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Microsoft To Release 'iPod Killer' at Christmas?
ShellFish writes "According to a report from Engadget, Microsoft is poised to finally take on the Apple iPod this holiday season. Tired of uninspiring offerings from its hardware partners, Microsoft is getting into the ring itself. The new media player from Microsoft will feature a bigger screen than the iPod Video, have built-in WiFi for downloading music without a PC, and Microsoft will work with music and TV content providers to build an iTunes Music Store competitor. In what may be the crucial competitive stroke, Microsoft will also allow you to download from its store any song that you've purchased from Apple, unlocking users from iPod's vendor lock-in."
It'll be built with the reliability and simplicity you've come to expect from Microsoft.
I'll take a wait and see attitude before totally slamming it, but if history is a judge, ...
In what may be the crucial competitive stroke, Microsoft will also allow you to download from its store any song that you've purchased from Apple, unlocking users from iPod's vendor lock-in."
I'll assume the summary leaves out the crucial word "free" in there. If so, that's pretty damn clever. I just wonder how/if MS will get the music cartels to agree to it, other than wholescale bombing of their headquarters' into submission by the Windows Air Force.
Not unless it has wireless, and more space than a Nomad. Otherwise it's just lame.
Can I point it at someone dancing around like an idiot in public, and it explodes their ipod? I'll take two for dual wield.
God spoke to me.
But wait, there's more! Microsoft's iPod killer will also: - double as a powered beard trimmer (small fees apply per trim) - provide a conveneint space to store change (small fees apply per coin) - allow you to pause time and move really fast (small fees apply per pause) - allow you to transport from one place to another (small fees apply per transport) - melt competitor iPods within 30 feet of the device (free of charge!)
firestream.net
unlocking users from iPod's vendor lock-in
... and locking them right back in again in to Micrsoft's vendor lock-in.
Brilliant.
Next, I hope they'll let me "upgrade" all my paperbacks to MSReader encrypted format too!
I think it is a brilliant move to allow users to download songs they've purchased from iTunes. Eventually I'd like to be able to purchase the rights to movies, music, and other copyrighted works for a fixed fee and then be able to view/listen to our purchased items from any location via streaming. If we want a physical copy, the only cost would then be the media itself and a device (or store-offered service) to burn the copyrighted material to disc. If the rest of the consumer world is anything like me, they are tired of paying for a single work in multiple formats. It may be great for money-hoarding industry executives, but eventually the market will demand this change.
Forecast for tomorrow: A few sprinklings of genius with a chance of DOOM!
It was folded.
Cue Ballmer "going to fucking kill...throw chair" jokes.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Personally, what sold me on the ipod compared to generics was the 60gb of space. I've already taken up half of that with my "favorite" music directory from PC and could probably fill up the rest easily if i sat down for a few days and cherry-picked some more stuff.
A wide library was extremely important to me. I like being able to go weeks without hearing a song again, and none of the other players I saw even came close in capacity. They need more jiggawatts.
Unless Microsoft is providing DRM free files, I will stay far away from this. At least iTunes lets me burn the songs to CD as many times as I wish.
...I'd have enough money to buy a newer iPod.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
There's no guarantee that Microsoft will be able to negotiate the same rates with the recording labels that Apple has. In fact from previous stories we know that the labels are aching to raise online prices and introduce differentiation, but were overpowered by Apple's market share. Microsoft will have a market share of 0% as they negotiate their deals--expect them to pay more per song than Apple for recent "hit" music. So the RIAA is laughing because not only are they going to get paid twice for one consumer purchase, but the second payment might actually be bigger than the first.
Apple is laughing because Microsoft seems to have no profit foothold anywhere in the business plan. As new entrants their players will most likely have to compete on price, reducing the profit margin there. And by re-paying labels for music already purchases, they are in essence subsidizing their customers' libraries--a huge expense. Compare to Apple who commands a healthy profit on the players AND a small profit on every song sold. The only thing better than beating a competitor is making them lose a lot money and STILL get beaten.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
There is no such thing as an "iPod killer".
3 8358000&vertical=Sears&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes
Oh, yeah?
http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?pid=009
Because let's face facts that what it will be. Or more properly, a WindowsXP media edtion pocket PC that needs 1GB of RAM, an 80GB drive, 20GB of which will be the operating system? Is this really device you want?
Microsoft has exclusively stood behind its Janus DRM in the past. It is refreshing to see that this new player will have a more open approach to music files. I have never liked the iPod; I use my Palm LifeDrive for music, video, and everything else. I do think that Microsoft might be able to take some market from Apple if they can address the biggest frustrations of iPod owners, including screen and body durability, battery life and user replacebility, etc. I have many friends in college who are very annoyed with the iPod and might be willing to switch.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
You know how you can order an iPod from Apple with a custom etching on the back?
