Apple’s ‘Three Hits’, According to Gates
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?
