsoft and the other WMA player folks.
I wonder. It's long been speculated that Apple may some day bring OS X to the x86 platform. It's technically feasible and has most likely already been proven so. OS X is now at a stage where it's stable and reached a point where even the die-hard OS 9 users can't avoid it any longer - and has essentially become what OS X should've been in the first place. They are however still selling product to the converted - and this is where iTunes comes in. It all starts with introducing iTunes to Windows users. Windows users use iTunes and soon realise that Apple can write some fantastic software. It's free, without ads and it works famously. Apple then decides to partner with HP to sell an HP branded iPod to those Windows users who still can't get themselves to buy an Apple branded iPod even though it will work with Windows. An HP iPod on the other hand will be easier for them to swallow - it's all about establishing a comfort factor. Once the HP pod starts getting more glowing reviews and iTunes becomes even more prevelent on Windows desktops, Apple and HP would be in a great position to produce HP branded computers (x86?) running OS X - as by that time they'd have established their market. HP has the manufacturing and cabibility to pull this off whereas it's doubtful that Apple does, esp with a potentially different platform.
www.brownsauce.org
Bzzt! Wrong again. The last few StyleWriters were Apple-labeled HP printers. Specifically, the Color StyleWriter 4100, CSW 4500, and CSW 6500. Like the Canon-based printers before them, they could use the equivalent HP ink cartridges instead of the Apple cartridges.
Interestingly, Apple still sells cartridges for nearly all their ink-jet and laser printers. I've noticed that (at least as far as MSRP goes), the Apple ink-jet carts are less expensive than their HP or Canon equivalents. I used to work at a campus bookstore where this was the case, and we'd sell the Apple carts to people looking for the Canons and save them 8 or 9 bucks a pop.
CyberDave
This is big for Apple. First of iTMS is a loss leader so competitors aren't that big a deal unless the recording industry gets their heads out of their asses, promotes downloads, and standardizes on a few outlets. (No sign of that happening) Anyway, Real will end up selling more iPods for Apple.
Of course this all makes sense. Real is getting hit from Microsoft's player as well as the success of iTunes/iTMS. Unless they get something going, even at a loss, they may disappear in a few years. So they've got to come up with an iTunes/iTMS competior -- likely supporting video unlike iTunes. Will it work? It's hard to say. The old RealJukebox from a few years back was my favorite player but became dated quickly and then was killed in favor of a subscription based RealOne. Plus most other iTMS competitors haven't done well. And there are more coming including one from Sony. Meanwhile Apple's system is garnering the best reviews, despite heavy marketing from companies like Napster. With the new Pepsi ad compaign I don't see anyone toppling them.
But perhaps they can manage to be the Pepse to Apple's Coke. (Yea, ironic, isn't it?) Right now iTMS and others may not make money. But three or four years from now the market may shift such that this becomes the standard distribution channel and bandwidth becomes such that you can make more money at it. Look at Amazon. How long did they lose money?
"HP is fscking over American IT employees because we let them. Our government won't even.... Ooooh, iPods!"
Just like Ford fscked over the buggy whip industry, the horse and carriage industry, and decimated the "we clean horse shit off of the street" service industry.
Joe Slashdot: just like everyone else "Keep the gov't off my back, man... but put it on HPs because they've found someone that can do my job for half the price. Fuck progress, I have a mountain of credit card debt to pay off."
Evolve or die, simple as that. If you're skill level was only as high as your average India-based call center worker / HTML jockey you ain't all that skilled.
Imagine if you will this product - a PC, with iTunes built in AND a CF/card reader AND an HP photo printer, all in one case.
It sounds stupid at first to build a printer into a device like that but I really think it would attract a lot of users that wanted a simple solution. It would gain a lot of mindshare for HP which currently has very little in the PC space (among consumers)...
As precident I'll note that Epson is releasing TV's with built in printers and card readers, where you can browse you images on TV then print them right there! If Epson can do that then a PC built for photo work is much less insane.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In a classic HBR (Harvard Business Review) article back in the early 90s, the domination of the computer industry by Microsoft and Intel was predicted.
The foundation of this article was the position that control of a lower layer in the stack allowed you to extract significnatly more revenue higher up in the stack. Microsoft by controlling the OS could extract revenue for applications; Intel by controlling the processor could extract revenue for support chips and logic boards.
This has turned out to be a "law" and has worked to the advantage of both these companies.
It now looks like Apple is working to grab the "Music Sales and Distribution" layer, and it looks like this will allow them to extract revenues they previously were not able to get.