Microsoft just placed an order for a few thousand blue iPods with "Microsoft" etched on the back. Internal reports suggest they won't even bother opening up the boxes as they come in the mail, instead just redirect them to their "customers".
Nothing on that list is what iPod owners care about, so this'll be another money bleeding mistake, not an "iPod killer" (besides, didn't we already have an iPod killer this week? I thought they're scheduled every two weeks).
The iPod is a) simple, b) reliable, c) user-friendly, d) cool, e) well designed and f) ties in well with iTunes. That's what sells it, not bigger screens or WiFi. Nobody who owns an iPod wants to fiddle around for 5 minutes to get the WiFi to work.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Lots of other general bugginess. The concept is good with the music store and all that, but the Itunes software itself is possibly the worst piece of crap I've ever used.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
How easily Microsoft gets media attention for products that basically don't even exist yet. And then there will be a lot of rumor around wall street, some nervous people will start selling their apple stock, and the, 2 years after the promised date, Microsoft will come with a clumsy product with a blueish screen, hard to use, with lots of useless features, with lots of DRM, incompatibilities and various glitches. Come on guys, Microsoft should concentrate on delivering Vista. Even cutting most of the promised features, Vista is delayed beyond the point where it becomes ridiculous. How can someone believe that a company that isn't even able to deliver what used to be their main product has some chance with a product in a market they don't know, and where consumer's perception about then is definitelly bad, as they are seen as the bad guys. Too bad the media is stupid enough to give voice to such spin. Let's wait for them to show us a product, and then, and only then, let's discuss if it's really an iPod killer.
Your ad could be here!
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/smartphones/samsung -to-roll-out-sghi310-cellphone-with-8gb-hard-drive -158573.php
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Google "ipod killer" -> 1,160,000 results.
We've seen iPod killers from Sony, iRiver, Dell, Nokia, and of course Creative.
Microsoft has been killing the iPod for years now. They need to get their other iPod killers out of the way to give their new device a piece of that tasty iPod flesh that Apple competitors have been feasting on for years.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Actually, this is precisely what Steve Jobs predicted in January in an interview with Newsweek.
k /
"The problem is, the PC model doesn't work in the consumer electronics industry, where you've got all these companies and some does one thing and another does another thing. It just doesn't work. What's going to happen is that Microsoft is going to have to get into the hardware business of making MP3 players. This year. X-player, or whatever."
The link is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10853916/site/newswee
Microsoft will also allow you to download from its store any song that you've purchased from Apple, unlocking users from iPod's vendor lock-in.
;-)
The iTunes Music Store (iTMS) lock-in is exaggerated. I think Jobs mentioned that the average iTMS customer purchased US$70 worth of music. That's not much of a lock-in, especially given that we're talking about folks with the resources to buy an iPod - a digital player at the expensive end of the spectrum.
Now if only Microsoft would expand the policy to include music I purchased on LPs, 8 tracks, and casettes.
I have no interest in a video or audio ipod, nor do I have interest in this. Why should i? If I want an MP3 player I'll get a much cheaper generic one that is less likely to be stolen and doesn't involve brand name price inflation. If I want a portable video player I'll get a PSP and hack it.
If by 'hacking', you mean: insert a memory card with a movie on it and click 'play', then by all means, hack away mr. hacker!
"It'll be built with the reliability and simplicity you've come to expect from Microsoft."
;)
If you want something that's built to last, get an iPod.
Business Students at a local university surveyed a bunch of local high schools. They found that Apple scored low on reliability. Apple also scored low on features, the kids really thought the lack of AM/FM was a negative(*). However, iPod was the most common player. Apple did win on ease of use. Many iPod owners admitted they traded functionality/reliability for "status symbol"/fashion. The kids were fairly well informed since there was a lot of comparing and contrasting of the various players they had.
(*) I expect Apple has similar research of their own and it probably inspired the Radio Remote. I'd wager future models will have it built in.
Looks kind of like this...
b eat.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/media/giga
Of course, that's no guarantee of success. But it would be dangerous to write off a product from someone with their cash reserves, determination, ruthlessness, and failure to understand the meaning of anti-trust legislation...
