Well, try as it might, SanDisk -- I believe -- still will not be able to match Apple's music player dominance, regardless of the captive computer memory chip business it tightly controls. This BusinessWeek article talks about SanDisk's vertical integration in flash memory, the feature bloat its music players have, and the lower price that SanDisk music players have against the formidable enemy, the Apple iPod. They still don't get it, and journalists still bring it up. Get what, you say?

Well, the iPod ecosystem is more than just a product -- and the ecosystem is globally formidable. There is a reason why no single company or service has encroached much into Apple's iPod territory. The iPod culture involves a design that probably can not be unseated (why don't more companies design so well?), an unmistakable first-mover advantage (think how iPod and the iTunes integration has cornered the music player market), a hip Apple culture that just won't go away (no matter how hard others try to unseat the monster) and the universe that revolves around the iPod itself:

• accessories for the range of players have created a complete economy by themselves
• the history the iPod has is no match for up-n-comers like Samsung and Creative Labs, no matter how hard they try (and they have tried for years to no avail)
• the content relationships Apple has -- in a single, easy-to-use place (iTunes) -- can not be matched by the disjointed choices for other music players
• the range of iPod products starting at $69.99 and going up to more than $400 -- that's quite an offering to fit any financial taste

So, even though SanDisk will always skim some buyers with the players it features -- most of which have feature bloat (how else can they market them?) -- and will court some buyers with pretty iPod-like design and even lower prices, it's doubtful they will make any significant dents into the iPod universe. Samsung has recently taken a similar course, designing very iPod-like music players with what I like to call feature bloat. Generally, adding features (that most folks would not use) is the marketing answer to increasing marketshare against an entrenched competitor. More bullets for the retail box, if you will, because bullets sell things besides guns and rifles.

If you hold Apple, and are watching all the recent moves in the iPod category as well as the Mac computer systems moving into the Intel era (more and more competing with the Windows empire in many ways), you are probably set to do well in the near-term.