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HP Dumped Napster for Apple
Pieter Townshend writes "Found on GMSV: 'In the days leading up to Napster's re-launch last October, a deal that would have put Napster links on millions of Hewlett-Packard computers went bad. HP withdrew from the agreement at the last minute, its reasons for doing so becoming clear three months later when it announced a surprise partnership with Apple to feature the iTunes Music store on HP computers and sell Hewlett-Packard branded iPod music players.'"
Based on the last line of the article "But he expects the business will mature as users realize it's cheaper to pay a flat fee for access to 500,000 tracks than to pay $1 a song."
The problem with the $15 a month is, I don't want to have to pay if I don't use it for a month. As it is I have spent less then $10 a month on iTunes store (and this month I might not spend anything), for me it has been cheaper. So if I look at it I have saved about $25 by not going with Napster. And since I am the only one in my circle at work that uses it, but every one here drinks Pepsi, I am getting free songs from my co-works (that or they would just trash the winning caps), but that is just a non-issue in the long run. With the iTunes store there is great integration into OS X and my iPod.
Also it does cost $.99 do download the song form Napster, so you have to pay for access then to download. From Napsters (www.napster.com) front page "Choose your own tracks for $0.99 each, or get the whole enchilada for just $9.95 per album."
Even though they're under new management, I wonder if Napster still has a bit of a stigma to them that gave HP cold feet?
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
AAC versus secured WMA, no big surprise here that HP decides to go with the non-MS solution.
Smart move, HP! Good on their part, good for Apple, and most importantly, good for the customer.
I wouldn't suprise me if they went with apple just to get away from M$ dominance. M$ has twisted so many arms at HP, Dell and the likes over the years I can understand why they would stay away from M$ if they have the chance. What company wants their arm constantly twisted?
Evolution or ID?
They have almost got it right. I will shell out up to $49.95 a month when I can have access to just about every song ever released by a major record label and some of the independants.
Here's what I want.
1. On Demand Access - meaning I can login from anywhere and stream the music to my PC or internet connected device.
2. Download / Burning Rights - I want to be able to create cds that I can take with me and play in the car.
It's that simple, hell work a deal out with ISP's and let them offer it as a value added service that I can tac on to my account.
When the iTunes store came out, I went a little nuts, and probably spent more on music in 2 weeks than I had in 2 years.
Why? I could finally get that "one song I wanted" issue out of my system. Why by the entire "Queen: Greatest Hits" when I can't stand "Another one bites the dust", and just want "Bohemian Rhapsody"?
Once that was done, I slowed down. I'll still buy an album once every 2-3 months when the fancy strikes me for something new or when another band joins (I'm still holding my breath for the Beatles to get into the music stores, even though I'm starting to see black spots).
So why use a subscription service? Maybe if I could copy those tracks to my iPod (or some other MP3/portable music device) I could almost see the worth of it, but for $15 a month compared to $10 every 2-3 months, I don't see the worth of it.
Otherwise, I think that Napster, and other online stores like unto it, are pretty much in trouble. As the article states, they really don't have a revenue model. The songs probably barely make enough money for the bandwidth/server costs/customer support (meager though the latter should be), and Apple has made no secret that iPods are driving its profits. Sony has come out with their service with probaby superior encoded tracks, but selling them at $1.99 a song is a death kneal for all but the dedicated fans. At that price, I might as well just buy the CD and rip the songs into FLAC or something instead of wasting time downloading them from Sony.
In the end, I see Apple surviving, then as time goes on perhaps making a bigger chunk from the $0.99 per song track once they become the de facto standard (Apple? A dominate player in something? Shock!) and not having to rely so much on iPod sales. I see advertising based music sales doing pretty well - Coke and so on, but my money's on 12 months from now a lot of those services offering iPod compatible tracks through a licensing deal with Apple.
Of course, I could be wrong, but the trends so far seem to support it.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
If I were in HP's position, I'd certainly be disposed to selecting Apple as my partner over Napster. iPods are wildly popular, and iTunes is a going concern run by a company that is a profitable going concern. If I'm HP looking for business partners, I am certainly going to select the one who looks like the way of the future.
Say what you want about Apple, but they keep coming up with great innovations and products that are slick, well designed and quite useful. HP made a very wise choice here and I think they will make a handsome profit from it. Not to mention Apple being "validated" by someone in the WinTel clique, and having a WinTel producer OEM their gear and install their software by default. This is win-win for Apple and HP, and not bad for consumers.