My gut feeling is that if it has to stand or fall on its own merits, it's doomed. But they'll find some way to tie it in with Windows, make it easier to use that and harder to use an iPod or other device, and they'll dig in and keep pouring in cash, and in a year or two's time people might be wondering why anyone ever doubted it :(
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Microsoft already has the online store ready to sell music. If anyone has used Urge at all, they've noticed that it's HEAVILY in bed with MS. When WMP11 was in beta, you got a free demo of Urge with it as well. Mark my words, the Urge service will be the MS version of the ITunes store.
My sig of choice is Marlboro
Seriously, the companies that have to be the most concerned about this announcement today have names like these: Creative, Sony, Napster, Yahoo!, MTV and Real Networks. These are all Microsoft "partners" whose business ventures are now going to have to be in direct competition with Microsoft's own player/store. Some of them have been losing money trying to compete with the iPod/iTMS, such as Creative and Napster. What are their future prospects now?
Apple will do fine. They have dominated the mp3 business far in excess of anyone's expectations, and for far longer. Even if they fall back to a 40% market share; that will still be a large and successful business.
Whoever came up with that movie is fricken brilliant. That is all.
... It was Microsoft.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Apple is probably already working on the next iteration of the iPod. That seems to be the trick for them. Keep everyone competing against the current iPod and by the time they catch up release something new.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
Business Students at a local university surveyed a bunch of local high schools. They found that Apple scored low on reliability. Apple also scored low on features, the kids really thought the lack of AM/FM was a negative(*). However, iPod was the most common player. Apple did win on ease of use. Many iPod owners admitted they traded functionality/reliability for "status symbol"/fashion. The kids were fairly well informed since there was a lot of comparing and contrasting of the various players they had.
Forgive me if I don't take a secondhand version of a college project where students interviewed students as a reliable report on what the general consumer wants in a Mp3 player.
You fail to mention the players the iPod was compared to. Am I to take from this that the iPod is the least reliable on the market? Is there something better? I'd tend to believe that all players are assembled from cheap parts in Asia and all have more chance than they should of falling apart. The best you can do is get one with a good warranty program, which Apple seems to have (in most cases they'll just hand you a new one, though it does sometimes require raising a stink.) Apple's not alone in that by any means, of course, but they're better than many (*cough* Sony.)
You say lack of AM/FM is seen as a negative. But is it a missing feature that would influence a significant amount of people's buying decisions? If you present a person with the feature list of two products and one is longer than the other, they'll say the one without is lacking. But that doesn't mean it's going to affect their decision-- There are lots of electronic products (from cell phones to cars) with less that sell better than those with more. A ton of features don't do you much good if the product is difficult to use or has other flaws.
(By the way, almost no players have AM. I only say "almost" because someone might dredge up an obscure Vietnamese model if I say "none".)
You fail to mention the iTunes factor. It's not all about the hardware. How did that figure into this survey?
I can't stress enough that I do not own an iPod, or care to. The fact that the battery can't be easily switched is a definite turn off for me. I'm not sticking up for my brand. I just hate to see know-it-alls throw around pointless and and arbitrary surveys like this as data we should all respect.
Oh, and...
(*) I expect Apple has similar research of their own and it probably inspired the Radio Remote. I'd wager future models will have it built in.
I'll take that bet. I don't think those things are flying off the shelves. Seems more like a specialty add-on for the small minority who want it to me.
Hah... I own an iPod because I don't LIKE anything on AM/FM.
Your 60Gig iPod can hold 15,000 songs.
Soo, lets say you've filled it from iTunes and say that would cost say..oooh $15k
Ignoring for a start that nobody has ever filled an iPod with legit music, do you really think that MS is going to pay that much to help you switch?
They've obviously done a deal with the record companies. We'll help you break Apple's virtual monopoly on downloaded music and ensure you don't lose a penny.
Record companies allow MS to 'swap out' Fair Play tracks for Plays for Sure at zero cost. Apple monopoly broken, MS gets the killer way into market, We get more choice, Apple finally has to compete.
Can ANYBODY actually see a problem with this.
High school kids that listen to AM radio? I bet the lack of HAM radio support is also a negative.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I've owned 2 iPods so far, and only got rid of the first one because I wanted to upgrade to a "bigger and better" 60GB video iPod model. I've had zero problems with either of them, unless you count one time I had to do a soft-reset on the 60GB video after it froze up trying to play some corrupted MP3 files I accidently put on it.
I use mine pretty much every day, since it's normally attached to a Pioneer adapter on my car stereo.
I'm not denying *some* people have had problems with theirs, of course. But my experience is, this is a device that feels quite "solid" compared to most of the competitors. (The buttons feel like they could fall out of some of the other models I've used!) Sure - they're easy to scratch up, but that's just a cosmetic issue. In some respects, I actually like the way they show poor/rough handling like they do. It gives second-hand purchasers immediate knowledge of whether the previous owner was the type to take care of his/her electronics, or just throw them about.
