After years of deeply-conflicted behaviour, Sony grows up.
Meanwhile, Bob Cringely thinks Sony’s president’s presence at Macworld suggests more than met the eye.
He foresees iTunes movie downloads with the Mac mini connected to Sony HDTVs. Bright guy.
I suggested similar things in September (iMovie & rentals vs. iTunes & sales), but I like Bob’s analysis better.
Time magazine has named Apple’s iPod shuffle its “Gadget of the Week”.
Who knew there was a Gadget of the Week?
Yesterday there was a “missed you” note left in a common area outside Tantramar Interactive’s office, so I phoned the very nice lady at FedEx with more specific instructions on how to find us.
When the package arrived, a hand-written note was attached: “Take upstairs to Tandrum R Interactive.”
I used to work at Mount Allison University, and once received a package shipped from Alberta to “Christopher Mackay, Physics Dept., Mount Elephant University”… Hey, I got the package…
Dell CEO Kevin Rollins dismisses Apple’s iPod as ‘just a fad’, soon to be as forgotten as Sony’s Walkman. He also dismisses Apple as ‘not in the same league as Dell’. Well, thank God for that.
Rollins, who seems to have inherited predecessor Michael Dell’s Reality Denial Field™ — itself a knock-off of Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field™ — has some pretty strange ideas.
Everyone — including Dell — is imitating the iPod and iTunes. What Dell products is anyone imitating? None. I’m sure Dell shareholders are thrilled to hear the CEO dismiss such popular products.
Further, Rollins said Dell will continue to focus on businesses as its number one priority.
I have a good friend and neighbor who’s been trying for days to get her home Dell PC to work (and not finding their tech support to be much help). I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear that Dell’s focus is elsewhere.
Today’s SteveNote at MacWorld San Fransisco was a notable one.
In addition to an extended preview of Mac OS X Tiger (which looks great), details on the next release of Keynote and AppleWorks’ successor, Pages (bundled together as iWork), iLife 05 and QuickTime 7, he announced the real treats — Mac mini and iPod shuffle.
While the Mac mini is a bit reminiscent of the PowerMac G4 Cube, I think this one’s going to be a runaway hit. At $629 Canadian ($499 US), it’s the right computer at the right price. It’s reasonably configurable (although the price on a 1 GB RAM upgrade is monstrous) and unbelievably tiny. The real selling point though, is that Windows switchers can keep their monitors, keyboards, mice, and printers. Oh, and their iPods.
The iPod shuffle is going to be an even bigger hit. I’m betting that lots of these are going to be sold to current iPod users who want a second unit that’s a little less bulky, less droppable and more grab-it-and-go-able. Those who’ve been sitting on the fence can officially jump off at these prices.
Of course, there will be those who complain that it’s not also a GPS/camera phone/HD camcorder; they’ll be wrong if they predict sluggish sales.
Tiger’s looking interesting. Dashboard looks very cool, Spotlight could easily revolutionize everything I do (Mail 2.0 is going to be amazing), and I think developers are quickly going to embrace this system-wide search technology, pushing it far beyond anything Steve Jobs demoed this morning.
Bill Gates says that Apple has had three hits; the Apple II, the Macintosh and the iPod. Fair enough. He doesn’t think that they can sustain the iPod’s market share because — aside from Apple — “all those player makers are signing up to work inside the Windows PlaysForSure ecosystem.”
If only most of the customers weren’t choosing to buy iPods… (they’re obviously confused). Still, there are a few things I find interesting about his comments.
Let’s examine the term PlaysForSure.
“PlaysForSure” ominously implies that other players don’t play for sure. Has anyone ever had trouble getting mp3 files or files purchased from the iTunes Music Store to play on their iPods? Maybe someone, somewhere has, but if there were serious issues with this they’d be all over the net. So where does this term come from? What problem does it seek to solve?
“PlaysForSure” nominally refers to the fact that Windows Media-based devices will play songs bought from the various Microsoft-affiliated music stores. The thing is, songs bought from the iTunes Music Store (not to mention mp3 files) do play (for sure) on the market-leading music player — the iPod. And Windows Media-based music files for sure won’t play on the millions of iPods out there. PlaysForSure sure seems like a strange name, doesn’t it?
Could it be an attempt to overcome the sad history of plug-and-pray on Windows? Apple has always understood the value of true plug-and-play. While Mac users have always benefitted from it, Windows users didn’t get to see how well Apple could pull it off — until the iPod. Enter the halo effect.
Could the term PlaysForSure seek to put the ease-of-use of Windows Media-based players on a par with — or even above — that of the iPod? This is standard FUD: ‘We’re not saying iPods don’t work, but our technology is called PlaysForSure… Draw your own conclusions…’
Gates also seems to be implying that the iPod’s market share is clearly in peril because there are so many alternative players. There are plenty already, and it doesn’t seem to have mattered. If reviews are to be believed, even mighty Sony has yet to make an iPod-killer).
Gates’ back-handed complement (that “there are a lot of companies that don’t have three hits”) is curious. Maybe I’m misreading it, but given how successful Microsoft is, it seems to imply that Apple is good, but not that good. How many hits has Microsoft had? By my count, two; Windows and Office.
Would Windows have been a hit without anti-competitive strong-arm tactics? Would Office have been a hit without the illegal abuse of their Windows monopoly? Doubtful.
Apple, if it can be said to be approaching monopoly status with the iPod, hasn’t gotten there the same way Microsoft did with Windows or Office.
It’s interesting to see how Microsoft behaves when it’s not in control for a change, isn’t it?
