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Microsoft, Sony Announce iPod Competitors
Pfhreak writes "According to the Denver Post -- Las Vegas section, a little over halfway down the page -- Microsoft will begin selling a $50 music player that will 'look and feel as good as the iPod' later this year. Yusuf Mehdi, a Microsoft VP, is quoted as saying that the player will give customers more choices than Apple."
In related news, Tetsugaku-San writes "The Register has the scoop on Sony's new portable audio/visual playback device. Impressively it plays MPEG2, MPEG4, BMP, GIF, PNG, TIFF and MP3 (finally they got the message Apple was gonna whoop em!) straight out of the box. Not as good battery life as I'd like to see, but real world tests remain to be seen."
this is going to have a similar capacity? If so, IPOD should be out of business with that price difference.
The safest way to approach lava is to have another person with you and he goes first.
That's just the way it is. I want my open-source, patent-free, DRM-free codec.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
Loss leaders like this are illegal in Europe. Why the Xbox is allowed, I don't quite understand. I presume it's because they argue that they make money through the software.
How this argument will work with MP3s when there are multiple vendors, I don't quite get.
i hear the sony player has terrible audio quality. that's why it's cheap. also the sony music service is plagued by technical problems. just something to consider... you might want to check around a little before getting one of these.
I hope these players let us access the content normally through the filesystem, unlike the iPod :)
In order to let folks know just how cool Microsoft is, they always seem to pre-announce products by several months to years and invariably when they come out, they always seem to be somehow less than they promised. The iPod is good.....damned good. So I am certainly going to take a wait and see approach, but one usually gets what they pay for.
I likely will be sticking with the iPod I suspect.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Not trying to flamebait or anything, but haven't we seen this type of strategy before?
Dejavu is such a wonderful thing.
Look and feel are cheap. The question is whether it will work and sound as good. The principal attraction of the iPod is that it's intuitive and meshes well with iTunes. That's worth money to users.
I'm glad that iPod is getting some competition (it will make iPods better to) but I don't see that this is necessarily a death blow for them.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Alright, how many people actually have the need for a mobile video device. I mean, audio I can understand, but how often have you sat on the subway going, "I'd really like to watch a movie right now." That must be one long commute....
I mean the only use I can think of is for mobile pr0n needs, and if that's the case, I sure as hell don't want to be sitting next to them wthhout a raincoat.
I really fail to see what value is added with having a colour screen and video playback. I don't think many people have any need for video playback they'd be using a portable device. Unless they have other behaviours in mind like using it primarily as an audio player and a video player or data storage when you arrive at your destination. Just from the perspective of my own behaviours I'm definitely not sold on video playback as a must-have feature. For the same reason portable RF televisions or DVD players aren't terribly popular I see this Sony unit as being similar.
_nfotxn
I'll bet it only plays Windows Media...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Yup, you get what you pay for. Dell makes some cheap laptops, but they have this tendency to fall apart in about a week. That doesn't happen with powerbooks.
:P Apple has earned my loyalty by making a great product; Microsoft's business practices (and OS) make me want to blow up their headquarters on a daily basis. I'm sure others agree with me :)
And as for their music player, it's rediculous. They make you pay extra for "enhanced" (i.e. non-crippled) software, and I'm sure the hardware isn't as good as Apple's. Apple, unfortunately (for their sales department), always adds features that are hard to market. For instance, read any review of MP3 players and you'll find that Apple's sound output hardware (DA converters, amp, etc.) is the best. But you can't really market that.
Oh well. The people who want a good music player will buy the Apple and the people who want a new toy will buy the M$ box. That's the way things have always been, and I don't see how it affects me if M$ makes a $50 music box. Whatever
My other car is first.
These articles shit me. The thing is, Apple is a fashionable company. They make fashionable computers and fashionable products and this puts them in a different league to Microsoft et al. Geeks do not, by their very nature, understand fashion. Microsoft's competing product may be cheaper, Sony's may have more features etc etc. That will mean nothing to a kid who wants an iPod. I doubt that Ferrari were worried when Kia/ Daewoo/ Hyundai popped onto the car scene; I don't think Armani is worried that you can buy shirts for $20 at Kmart, and so on. The Apple iPod is a fashion accessory. Paris Hilton ( or insert vacuous celebrity here) won't be caught dead using a cheap Microsoft rip off and millions of teenagers will feel the same way. Apple could double the price of their iPod range and they'd still sell them. Apples are desirable. They're cool. Microsoft has never been cool and never will be no matter what they do. Can you really imagine a company owned and run by Bill Gates producing something that teenagers everywhere go nuts for? Compare their interface designs to Apple's.... Sony are too sensibly Japanese to be cool. There is no iPod killer. When cool people start saying "Levis are dead - I can buy jeans for 1/5 the price at Target" then maybe, just maybe, Apple should start to worry.....
Putting syrup in coffee is some form of blasphemy.
Geez, not another one! I expect the Sony product to be well designed, a lot of attention to detail -- and high priced. And don't forget, Sony has built-in schizophrenia -- their music division -- MP3 is evil, remember? Sony could have owned the market with mini-disc, but their own paranoia crippled the product (no high-speed digital download, clunky proprietary software, etc.)
