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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Monday, April 26, 2004

Apple's iPod strategy is familiar tune

Seattle Times: "To longtime tech watchers, Apple Computer's dilemma over whether to 'open up' its wildly successful iPod/iTunes strategy has an amusingly familiar ring ... Apple now faces intense pressure to allow the iPod to work with multiple music services beyond iTunes. RealNetworks Chief Executive Rob Glaser seems to be leading the charge with a recent offer to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Let iPod users play music from RealNetworks, Glaser proposed, and Real in turn will tailor its music service to promote the iPod as its player of choice. Nearly two decades ago, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and executive Jeff Raikes made a similar suggestion to Apple regarding its then-new Macintosh. Why don't you license Mac technology to other vendors and build in compatibility with Microsoft's DOS operating system, Microsoft suggested. In return, Microsoft would help promote the Macintosh. Suspicious that Microsoft had ulterior motives, including using Macintosh technology for the still-unreleased Windows, Apple rejected the idea. Technology historians have long noted the blown opportunity in explaining why Apple, with a huge chronological lead in the graphical-user interface, nevertheless became marginalized by Windows in the PC revolution. Did Apple learn its lesson? While there are seductive similarities in the two scenarios, it seems unlikely that Jobs is in any hurry to 'open up' the iPod."

Again, a familiar argument around these parts.

[ Posted at 8:38 AM | Permalink ]