Microsoft Takes Aim at Apple’s iPod
Microsoft, a company long known for waking up to a market after its competitors only to dominate that same market, has finally woken up to the digital music market.
Microsoft has long had half baked attempts to make digital music work, with Windows Media Player and Windows Media Centre. However, Apple’s growing dominance in the portable music player market has obviously caused some consternation in Redmond.
The lines in the sand have been drawn and they basically come down to platform and choice, Microsoft’s way of doing things, versus style and leadership, Apple’s way of doing things.
For many years experts have tried to classify Microsoft and Apple: Two companies who make similar products but do so very differently, for very different reasons and with drastically different results. Microsoft tends to see a successful market, improve on it slightly, offer lower prices and then license the technology to dozens of other vendors who then go out and do the real legwork. Apple, on the other hand, likes to do everything themselves. From negotiating deals with record companies to designing and buying hardware and software to distribution and royalty management.
Apple likes control of the products it sells. Microsoft likes control of the markets it releases products for.
