iTunes' Birthday: My Retrospective
News Analysis. Apple's music store is 5 years old (yesterday). I wondered what I blogged about it. |
[Editor's Note: Starting with this post, Apple Watch moves to a first-name convention rather than referring to people by the last name.]
The post I found wasn't where I expected it, on my personal blog the day before iTunes launched. Here's what I expected:
I first predicted that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would launch iTunes for Mac and Windows. "If he's smart, he'll release an iTunes version for Windows and make a bold move into the digital media market," I wrote. The Windows version came later. Other excerpts:
"No other company on the planet has executed a better digital media strategy than Apple. Doing digital media on a Mac is much easier and more satisfying than on a Windows XP PC. Apple's iLife digital media suite is the best thing going for working with digital photos, music, movies or DVD burning. Too bad you need a Mac to get it."
"Microsoft's idea of digital media marketing is getting every hardware manufacturer on the planet to support Windows Media formats. Most computers come with a floppy drive or cars a cigarette lighter, but that doesn't mean most people use the gear. Get real, Microsoft."
"[Steve] has the right Hollywood connections, he's successfully courted record labels for his new service and rumor has it his company is even negotiating deals directly with music artists. Apple has the right relationships, right strategy and right technology to pull off a successful music service. Don't forget that Apple's iPod music player is the retail market share leader as measured in revenue, according to NPDTechworld."
"If Apple executes as well on the music service as it has on Macs, the service should turn out to offer great music selections, reasonable prices, unsurpassed ease of use, delivery through one of the best digital music software packages available and portability on a great music player. The combination would be great for Apple, its shareholders, consumers and, more importantly, competition."
"That's because Microsoft's idea of digital media is controlling file formats the way it uses them in Office to dominate productivity suites. (You knew there had to be a reason why your waffle maker supports Windows Media formats, right?) In Microsoft parlance, competition is a market where all the products are made by Bill Gates & Co. (Hey, you can choose from six different versions of Windows XP. Woo Hoo!)"
In the post, titled "One Bad Apple," I went on to explain how Microsoft sought to make "its digital media format as the defacto standard." But "Apple's music service could be instrumental in providing a viable and attractive alternative to making a Windows Media format devil's deal. That would also ensure that Microsoft could not in the future choke the Mac out of being able to access or use digital media, which is driving new computer sales."
There was more, it was a long post, but I'll stop quoting myself there. Apple delivered as I predicted, but that was no genius. Steve had already shown with the iMac and iPod that Apple could deliver a potentially great music store.