Yes, there is the DRM issue, but is it realistic to think that there will ever be a time when there is no DRM on material like songs? While I wish DRM wasn't necessary, Apple's license is pretty good - use on multiple machines, use on multiple iPods and burn them onto MP3 disks. Perfect? No. Good enough for the vast majority? I'd say so.
interface sucks, and their plug in for MediaPlayer 9 barely works, and fails completely with large fonts enabled. On the other hand, iTunes works perfectly, delivers on every aspect of the experience, from simple purchasing, sleek library management, fast searching and easy burning and sharing with authroized PCs and devices. Apple, as usual, delivers on user experience while solutions based on WMA deliver on inconvenience. I was a long time Wintel/Musicmatch user, but iTunes wins hands down. Buh-bye napster 2, buymusic.com, MusicMatch and whateve half-cooked dish MS will serve.
Personal, I am sad about the whole state of affairs in this industry. Basically, the computer manufacturers are choosing which programs the end user will use for listening to music, which antivirus software they will use. Each new computer that comes off the shelf is bundled with more and more ads and programs that monitor behavior.
The boxes coming out of the shop should stop being called "computers" and should be correctly identified as "ad delivery units."
Apple doesn't have DRM? uhhh... ok... Then why can't I download iTunes music from any OS, burn it with any software, and play it with any player?
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
That Microsoft took iTunes so lightly is a mystery.
In the same way that Microsoft took the internet lightly. Coming to a Theatre near you: Microsoft inbeds its music service in Windows $version.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
I think the legal troubles with Napster that's forever ongoing would scare anyone away.
They say this and that case is settled, but it's BS. You know those damn lawyers keep spawning like bacteria.
But he expects the business will mature as users realize it's cheaper to pay a flat fee for access to 500,000 tracks than to pay $1 a song
...well that's encouraging.
But then the question is, what happens as the users realize it's even cheaper to listen to the internet radio built into iTunes for $0 a month.
Okay, yeah, you can't choose exactly what song you hear next on internet radio. But generally, if I go "hey, I want to listen to X specific song", this indicates I'm going to want to listen to it again someday in the future. Unless I keep paying for Napster's streaming service for the rest of my natural life, I can't get that. Perhaps worst of all, last I heard not *all* of the songs Napster has up for sale are free to stream when you have the $15/mo service, and there's no way to tell which songs can and can't be streamed unless you've already paid for the service.
The $15-to-stream-from-our-library thing is a really neat business proposition, and I'd call it real innovation, but I just can't see buying it. I'd rather just stick with actually buying in some form the tracks/albums. And if you're only looking at buying tracks/albums, Apple's software works both on my macs and my PCs, and they seem to have a bigger and more indie-friendly library. I think I'll stick with them.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I already own all the legit releases by the artists that interest me, but last time I checked I still need about 1,000 Bob Dylan shows just to get that part of my collection up-to-date. God help me when I start on the Grateful Dead or Phish!
Thank goodness for broadband & good ole FTP server software!
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
Since HP sells exclusively Windows products, I doubt DRM, WMA or cross-platform compatibility mattered a pair of fettered dingo's kidneys to the board room. I guarantee having an offer from Time Magazine's Inventor of the Year or whatever, the high profile company with the coolest product, the ones who did it FIRST and MOST VISIBLY, meant a lot more.
It was a matter of "what the consumers seem to think is best" vs "a high risk untested service from a start up whose only merit is name recognition." They went with the company that has the better chance of being there next year...and the one with $5bil to work with.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I guess I must've been imagining things when I was playing iTunes downloads on my Palm with AeroPlayer (after having converted them from AAC to Ogg Vorbis). Stop spreading FUD.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Maybe you can tell me where I can buy a NEW HP consuer PC that doesn't come with Windows XP?
Maybe then you can tell me what your point was?
Nobody play the radio anymore?
And plenty of internet radio's offering great music for free anyway.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
You don't read at above a 3rd grade level, do you?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
The fact that you can defeat the DRM doesn't mean it doesn't have DRM. I'm sure you can get WMA files into any other format (with about the same loss in quality as converting from AAC) with a little effort, too.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Um, how is this different from other large-ticket items, like your car? They decide what brand of radio, what type of transmission, what kind of tires are sold with each model. You're free to replace any of them you want when you've bought the car.
I think you're overgeneralizing from Microsoft and their vendors. With a Mac, yeah it comes w/ iTunes and Sherlock and whatnot. But you can use other programs without any negative consequences. Many people use other programs for a lot of things. Heck, you could set up to log directly into XWindows if you want and use no Apple software (other than their changes to work on the hardware, natch).
Now, Apple computers may not be easily configurable at purchase time as far as hardware goes, but they use industry standards and most pieces you'd want to replace you can. But all of their software packages are just that - software packages.
I have no idea what you mean by 'ad delivery units'. My computer is a tool that actually lets me get things done.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Or you could re rip to unprotected AAC and not lose any quality.
I have a shitty sig!
Come on, kids, this is a no-brainer.
As Steve and Phil told us at the very beginning, and as reality has proven - THERE IS NO MONEY IN SELLING DOWNLOADABLE TRACKS. At least, not for the reseller/portal provider. Apple knew that from the start, and told us as much. They would make their money from sales of the iPod, which would in turn drive more music sales, expand the library, and in turn create more iPod sales.