Interesting...gives hope for Apple down the road...
Yours,
Jordan
PS. Love my iPod!
I have one of the first sold, almost 6 years ago. Back then, it featured 10 hour battery life, gapless play (albums were ripped as one large mp3 with pointers), and open sourced PC client and drivers. It is still the golden standard for audio quality from such a device. No player out there has all of its technical features, still.
People were so excited when it first came out, delayed over a year (yes, this thing was ready to be sold in '96/'97), that the first units were bid as high as $2000 on mp3.com. My girlfriend, flush with dot.com bucks, bought me one.
So, what happened given the HP acquisition? What happened when a shipping product was so accutely sought after, people where paying 4x what Compaq originally sought to price it at? It was abandoned, licensed to a Korean company called Hango that had no marketing or R&D budget, and forgotten. The engineers on the project were sacked. Even the case was ugly, but the unit was (and still is) great. Given the time frame, the orginal is the size of two iPods wide.
HP could have had a platform and something like iTunes a long time ago. This is apparently the new HP.
If Apple had been smart enough to license and port Mac OS to X86 they might actually have a sizeable marketshare. Apple trying to stick it out as a hardware company is what dragged Apple down to its current position as a total niche hardware maker with a 3% market share. If they had licensed and pushed for Mac OS they would have become a much bigger software company than their current hardwaree company model provides for. Look at Microsoft. They correctly bet on software and while the rest of the world including Apple lost their shirts in the cut-throat hardware market Microsoft gained ground until they became the dominant player they are today.
.5% operating margin. Barely getting along compared to what they could have been doesn't seem like something to celebrate IMO.
So yea Apple is a hardware company with Good profits on a small amount of hardware. They could have been a software company with a smaller amount of profit on a Huge amount of software. They made a dumb decision and have insured they will never be more than a bit player and forever lost the chance to become a market leader of Microsoft's size.
btw last time I heard Apple was getting by on a
From an end user view I can see Apple users doing nothing but praising the small niche that Apple reside in. From an economic point of view I can only shake my head and think of what could have been.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I don't know that it would play out this way, but potentially, this move might allow Apple to start offering all Apple branded iPods as being the natively Mac-formatted versions, while the blue HP versions come formatted for Windows by default.
(Apple currently offers only second-rate Windows support for the iPod as it stands, anyway. You can't boot a DOS/Windows type OS over firewire to a PC - although you CAN do this on a Mac system. iPods formatted in Apple's HFS+ format won't synchronize to iTunes on a Windows PC unless you run Apple's utility to reformat the iPod in FAT32, erasing anything already on it. That or you buy a 3rd. party PC product that can read Mac filesystems, like "MacOpener".)
Darwin, yes. Any other part of the OS, no.
Can you say costly, pain in the ass, and serves no purpose?
I thought you could.
There's a ton of shit that had to be moved into the NeXT base from OS 9. No one would bother making all that code work on x86.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
...an agreement that would allow MS to buy future Apple developments. (This has a lot to do with why XP looks so much like a Macintosh OS in some ways.)
I'm not sure that's correct. Microsoft hired frogdesign to design the user interface for Windows XP ("Luna.")
frogdesign was responsible for many of the early Apple II and Macintosh industrial design (but not the Aqua user interface, which was an outgrowth of the product design of Jonathan Ives.)
For those who love -- or hate -- XP's interface, you have to thank/blame frogdesign.
I don't really understand this line of thinking.
Imagine Apple opened up their OS, let people build Mac compatibles, and ported their OS to x86.
Given this scenario, what is different about Apple that would let them survive, face to face against Microsoft on Microsoft's home turf, where every other company that tried this failed? OS/2 died, the DOS clones died, NeXT couldn't do it, Be couldn't do it, etc.
The thing you do not want to do is sell a product that directly competes with MS-DOS or Windows.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
A lot of people don't get that. I personally do not want to be locked into a M$, Gov, media company, homeland security DRM scheme.
/. 'rs would be rooting for Apple because the alternative, in all its Windo$e permutations involves strict controls and payments.
This IS huge in the format/DRM wars. In the larger picture it goes back to to the 1984 commercial. It wasn't about Big Blue, it was about having a powerful tool at your fingertips. I pay for that when I buy my Mac. I pay for the ability to see iTunes playlist "automatically". (I do have to turn on a preference)
I would think that
There is a revolution going on. Has been since people realized that PC's were useful. We can either keep control of our PC's or give it up.
"You can tell the pioneers by the arrows in their backs"