A recent article about one of Apple, Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) former engineering executives left me laughing quite a bit. Tim Bucher, who recently left Apple for Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) after being accused by Apple CEO of being "manic depressive," is trying to throw a spear at his former company by trying to find a challenger to Apple's iTunes service with a quite-ambitious plan at Dell. Instead of trying to create yet another online music and video ecosystem that syncs seamlessly with another round of boring Dell music devices, he's trying to create an industry-wide team of competitors to seriously challenge Apple's dominance in the iPod/iTunes marketplace. Notice I did not say "MP3/Music service" marketplace. Right now, it's all Apple in the digital music scene and has been for some time.
Consultant Rob Enderle says that Apple "locks you in" while Dell "locks you into choice." While opening up choice is great for consumers, history says that products and services become so fragmented and hard to use that they never reach critical mass. What Apple did with the iPod was to make the service that goes with it -- iTunes -- so easy to use that it quickly became the market leader. One brand, one service, simple to use.
It's true that many customers want freedom and choice in their music players and music download services so they can "mix and match" to their heart's content. Everyone else (yes, the majority) wants a solution as simple as a light switch. Flip it, and everything "just works." Good luck, Bucher and Dell, but to even come close to challenging Apple, your solution better be out of this world.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-19-2008 @ 12:19PM
realitybites said...
Enderly lost his credibility years ago, he hasn't been right about anything Apple in recent memory.
Does anyone still read his musings?
8-19-2008 @ 1:38PM
randall said...
the problem with most of these companies trying to challenge apple is their reactive while apple is proactive. apple seems to be 2 steps ahead of the competitors in innovation, while everyone is trying to respond to something apple has done. a perfect example is the apps fund started by apple, now copied by google and research in motion.
8-20-2008 @ 8:58AM
TastyBaconTreat said...
Since when is providing people a choice in what to use considered having the "audacity" to do something?
iTunes is an overbloated piece of software that does not only take over your iPod but pretty much any other multimedia task that your computer does. All without even asking. I call that audacity.
I don't know how many times iTunes has deleted all the songs on my computer and or ipod.
iTunes is not easy to use and I have come to use many third party free software suites such as Ephmod or Yami pod that do the one thing I need iTunes to do: put music on my ipod. Nothing more nothing less.
I'm the kind of guy that buys my jeans from the grocery store. I don't need a piece of software that takes up 128 mb of RAM when open or 50 mb of RAM when not open to tell me what the hottest top ten singles are and to remind me to update my software everyday because the version from yesterday is no longer good enough.
Give me some drag and drop capability thats all 99% of people need.
I find it ridiculous that a post on business of all things makes fun of a company trying to give consumers another choice in what to use in their own personal time.
When the product is out then feel free to criticize for what it can or cannot do and how it falls short with other offerings. But to lambaste a corporation for attempting to give consumers a choice is nothing short of tyrannical.
How about you write some posts on the audacity of Apple attempting to challenge the dominance held by PCs?
8-20-2008 @ 1:55AM
Hari Seldon said...
@TastyBaconTreat
"iTunes is not easy to use"
Where do I start? I don't think that you are being honest here. iTunes is very easy to use, you can turn off quite a few of the "sources" and not include the iTunes store for example, used in this way it's a very simple program.
"Give me some drag and drop capability thats all 99% of people need."
Wrong, that's what YOU need, I certainly don't want this, I love my smart playlists which would be impossible using your method and have you seen Apple's latest customer satisfaction numbers? they're off the charts, people love iTunes.
And as for poking fun at Dell, they deserve it, there is no way that this new effort will be any more successful than their previous lame attempt, they have Rob Enderle consulting for them for God's sake.