Monday, December 11, 2006

Looking at the iPod market today, it's a little hard to believe that Microsoft stands a chance. After all, Apple's products are exceedingly well-made, beautifully designed, and highly desirable. But the religious mania that many people attribute to both the Macintosh computer and the iPod may be somewhat exaggerated, suggesting that if Microsoft can field a decent challenger, it can compete. "During planning for the Zune, our consumer research said there was far less religion around the iPod than you might think," Caulton said. "Yes, there are the techie, blogging guys and Apple fanatics, and to them, the iPod is a religious icon. But those people, it's literally about the iPod. A much larger group of consumers love the iPod, but love having their music with them even more. For these people, it's not the brand, it's the value proposition."

The point here is that while it may be impossible for Microsoft to dislodge the Mac faithful from their iPods, that's a very small group of people anyway. The iPod, ultimately, is like the TiVo. That product, too, was off the scale for customer satisfaction. But today, the DVR pioneer is struggling because the DVR market is becoming commoditized thanks to integrated DVR solutions offered by cable and satellite providers and PC-based solutions like Windows Media Center. See a trend anywhere? If it can happen to TiVo, it can happen to the iPod too.