Bill Gates Swears Vow Against 'Son of iPod'

Future Linux-Guru writes "The LA Times is running an article on Microsoft's efforts to preempt any single manufacturer from dominating the online video market. Among the scarier revelations is the development of AACS, a new already approved security system designed to prevent piracy on HD DVDs, which subjects users to forced upgrades." From the article: "Whichever way it shakes out, Gates vows not to play the victim in 'Son of iPod.' After learning a hard lesson in the digital music business, 'we're really having to work more closely with partners in the hardware industry and content industry, to really think through the whole end-to-end experience and make it better,' Gates said. 'That's where we've done our mea culpa. We are fixing that.'"

Comments

An approach that's doomed to failure

[@madeus]

I fully expect Microsoft will take the same sort of route they have always taken, by focusing almost exclusively on selling their vision to content producers, rather than focusing on making a product that appeals to the market (and watching as the content producers hop on board).

Apple have been successful with their music store because of course they have made it easy for novice users to access, purchase and manage content. The Microsoft media player is in stark contrast a hideously confusing application as far as most people are concerned, and is an excellent example of why Microsoft will not succeed unless they radically change their approach (which on past form, I do not expect they will).

Getting buy-in from publishers is essential in the long run, but by pandering to them to the extent Microsoft have done (in an attempt to get them on-board), all semblance of a marketable product has been lost, because the focus has been on building a product they want to produce, rather than on one people actually want to buy.

Even if all the major content production companies vow to get behind a Microsoft devised solution, consumers will just largely ignore it and continue to rely on established ways of getting content (either legal DVD's or illegal P2P downloads) until they are offered something they are actually comfortable using.

You have to wonder what's wrong with Microsoft's corporate structure when, with their vast resources and many talented people, they can't even build a useable media player (let alone content delivery and management system). It's so tragic, it's funny.