"High school kids that listen to AM radio? I bet the lack of HAM radio support is also a negative."
When I was in high school, we listened to AM, not for music, but for sports. For example, it was very nice to have a radio broadcasting a big-league baseball game on AM, while playing softball, or at a picnic, or at the swimming pool, or whatever.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Yes, that's all very well, but will it play my OGG files?
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
I am so sick of reading news every 6 months about some new "iPod Killer" We can talk about who killed the ipod when it is dead. Until then... Stop pointing fingers.
Dodgers baseball is always on my slow jams playlist.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Forgive me if I don't take a secondhand version of a college project where students interviewed students as a reliable report on what the general consumer wants in a Mp3 player.
These were part-tme MBA students (ie worknig professionals by day) who had taken statistics and maketing and were working under the supervision of a professor who has been hired by large corporation to do just such studies. Now this was a class project, not a corporate sponsord project, so it was small scale and regional (southern California) compared to an Apple sponsored study but it included interviews, questionaires, and focus groups. The results are not so easily dismissed. The sample size was significant, distributions, p-values, and other sanity checks on the data were good.
You object to students being the segment studied? Have you seen Apple's commercials? This is Apple's target market.
You fail to mention the players the iPod was compared to.
The survey covered needs, wants, perceptions, and customer satisfaction for whatever portable digital player were used. It was not an iPod study per se, iPod was just the most common player.
You say lack of AM/FM is seen as a negative. But is it a missing feature that would influence a significant amount of people's buying decisions?
It was a recurring missing "want". As stated in the original posts, the respondents said that they traded this want for the "status symbol" nature of the iPod.
"(*) I expect Apple has similar research of their own and it probably inspired the Radio Remote. I'd wager future models will have it built in." I'll take that bet. I don't think those things are flying off the shelves. Seems more like a specialty add-on for the small minority who want it to me.
The fact that Apple introduced such a product undermines your argument. If Apple's research showed it to be such a niche product they would have left it to third parties.
You fail to mention the iTunes factor. It's not all about the hardware. How did that figure into this survey?
They did not like being unable to transfer the files, a general DRM problem. MP3s were the preferred format.
[sidebar] iTune isn't really much of a factor anyways. I believe Jobs once stated that the average customer spent US$70. Not much of a lock-in, but that's a different thread (literally). [/sidebar]
I can't stress enough that I do not own an iPod, or care to.
I own one, 2nd generation, the first that were available for PCs. I happy with it.
I just hate to see know-it-alls throw around pointless and and arbitrary surveys like this as data we should all respect.
Really, from reading your post it seemed that you disliked the results and made many erroneous assumptions to rationalize why you should reject the data. As I pointed out it seems consistent with Apple's behavior with respect to radio. It's small scale and regional, but it was done by knowledgeable people under the supervision of experts.
That does sound like a good deal, but now that I think about it, perhaps the sheer ubiquitous usage of Ipod did play a small part in my purchase.
Sort of "the beast you know is better than the beast you don't..."
I've treated my iPod mini with care. It still looks brand new without so much as a scratch. My big issue is the dismal battery life. After 11 months, I was down to about 5.5 hours of play time from an advertised 18. The cost to replace the battery is half the cost of the device itself and you don't even get the same unit back!
I will be looking very hard at MS's offering. The only thing I don't need, however, is video playback. I wish that was an option I could dump for a lower cost. I just want to listen to music.
-- Posted from my parent's basement
Msft has said themselves: a big part of the ipod craze is the trendy fashion statement. It's like wearing the right name-brand running shoes, as opposed to some cheap knock-off.
Consider the age group that is the target market. High school, and college students just don't consider msft cool anymore (did they ever?).
So far, how many iPod killers has the iPod killed?
I'm a fan of the iPods generally, but just to answer your question regarding rugged electronic gadgets, take a look at GPS receivers.
I don't know what the very recent ones are like -- maybe they're built like crap -- because I'm still using my Magellan GPS 300, purchased back in 2000. It's waterproof (hell, it floats), dustproof, shockproof, and short of smashing it with a hammer, basically close to indestructible under normal use. The only comment I have to say about it is that the screen can get scratched if you're not careful; I solve this by keeping it inside an old sock.
Granted, it's a whole lot bigger than an iPod, and pretty spartan in terms of features. It basically does one thing in life (tell you where you are in your choice of coordinate systems) and that's it. I'm not sure what sort of tradeoffs they made in order to create something so rugged: I imagine one that wasn't would be a lot smaller and probably would have been cheaper. It's all about what you want.