But a friend points me to the Sony announcement -- it plays movies, all these formats. Does it have a corkscrew, I ask? GPS?
What? Corkscrew? GPS? Yeah, if it's going to replace things, it should play my AV stuff, have a corkscrew, show me where I am, and be sturdy enough to pound nails...
Really -- what I want in a portable music player is to play music. I don't care about video, GPS, cell phone, or anything else.
As to the iPod killer? It's already on the market. It stores enough of my music, the battery lasts long enough, it drives my earphones (Etymotics ER4), and it's small enough to carry in a pocket.
It's the iPod mini. It does what I want, and I love it.
There weren't really and HD-based MP3 players before the iPod. So the "Mac Zealots" are pretty close to the truth anyway. But BTW, I didn't see any zealots saying anything about this. You are putting words in their collective mouth.
:)
Anyway, I think it's great that microsoft wants to sell me $200 hard drives for $50 in a nice shinny box. Me buying a new mini hard drive == M$ losing $150. What a deal
My other car is first.
Classic Microsoft. There is no way MS could or would want to release such a cheap device but it sure as hell is great to FUD everyone out of buying an iPOD.
There's no mention of the technical details of the MS player but it's a fair bet it will only do MS-proprietery formats, and theres no mention of OGG support on the Sony specs either. ..And thats reason enough for me not to buy either one.
Odds are it will be an iPod shaped flash player, holding 128 megs or so. the "advanced" micro drive version will cost a lot more than $50.
look at feel aren't really tech specs. when this thing is actually for sale then we'll be able to tell how good of a deal it is.
This is illegal!
MS cannot use funds from a separate section to flood the market in order to promote a standard for competition. Selling a product at a loss in order to undercut competition without relent for the purpose of creating a flooded standard is wrong. This is predatory pricing and is specifically and explicitly prohibited by the Sherman anti-trust act.
They've already done this with the X-Box which they sold at a loss in order to undercut and deprive smart companies (Sony & Nintendo) of their only source of income by using their deep pockets. Now they do the same thing in an attempt to push WMA over AAC as the standard DRM music file.
This is absurd. The DOJ has no balls if they let this pass. MS is getting out of hand.
UFS is not specifically a Linux filesystem; it was originally developed for one of the BSDs I believe and is used in Free/Open/NetBSD, SunOS, and others.
Now if you could prove that they were using the Linux *implementation* of it, then you'd be on to something...
Yusuf Mehdi, a Microsoft VP, is quoted as saying that the player will give customers more choices than Apple."
How exactly is a Microsoft portable MP3 player going to give more choice to consumers than an iPod? Is he referencing that the end user can use all of the other commercial download services that are in competition with Apple's iTunes? (you know, all the ones that deal in WMA, and yes, I said "deal"). In that case, the "choice" is like Henry Ford saying the consumer could have his Model T "in any color, as long as it is black." I'm sorry, but unless the Microsoft player supports Ogg and "unencrypted" AAC, then again, its the illusion of choice on the part of Microsoft. In other words, more of the smoke and mirrors routine from Redmond. Considering this product will be another expense bankrolled by the ill-gotten gains of their operating system (and office applications) monopoly, they should (IMHO) instead invest the money spent on this ill-conceived project on further securing their bread-and-butter offerings. Or buyout Rockstar Games and break the exclusive PS2/3 contract they have for the next GTA title so the Xbox Next has a fighting chance against the PS3.
Regardless, I will lay down dollars or euros that Microsoft will include an (unencrypted) AAC to WMA conversion program, to answer Apple's tit-for-tat from last month's announcement. Just like I will bet green that Apple will be the first computer manufacturer to ship machines with Blue Ray drives as a way of spiting the DVD Forum for supporting WMP9 as the compression scheme for HD-DVD.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
The actual statement in the article was "as low as $50". That suggests a range of products; the low end of the range wouild likely be flash memory based.
I doubt that Ferrari were worried when Kia/ Daewoo/ Hyundai popped onto the car scene;
Yeah, but a Ferrari is handbuilt, entirely custom engineered. iPods ain't.
iPods are more like Buicks -- a Chevy chassis (commodity hard drive) with lots of chrome and a digital dashboard.
Don't worry. It will cost $50 just like iPod Mini cost $100.
Unless of course they force you to use a Microsoft online music service to get music (and not let you play your own MP3s). Then it makes sense for them to sell you a $400 item for $50, and make a killing on the actual songs... (kinda like they do with XBox).
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Mac OS. Man, in some ways Mac OS 9 is still better than Windows XP.
NeXT Cube. What a sweet machine. There was nothing like it then and still respected today.
NeXTStep. IMO still the best OS made. So good Mac OS X uses huge chucks of it.
Newton. Bumpy at first but the last models released are still better IMO than any other pda.
Mac Cube. Very cool looking and quiet. They still get top dollar on ebay today.
iMac. The original iMac gave us style where style had been missing. Beige was dead and you were proud of your Bondi Blue machine.
... and of course the iPod.
