Slashdot Mirror
Jobs' Invitation To Microsoft a Trap?
An anonymous reader writes "Chris Seibold over at Apple Matters, has written up an interesting analysis on Steve Jobs' suggestion that Microsoft make their own mp3 player. He argues that it is more bait than business plan, a deft move by Steve Jobs to lure Microsoft into a can't-win war. The key, according to the article, is the licensing of FairPlay." From the article: "The folks who stick with Microsoft get to fight over, roughly, twenty percent of the market. The folks that go with Apple would be aligning themselves with what has become the industry standard. The players that license FairPlay would have access to the iTunes store, backwards compatibility with the songs consumers have already purchased, and a chance to compete on a perfectly level playing field with the iPod. It doesn't take a Stanford MBA to deduce that the potential rewards of opting to use FairPlay far outstrip the rewards of going with PlaysForSure."
In the immortal words of Bruce Cambell (Ash):
Its a trick. Get an Axe!
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Uh oh, the chairs will be flying at Microsoft over this..
It reminds me of the movie The Princess Bride...
Vizzini: But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
DoublePlusUngood...
You misunderstand the code of the typical slashdotter:
evaluate(){
if(apple)
return good;
else if(microsoft)
return bad;
else if(google)
return good;
else if(DRM)
return bad;
else if(open source)
return good;
else if(monopoly)
return bad;
...
I am trolling
return CowboyNeal;
Favorite quote: "