MP3 Music Players: A Royalty Game?
Hi --Mike,
<< I have been thinking a long time that the iPod might be playing a gorilla game. >>
Apollo made a convincing case for that and Apple is unquestionably the market leader in MP3 players -- particularly those with HDD storage, and will probably remain so for some time despite an onslaught of competitors into the market they created. MP3 players are a discontinuous innovation, and MP3 Players have crossed the chasm, entered the bowling alley and saw both hypergrowth and a mass market last year -- on the order of 37 million units worth $4.6 billion shipped in 2004 according to iSuppli increasing to upwards of 60 million units this year (with about 25 million iPODs).
Despite that, the iPOD/iPOD technology has several propriety elements but it does not have a proprietary open architecture and not only does that make them not eligible for primate status, IMO, but that could well be its Achilles heel just as the overly proprietary nature of Macintosh computers was Apples Achilles heel in the PC game.
As one of our colleagues has noted:
G'dday Apollo. Let us not forget Apple the Chimp. - kumar rangan -
My inclination is that going forward the Digital Music Player (MP3 Player) arena is going to be a Royalty Game although with Microsoft enabling the game, I'm not sure about that. I'm still thinking it through and trying to get a real handle on Apples global share. It appears to me that OMA's DRM 2.0 is possibly what is going to throw this game wide open. The most proprietary element of Apple's technology is their proprietary DRM scheme called 'Fair Play,' that tags AAC files with digital rights.
Apple's music player is designed to support only one store -- their own -- and Apple's iPod and iPod Mini are the only digital music players that work with Apple's music store. Here's the gotcha:
"Consumers increasingly want to share media between different digital devices. But incompatible DRM solutions mean that they cannot know whether a particular piece of music or video content will play on a particular device. While the efforts of organizations like the DLNA and Coral are commendable, the process of establishing widely accepted interoperable and open standards is likely to prove lengthy and arduous. Apple's iTunes/iPod model demonstrates that proprietary and incompatible solutions can be successful, in the short term at least." - David Mercer, Strategy Analytics -
In the short term at least ...
... but in the longer term I think the market will be open. A quick fix would be for Apple to put their weight behind a DRM standard that is acceptable to the music industry, and it is looking to me like OMA's DRM 2.0 might be that standard. If they do that however they lose their architectural lock and leave themselves open to immediate encroachment by Samsung, Sony, Panasonic and others. Something of an innovators dilemma.
<< I have been using [a] 3G cell phone. >>
I'm delighted to hear that you are an early adopter of 1xEV-DO technology. Does it have an MP3 Player?
Best,
- Eric - |
