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

Does Cringely have a real job?

[Augusto]

Or he just spends all day posting about this stuff?

For sure the Razor

[SlongNY]

The Blade.. Why? Because it lead me into so many other apple products.. Like the mac mini.. Apple is a household name now... Before it wasnt.

Re:How about neither?

[emars]

BRAVO! I hate iTunes. I hate it with a passion. I can't share my iTunes library across multiple machines (mac laptop/win desktop/win wifes laptop). I have basically a single external USB hard drive full of music... and if I add music with one iTunes the others can't see it. It's a hassle to get them to be in sync.

I also don't like th iTunes GUI. I just want a little player up there, thats it. Instead, I have a bulky GUI to deal... Yeah yeah yeah there are iTunes "remotes" but give me a break.

OTOH, Winamp is what I like... but it doesn't exist for the Mac.

Color me screwed.