There are doubtless some of us (geeks, especially) who would find the idea of an MP3 player the size of a brick and about as hard to destroy attractive. But the resulting product would not be an iPod, and would not sell like one.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"Microsoft".. Check!
5 888437378&q=soulwax - hurray!
"iPod".. Check!
"Killer".. Check!
Hmm, this is missing "Google".. Wait, I'll throw in a link to a nice iPod commercial spoof hosted there! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=579193244
I'm Rocco. I'm the +5 Funny man.
It will run Linux!
Microsoft makes money in the Windows division. MS has lost around $7 Billion in the last four years on divisions like the XBox and MSN. They've got their essential monopoly in the PC market, and they're using it for forays into other areas -- none of which has been that successful.
Given that, this supposed plan to pay for licenses to everything you've bought on iTunes does fit MS's established M.O.... which is to lose reams of money trying to gain market share, just as you say. Xbox/360 market share today is something like 34 percent. Bought at ruinous cost.
The difference between MS and Apple here couldn't be clearer. The iPod has been out since October 2001. Five years of incredible profitability for Apple later, MS has figured out how to lose scads of money in order to attempt to catch up? Gee, can they purchase 30% of the market this way? How ambitious!
I'm not a particular fanboy of Generallissimo Steve Jobs, but he's had his own "iPod killers" more than once since 2001; the mini was their best-selling model when he replaced it...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Yes - if you tell iTunes to move the files around, iTunes will (gasp) move the files around! However, it's most certainly not the default - by default, iTunes does nothing with the original files. (Well, except add ID3 tags if they're missing, and update ID3 tags if you edit them via iTunes.) It doesn't move or copy any files. It just points to them. You can set options (which are initially off) to tell iTunes to copy all media into a central directory and to manage the files. But it's not the default, and it's fairly clear what it'll do when you select those options.
The "Keep my iTunes Folder Organized" option contains the following text right under it and isn't checked by default:
Not exactly a confusing option (although the font used to display the description is a little on the small size).
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Here is the MS nightmare scenario...
* MSFT negotiates one-time flat fee to music industry to let I-tunes customers use the content they already bought on the new player/service.
* Similar to X-box, product is priced at a discount to build market share and hopefully capture revenue on content distribution
* Product is locked-down against non-MS software, to ensure the revenue stream is not disrupted by rogue software
* Lock-down is less than perfect. Hey, it's an MS product.
* Hackers buy the players, and run Linux on it. Just like they did with Ipod.
* Wifi hardware means a whole new frontier of peer-to-peer filesharing, after the MS DRM is vaporized.
* People buy LOTS of MS music players when they realize what is possible with a nifty download
* Music industry angry with MSFT for enabling a massive, untrackable, unstoppable, wireless P2P network.
The one missing piece of the puzzle is a wifi music player. Hackers can't create hardware and put in the hands of millions of people. Along comes the unlikely hero... Microsoft!
And I thought they would never create a product that customers would really want. HA!
The purpose is to gain as much marketshare as possible as quickly as possible at whatever cost necessary.
Oh yeah, that couldn't be more clear. The question I have is:
Steps 3 and 4 don't quite seem to be getting off the ground, here, whatever they are. They aren't "Now that we've got businesses locked into Office Suites, we'll make them upgrade." I "got" that. Apparently we'll see in the next five years -- over which time MS plans to blow another cool few billion trying to win over fickle gamers?
Apple's approach has been different with the iPod and iTunes. The business model is profitable, and the iTunes music store was a loss leader driving iPod sales. The gains came right up front, and they got their market share by shaping an emerging market because they'd shown they understood it better than the competition. Seems like an actual viable business strategy, not dot-com logic with a monopoly keeping it alive.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Microsoft has been signing up companies to license it's WMA DRM for their players, getting all those companies to pay license fees, and agree to provide Microsoft with sample gear for 'PlaysForSure' testing, and also getting them to sign a license agreement to hold Microsoft harmless for any Intellectual Property violations (patents, design infringement, copyright, etc.)
Now they're going to go into direct competition with their licensees. This should go over well...
I'm sure the licensees all understand that they were really just preparing a market for Microsoft, and will quietly close up shop. Certainly, none of these companies such as Creative Labs has ever shown any tendency to cause trouble or litigate. I'm sure they can all simply rely on the US Justice Department's oversight and Microsoft's honoring the DOJ settlement and consent decree to ensure that Microsoft won't try to extend it's monopoly here.
Right...
Another group of companies are about to learn what happens when one 'partners' with Microsoft. Have a nice day, fellas.