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No $50 iPod Clone From Microsoft
dncsky1530 writes "In a previous Slashdot story, the Denver Post ran an article talking about a portable music player that would have the look and feel of an iPod. Microsoft stated that they will not be manufactoring such a device, Mehdi, "I've spent time with a bunch of hardware manufacturers who will launch hardware products when we ship our service that will look and feel as good as the iPod product. And they will undoubtedly be a little bit less expensive and so head-to-head against Apple...""
Keep in mind, too, that the companies that Apple successfully sued over copying the look of the original iMac were based in Asia.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
Written by Joe Wilcox of Jupiter Research it starts:
I'm a bit stunned by the press feeding frenzy set off by comments (here) Yusuf Mehdi, MSN corporate VP, made during a Wednesday speech. News report after news report claimed that Microsoft would unleash an iPod-killing music player for 50 bucks.
The problem: That's not at all what Mr. Mehdi said.
Reading is a lost art. Why bother reading when someone else will read it and tell you what your opinion should be?
Sig temporarily out of service.
Could you please name just one player today that supports only WMA?
I can, my old RCA Lyra. In fact, WMA is the only format it supports on a straight file copy basis (unlike MP3, which you must use software to convert it into MPY format).
I'm not an Apple zealot at all, my iPod is the only Apple product I ever bought (I have an old Mac Color Classic which was a hand-me-down), but after trying out a handful of different players, I fell in love with the iPod.
Oh, and I don't miss ripping CD's to WMA format, either.
When you're not looking, this sig is in Latin.
Microsoft reiterated that they are not backing away from their original assertion that the device has the "feel and the look of an iPod"
I know it's asking way too much to read the article, and even the teaser has it wrong. What Microsoft has said is: "I've spent time with a bunch of hardware manufacturers who will launch hardware products when we ship our service that will look and feel as good as the iPod product."
Looking and feeling as good is a lot different then having the look and feel of an iPod. That negates all of the patent issues that everyone is complaining about.
You really need to get your fact straight before spouting off this sort of crap. In 1983 Steve Jobs began to court John Sculley, the president of Pepsi, to join Apple. By April of that year Sculley was working for Apple. Even though Sculley was a good businessman it became quite obvious he knew squat about the computer industry or computers altogether. In 1985 Jobs and Sculley were arguing like crazy. Jobs was convinced sculley was going to run Apple into the ground. He planned a boardroom coup while Sculley was on a business trip but somebody told Sculley before he left and him and Jobs got into it. The board sided unanimously with Sculley and Jobs resigned that day.
Ergo your mythical tale of Steve Jobs keeping the price of the Mac too high is far-fetched at best and outright stupid at worst. Sculley made a swath of ridiculous business descisions and was responsible for Apple's look-and-feel lawsuit loss against Microsoft. Sculley got Bill Gates to put in writing that Windows 1.0 wouldn't use any of the Mac's technologies. Gates' lawyers made sure the contract was airtight. The contract didn't mention any system besides Windows 1.0, Microsoft was contractually free to copy the Mac interface willy nilly in subsequent versions of Windows.
People love to blame Steve Jobs for all of Apple's problems but he was entirely absent from business descisions between 1985 and 1997. In the times Jobs has been present the Mac and Apple have done pretty well. Jobs has made tons of mistakes but he isn't responsible for many of Apple's problems in the past two decades.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
. . . they want Apple to have a monopoly in the mp3 player market.
Where on earth did you get the idea that Microsoft is going to be making an mp3 player?
How Microsoft competes will be interesting. Because for Microsoft, the real economics is about selling Windows. That's why Microsoft can spend $500 million developing Windows Media 9 Series technologies to be licensed cheaply or given away for free. Windows Media is a means to an end, a loss leader for selling the operating system--the way Apple's music store is in a way a loss leader for selling iPods. So, in that sense the strategies are similar. Microsoft hopes that the more devices and stores that support Windows Media, the more consumers that buy WMA DRM content, the better for selling Windows.
--Joe Wilcox: Microsoft Monitor Weblog, as linked to in a post above.
KFG
If you're using linux, the device isn't going to be inexpensive. A full-fledged OS introduces a lot of overhead. So much so that the Linux on iPod project has spent much time optomizing just to try and get the iPod to do realtime MP3 decoding.
Using VideoLAN would introduce a lot more overhead.
Adding a very large LCD screen is going to make it more expensive. Making it a USB host device is going to make it more expensive. Adding firewire/ethernet is going to make it more expensive.
Pretty much, you've just invented a Linux PDA with a hard drive. And no, there's no way in hell it could be cheaper than an iPod.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
They've licensed good equipment to put the microsoft name on. They haven't manufactured anything good themselves.
You are wrong! Among the first Microsoft products of 1970's were some fine pieces of hardware. They made an expansion card for the venerable Apple II computer. It was called Microsoft Softcard and it allowed to run CP/M and all its applications on Apple II. Basically it was just a Z-80 daughterboard. They also manufactured RAM expansion card. These cards were good and they were manufactured by themselves.
O the irony - back in 1980 Apple was making the most popular personal computer, expandable like in a hacker's wet dream (lots of expansion slots with well-documented standards allowed anyone create an expansion card to do anything - and they did! and they did!) and Microsoft was just a small manufacturer of third party hardware extension for Apple computers. Plus a vendor of the popular multiplatform BASIC interpreter - and that was all about Microsoft back then. Who could have guessed...
While the iPod looks cool and all it has some limitations that I am not willing to live with. I recently purchased one of these:
7 -30571493-2.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/iRiver_iHP_120/4505-6490_
and am glad to finally have found a legitimate player that supports Ogg (in addition to MP3 and WMV). Not only that but it has FM, can record voice and isn't encumbered with a bunch of proprietary DRM junk. 16 hours on a single charge is nothing to sneeze at either.
No, it isn't anywhere near $50, but there is no way 20GB of music storage is going to be sub $100 any time soon.