But the rest of the gang thought they could change reality and make some easy money where it did not exist to be made. Sure, if BuyMusic's million-songs-per-day fantasy had come true, they might have made a few bucks on that volume, but it didn't.
Carly is a smart woman, she figured this out before Napster did, and she made an educated guess that Napster would last about as long as Right Said Fred. (bet you don't remember them!)
My guess would be that they took a look at their own device and they took a look at what was already out there and then made a decision. Perhaps the device by Compaq was a total POS. iPods are the in thing right now. It's a great device. I shelled out over $600 for a new 40 GB iPod, a battery pack, the iTrip to broadcast music over an FM signal and a car charger and I couldn't be happier with my purchases. To be able to take your entire music library with you is a great thing and the iPod makes navigating a huge library of music an easy thing to do (deciding what you want to listen to, on the other hand, can be pretty daunting when you can choose from any CD or song in your library).
I think HP took a look at their device, took a look at the iPod and the integration of the iPod, iTunes and the iTunes Music Store and saw a superior integrated solution and decided to go with that. It was a good business move on their part. They'll sell more devices and they know that they are delivering a quality solution to their customers.
Apple is a solid company that has proven that they can deliver. Napster hasn't proven that it's going to make enough money selling music and subscriptions to stay in business. Apple can fund iTunes through sales of iPods. How can Roxio ever hope to fund Napster if the recording industry should decide to continue charging what it is presently charging for the foreseeable future? The short answer is that it probably can't unless it can sell enough monthly subscriptions. It's not clear at this time what is going to happen to Napster. HP could have some ticked off customers if they bundled Napster and then the company went out of business.
Seriously, I'm tired of seeing "there is no good music" comments, there is a TON of music in any genre being released all the time, and even when there isn't, there's usually a massive back catalog of things that most people don't own, and could look at.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
Why would HP deal with Napster? Song distribution does not bring any money. In fact, Apple claimed (in an old article on TheRegister.co.uk; sorry for no URL) that their iTunes online store did not bring any profit. The money that they recieved for the service was just enough to cover their legal expenses. Apple has created the store so they could sell iPods and provide an efficient way of music distribution. By giving people a player and a source for music, Apple said, "Here is our player that you can buy for a lot of money, and here is a source where you can get the tunes. It is stable and everything works together!" And this is why the whole scheme worked out perfectly fine. Within several weeks Apple has distributed a substantial amount of songs, and guess who bought them? It is a perfect match for HP because they can profit from HP branded iPods and an existing (and stable) online distributor. For anybody in business it is a no brainer. What about Napster? Well, Napster was good when it counted. However, not is it completely useless, there are too many fish in the sea.
Obviously Apple's not giving away to iPod design without getting something in return. For every iPod HP sells, they're going to have to give Apple a cut. So, HP won't be able to make as much profit per iPod as Apple does, but HP has much larger distribution channels than Apple, especially outside North America. There's a lot of interest in tapping emerging markets in eastern Europe and parts of Asia (especially China). By partnering with HP, Apple can get in on that action without having to spend money up front to increase production capacity and develop distro channels overseas, where it currently has little of either.
Apple could likely make more money in the long run by building overseas production and distribution capabilities, but it would require a huge investment up front. Apple does have lots of cash on hand (close to $5 billion!), but right now time is far more of a concern for them. They want to establish themselves in as many marketplaces as possible, as fast as possible, before competing MP3 products get there. It would be no use for them to spend all kinds of money breaking into new markets, only to find that some other vendor has been saturating that same market for six months already with cheaper (albeit less cool) competing product.
>> all the kids nowadays *love* napster
Nah, the "kids" have a short attention span. Napster is soooo yesterday's news.
>> Even though it's not the piracy ship that it used to be
IOW, it sold out (circumstances irrelevant)
>> image amongst youth is still one of being
>> A Good (albeit illegal) Thing.
No. Napster 2 isn't associated with the original Napster phenomenon by ANY of the generation or mindset to which you allude. They've moved on...
And they're well aware of the attempts by marketing droids to broker the rebel Napster image into commercial viability via Napster 2. But unfortunately for the marketing geniuses, it's not in the name but the game.
In theory, if you convert AAC to uncompressed audio and then re-compress at the same bit rate it will only try to throw away information that is already missing from the first encoding, and so there will be no loss in quality. In practice, this only works if both encoders use exactly the same psycho-acoustic model, which they probably won't (I believe the AAC encoder in QT is based on the Dolby Consumer CODEC, while Apple probably use the professional CODEC for iTMS music).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
As others have posted (and I didn't know) that AAC is an industry-developed codec, which makes it well accepted by the Industry. That MS has missed the boat on this one is significant, because they can't just "Netscape" the iPod.
MS is going to have to actually compete in this arena - something they are notoriously poor at.