Is iPod the Razor or the Blade?

Kelly McNeill writes "Robert Cringely has another update to his 'I, Cringely' series. In this piece, Cringely analyzes the business model of the iPod and how it compares it to the age old, marketing 101 'give away the razor and make money on the blades' business model. In his editorial, he demonstrates that Apple one-upped Gillette by making money on both blades and razors. The article is structured in a back and forth dialog with one of his readers who provides a very interesting analysis of the direction that Apple will be going with its rumored movie download store and how it relates to the Mac mini. On the same note, osViews has an editorial about Apple's direction in the movie download business as well, which suggests that there is evidence to suggest that Apple will use satellite networks for its Movie download store."

Comments

A Better Analogy: iPod=Messenger Bag

[smug_lisp_weenie]

It's really practical, even as a guy, to have a bag strapped over the shoulder- Unfortunately, guys never used to do that, because it's what used to be called a Man Purse which was considered pretty weird and goofy.

Then, out of nowhere, people started calling them messenger bags to link them with the cool, stylish image of a messenger courier- For no good reason, this now has enabled any guy to carry a shoulder bag while remaining "cool".

In the same way, it used to be a bit dorky to run around with a mp3-playing computer doodad in public even though it's fun and more practical than a CD player.

Apple leveraged their "coolness" to rebrand the uber-geeky mp3-computer into a fashion item, so that people can use a practical tool without feeling weird and goofy.

Re:A Better Analogy: iPod=Messenger Bag

[ArmenTanzarian]

I also heard an analysis of messenger bags (and SUV's) for professionals, saying that people get them when they have the realization that the delivery guy is the only one in their office who does any real work.

I definitely agree with the added "coolness" factor of the iPod, but I think mp3 players were generally acceptable beforehand (it sucks to walk/jog with a cd player). It was really a blitz on both coolness and technical merit. The coolness pushed the iPod from gadget to accessory at the same time the technical specs pushed it for us geeks. The end result is that I carry around the same piece of hardware as a 19 year old sorority girl.

It's hard to think of anything else that's that ubiquitous. Perhaps computers and cell phones, but there's no "it" cell phone or computer that balances the two perspectives.

It's neither the razor or the blade

[digitalgimpus]

Apple's strategy is very simple:

All inclusive high end computing.

Unlike most PC manufacturers, Apple did pretty much everything. Computer, Keyboard, Mouse, Printer, PDA, etc. etc.

Apple's advantage is their stuff works very well together (those legendary plug-and-play sinareo's). Not to mention it's easy to use, well designed, and very good looking.

Apple's plan with the iPod is just that: A simple to integrate, well supported music player on the Mac. Since most other mp3 players before the iPod didn't support the Mac.

Apple expanded to the PC industry simply because of the success and market.

Why sell music? Simply because it had the platform and opportunity to again, provide a way to easily and gracefully get good quality music onto your Apple product (see the simplicity theme?).

Apple had Quicktime, and you can bet DRM was in the works well before iTunes. DRM was the talk of the day around that time. Apple knew it needed a music player to rival winamp, and windows media player. Hence iTunes was born.

Digital photography became big. Unlike past trends, they used USB, and had a FAT32 filesystem, so the Mac was unoffically support on just about all. So what did they do? Created iPhoto, just to make life easy.

Apple's business plan is simple: be the high end quality product. All inclusive, all included.