Everyone’s gunning for Apple
Huh, looks like Apple’s the big bad in town. Everyone’s out to get them! The biggest of the big bad is the iTune’s music/video store. People have been trying to take it down forever with no such luck. I wonder if they’ll eventually be successful. I mean, with Universal not renewing their iTunes contract and NBC doing the same it could open the door for competitors if they really pull their content off iTunes.
And then in addition to all the various existing music stores, you’ve got Amazon opening one and Nokia, too. I’m pretty sure I read about another couple coming online with various schticks, MTV dumped Urge and is joining up with RealNetworks. Verizon’s getting in on that gig to distribute that content on mobiles. Sure almost all or all of them are destined to fail, but it’s conceivable with so much arrayed against them on the content production (in as much as the major labels are content “production”) and content distribution side that someone’ll be able to get to reasonable scale. My bet is on Amazon, if I had to lay a bet - I mean, everyone already goes there to shop and buy music, if they added a download immediately button, people’d probably go for that.
Apple’s got confidence dealing roughly with NBC and perhaps NBC will cave as some on the internet suspect. But I’m not so sure that Apple doesn’t need NBC more than NBC needs Apple. The money involved in video, I suspect, is tiny - nothing compared to what the iTunes store makes or NBC’s income - neither company will feel a monetary impact. But that’s an indicator that selling video on the internet is still young, no one has a lock on it. Apple was moving on it’s way to getting that lock, like it does with audio but with their biggest shows getting pulled from their store - that’s going to deliver a pretty serious blow to their video plans. NBC on the other hands perhaps loses another chance to get more people watching those shows - so I don’t know who suffers more, I suspect it will actually be Apple’s long term video plans, as NBC can deliver those shows for free (with commercials) on their network website or maybe for pay on Hulu. I guess time will tell on this one. Sadly it’s the consumers who lose in this pissing match. Oh, and check out NBC’s defense to the Apple allegations. NBC wanted “flexibility in wholesale pricing,” uh, yeah… right… that somehow doesn’t mean price increases.
And with the iPhone ready to be a mover and a shaker, everyone else is trying to get in on that market. Microsoft is rumored to be trying to pick up RIM which seems like a big mistake to me. I mean, RIM’s stock is way high right now and they’re used to moving quickly - Microsoft on the other hand doesn’t move quickly at all. Plus all the handsets coming out that are emulating the big screen and user friendliness of the iPhone. While it’s no iTunes/iPod combo, I think everyone is ready to prevent that from ever happening.
It’ll be interesting to see how this all shakes out! I’m curious to see how Apple revamps Apple TV to make it the “fourth leg” of Apple’s business.
