Tech World
Apple
It’s a juggernaut. For those choosing not to link through to the above story, FORTY FIVE PERCENT OF COMPUTERS PURCHASED AT PRINCETON THIS YEAR WERE MACS!! Apple’s market share appears de minimis because the typical corporation purchases a ZILLION computers, whereas the average household has only one, certainly no more than there are people in residence.
For those believing Apple’s switch to Intel would be the death of the company, it is now clear that the opposite is taking place, this is the final piece of the puzzle. Now purchasers can be assured they’re not shut out, that they can buy Apple and STILL use Windows, whether it be via Boot Camp or Parallels. And, once someone is turned on to the Mac OS, they never seem to use the Windows OS anyway.
Point of all this? If you’re in the business of appealing to consumers and you’re not putting Macs in the equation, you’re leaving out an ever-growing piece of the pie. MTV made its site Mac savvy, but Yahoo still doesn’t allow streaming of videos on Macs. Illustrating that once again Terry Semel has his eye on the wrong party. Rather than focusing on corporate partners, one must focus on CONSUMERS! iTunes and YouTube have driven a wedge in corporate America. Many content owners now realize it’s time to PLAY! The days of stonewalling Napster appear to be dying.
As for iPods… Let’s not be myopic. Although the iPod has almost an eighty percent share in the U.S., it isn’t doing this well in the rest of the world, especially Asia. You must be global. And to be global in the music sphere, you must speak phone. People may not be buying tracks on their handsets here, but they are in Asia. Apple is entering this sphere soon, but will they dominate? Especially when you must placate the providers?
Microsoft
Vista plays games SLOWER! So, if you’re looking to a new OS for gaming, FORGET IT!
In an era where Google now provides word processing, is the action in the Windows OS?
What Microsoft does best is bully. But bullying won’t get the hearts and souls of consumers, who are ALL tech-savvy these days.
Microsoft has heinous licensing rules
Regarding both OS and Office, which is incredibly profitable in itself. But as alternatives appear, the Redmond company’s dominance will evaporate.  Slowly, but then with alacrity. If for no other reason than the OS won’t be where it’s at.
As for the Zune…
All you have to say is BROWN! What did Frank Zappa say, BROWN SHOES DON’T MAKE IT?
It’s a Toshiba Gigabeat. The Wi-Fi eats battery power. The transfers between users take forever and how many people have Zunes ANYWAY?
Zune will take market share from other Windows-centric/iPod competitors. It will not hurt the iPod in any significant way.
Sony
Marginalized.
The PS3 is delayed ad infinitum, and its cost is exorbitant. The laptop battery recall is black eye, but its new MP3 players demonstrate the true insanity/inanity of this company. The big feature? You can load directly from DISC! In an era where Tower Records goes out of business, is it really ABOUT the disc? Is there anybody purchasing an MP3 player who DOESN’T own a computer? This is like the backward compatibility of Philips’ digital cassette. Who wanted to play analog cassettes after they had digital? Don’t think practical in the lab, think hip, where electronics are cheap and people get new cell phones every two years at the LATEST! FURTHERMORE, only Sony could try to compete with Apple by offering LESS! The two gig iPod costs $149 and for $169 you get a ONE gig Walkman. The two gig Walkman costs the same as a FOUR gig iPod, $199. Come on, in price-conscious America, never mind the rest of the world, which one are YOU gonna buy?
Real/Rhapsody
Fighting for its life. SanDisk has a dedicated player. I’d be stunned if Real/Rhapsody’s solution isn’t better than Microsoft’s.Â
Then again, Microsoft has the marketing dollars.
Yes, Real/Rhapsody was there first. But so was XM, suddenly being trounced in new signups by Sirius.
If there’s any justice, Real/Rhapsody will win.
Napster
Going out of business. Hope you’ve got the right date in the dead pool. At least SOMEBODY will make money on the company.
(It may be sold at a pittance as opposed to closing its doors. Like Loudeye.)
Dell
The days of dominance are over. Why? SHITTY SERVICE!
Treat your customers like shit, and they’ll abandon you.
Furthermore, the company’s competitors have figured out how to match Round Rock’s efficiencies, and STUNNINGLY, now that PCs are commodities, people prefer the instant gratification of purchasing at a RETAIL STORE!
HP
Like Apple, ignore the legal brouhaha. Apple’s options fiasco will have about as much negative effect on its operations as HP’s spying fiasco. Both companies have stellar management. Apple dominates with cutting edge products. HP has succeeded via an internal reorg. If your people are competing against each other, you can’t win…just like in the RECORD BUSINESS!
It just works.
Stunningly, its video service didn’t. Was that because it was headed up by a Hollywoodite instead of a Silicon Valleyite? Interesting. If she’d had it together/was competent, they could have saved themselves $1.6 billion.
Google’s not going into the record business. Google is not about OWNING content, it’s about SERVING IT UP! The whole Net is about distribution, but the content owners somehow believe content is king. Would there have been dominant viral videos if MAINSTREAM CONTENT HAD BEEN LICENSED/AVAILABLE? As for people coming out of the woodwork and dominating…how much money do you think the Album Cover Wars people have made? About as much as LonelyGirl16’s producer pocketed. NADA! They just want to play in YOUR world, the mainstream world, these are AUDITION tapes.
The old players can dominate only if they play by the new rules. License EVERYBODY, before alternative content appears on uncontrollable distribution platforms.
Yes, uncontrollable. If only the labels had licensed Napster, there wouldn’t be Limewire/BitTorrent, etc. But no! TimeWarner’s merger with AOL? No, the biggest tech blunder of the dot com era was the majors’ refusal to license new Net distribution platforms.
The Disc
Does Google sell anything on a disc? No, you just download software to your computer. THIS is the model, for EVERYBODY except old farts.
Sure, Starbucks can sell a few titles to aging baby boomers who want to appear hip as they lay down dough for overpriced lattes. But don’t forget, Starbucks’ burn bar was a COLOSSAL failure, not to be further pursued.
It’s a bits and bytes world. And if you don’t believe so, just ask anybody under twenty. Just ask them the last time they purchased a CD. Hell, you can’t even give a kid a CD as a GIFT anymore!
Pro Tools/GarageBand
Put the means of production in the hands of the proletariat. The expensive record is a dying dinosaur equivalent to the Compaq that trounced IBM by producing cutting edge computers for MORE money being forced to change its business model and ultimately merge with HP by the we don’t overtest but we sell at rock bottom Dell. If you don’t think record production is now cottage industry, then you must not know that many MAJOR LABEL records are cut at home on Pro Tools rigs. Just like there’s little call for string players since the advent of the synthesizer, there will be an ever-declining call for high-priced session musicians to perform in multi-track studios renting out for even a hundred bucks an hour, never mind a multiple of that.