I know I've missed a few other marvels and I'm sure there's some cool stuff they never released. With all that said don't you think that Apple already has a working video iPod prototype that could be in production in less than 30 days? The magic eight ball says "Yes".
I have yet to see someone scoop Apple in style and thunder, and IMO MS/Sony won't do it this time. I don't care how good it is, Apple will make their's better.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
I disagree. I think that if the pricetag is $50, then Microsoft intends to lose money on the units AND the music sales (similar to how the XBox, a current venture loses money overall).
Microsoft more likely than not intends to lose gobs of money overall on the entire music venture, with only two goals in mind:
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
iPod
Cost: $400
Capacity: 20GB
Weight: 5.6 ounces
Formats: MP3 AAC AIFF WAV
Interfaces: Firewire 400
Battery Life: "Over 8 hours"
Extras: Games, Contacts, Calendar, Alarm, Sleep Timer, Clock, "20 equalizer settings"
LCD: 160x128 backlit
Karma
Cost: $260 on Amazon
Capacity: 20GB
Weight: 5.5 ounces
Formats: MP3 WMA OGG FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec making WAV not needed)
Interfaces: USB 2 and Ethernet
Battery Life: 15 hours
Extras: Dynamic playlists, Dual RCA Line-Outs, 5 band equalizer
LCD: 160x128 backlit
"Microsoft will begin selling a $50 music player that will 'look and feel as good as the iPod' later this year."
Well, the reason that the iPod looks and feels so good is that the iPod has a fast interface (FireWire or USB2), tons of storage (i.e. a hard drive), and that fantastic scroll wheel.
If MS makes a $50 "iPod", that means that it'll have to cost $20 to manufacturer. For $20, it'll be hard to include a $60 hard drive, much less the controls and display, battery, audio circuitry, etc.
The only options I can see for MS to produce a "$50 iPod" is to either
1) produce a horribly limited device (i.e. minimal display, bad controls, minimal storage), or
2) to tie it to a subscription service that subsidizes the player.
I bet they could sell a $299 iPod for $50 if it only played music tied to their Janus DRM, which required you to pay $10 a month forever. They'll argue that all of the MS licensees that sell WMA (i.e. 20% of the digital download market) will provide ever so many more options than Apple's iTMS (that is 80% of the digital download market), and ignore that anybody using MS' DRM is stuck with a bad user experience, and that there are (to put it politely) many other ways to acquire music.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
it said MS will be introducing playerS. presumably some will be flash based; you already see those for $50.
It occurs to me that MS cannot make an iPod knock off for $50. If so, then they are losing money to build market share. It's been a while since my marketing classes, but it sounds to me like Predatory Pricing. And if I remember right, it is illegal.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
As BusinessWeek pointed out, Apple execs hadn't sold many shares in a long time, so why would it be surprising that they'd do so when the share price shot to a recent-year high? Finally, since that article was written Apple did create a separate operating division for iPod, claiming it would enhance their ability to simultaneously focus on iPod and Mac. Although it could be argued that the new division would make a spin-off easier, if that were the goal it's unlikely they'd have put one of their most senior people -- Jon Rubenstein (who like Avie Tevanian was with Jobs at Next) -- in charge.
'Overpriced' only applies to people who are not willing to pay that much money (duh ;-).
Any product that is selling well in a market with competition CANNOT be overpriced, in the market sense.
Overpriced for you - yes
Overpriced for me - yes
Overpriced for the market - no
Business isn't a charity. Public companies are legally required to price their products/services for maximum shareholder return. They have to find the balance point between raw profit, and how many people will buy at that price (volume). If pricing 80% of the market out makes more profit than selling to 80% of the market at a lower price, tough luck for the poorer 80% of the market. This, of course, assumes a competitive marketplace, which the iPod seems to be in.
Manufacturing capacity is also a factor - if your warehouse is constantly understocked and you cannot increase factory output, it means you are UNDERPRICED: increase the price to re-align demand with maximum supply.
'Overpriced' only occurs if you are making less money at current price/volume than you would by increased volume of sales at a lower price.
The man with no surname and a silly hat
On the universe: It's bunk.
Heh
In reality
It'll be clunky but it will work
It will be less user friendly but it will do
It will be cheaper
It will be leveraged like crazy.
The only uncertain part is whether it will be DRM'd to the gills, or if it will play most formats, or if it will be a nerds dream and will have room for new codecs.
The result of that question will determine the true success, assuming all the other postulations are correct
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
I did my part and formally requested iTunes and iPod support for both encoding and decoding Ogg Vorbis.
Apple's response: we've already got AAC, which is functionally equivalent to and AT LEAST as good as OGG.
Actually, shit. Now that I think about it, I should've requested FLAC and SHN support as well.
Apple's response: we introduced a lossless compressor with the last release of QuickTime.
I don't mean to shoot you down. It's just that asking for a feature isn't sufficient. You've gotta build a business case for it. Which means you've either got to get 500,000 of your closest friends to ask for the same thing, or you've got to tell them why.
Come to think of it... why? AAC is as good or better, and it's there already. Apple Lossless is exactly as good (because, duh, it's also lossless) and it's there already.
So why?
I write in my journal