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what a surprise...

One down. More going.
As expected. WMA was wrong choice.

The ORIGINAL article is here: http://tech.velozie.com/news/546

Worst of both worlds isn't it for WMA stores. The wrong platform choice and now that platforms owner about to compete directly with them with billions in the bank to play with. Between a rock and a hard place methinks.

"We’re nowhere near Apple’s numbers."

And you know why? Apple has always represented the upper crust of the computing market. People who have the money to buy Apple equipment also have the money to buy thousands of dollars worth of music.

It's not worth it to us to have illegal copies of music, we have more money and less likly to rip artists off.

Plus Apple was first to convince all the labels to get in on downloading music, so naturally this accomplishment gave Apple a tremendous head start.

Unless these other music services severly drop their prices and start a race to the bottom to flush each other out, then they all will be poking along and making a tiny profit if any.

When the gorrilla M$ gets involved, they can undercut everyone forever to push WMA and then that will seriously hurt Apple iTunes sales on the PC side, Mac faithful will still use iTunes, because it's not accepting WMA, then Apple may have to accept WMA after that or discontinue iTunes for PC.

Hopefully by then a large portion of people would have their entire music collections already, a iPod or two, even a Mac, before this happens.

But it's going to happen, music content is too big for that evil empire to just ignore. So everyone must realize to boycott M$ as much as possible, it's gotten too large and dangerous. Don't feed it your money. Simple.

Folding for Stanford University. Help cure disease with your spare cycles.

Well, actually, people are saying wrong platform choice but at this point of the game it is pretty much "no platform choice". WMA is available and cheapest but is (hopefully) doomed. AAC with a different DRM than Fairplay is also fighting a possibly insurmountable uphill battle. The iPods popularity is being leveraged very well.

Since this is an election year, why not try this angle: Ask your members of Congress, House and Senate, why the Sherman Anti-Trust Act is not being enforced. Microsoft was found guilty of this and then let off of the hook by the DoJ. When they ask for your vote tell them this- Pimp Slap Microsoft for being the arrogant law-defying monopoly that it is or you will not get my vote. In plain english- do your job. Gates & Co bought favorable treatment last time around with contributions to Bush & Co. Tell any candidate asking for your support, money or vote that if you will not stand up against Microsoft, your candidacy will not even be considered. Microsoft thinks that their money and power put them above the law- it's time for them to be broken up into smaller companies as was sought in the original lawsuit. Even IBM and HP now realize what kind of a monster they have helped to create.

Sailfish - I assume you're rich, but don't think that all Mac users are. Some poor people like myself do recognize a quality product and make an effort to have it. (i.e. saving)

Now I seriously hope MS really screws up on this, as they are preparing their MSN Music store or some shit like that... If it's as good as windows media player, we're safe... because it really sucks!

If Apple keeps adding music to iTMS and they continue to update the iPod and come up with new versions of it, like iPod Mini, iPod2, iPod3, etc... then they should be fine. Besides, Apple is well-established, and people know about it and enjoy it, so it's not like they want a replacement ASAP...

Hope MS loses this one, they deserve it after years of oppression

"When the gorrilla M$ gets involved, they can undercut everyone forever to push WMA and then that will seriously hurt Apple iTunes sales on the PC side, Mac faithful will still use iTunes, because it's not accepting WMA, then Apple may have to accept WMA after that or discontinue iTunes for PC."

I'm not totally convinced this will happen as you describe. Most of my windows friends like iTunes as an application and they like the ease of the store - none have iPods. Unless M$ is willing to undercut Wal-Mart and somehow write a good piece of software, I doubt many will see a reason to use their software/service. With all the viruses of late - their brand isn't what it used to be.

I'm of the belief that Apple will & should continue to lockout WMA and open FairPlay up to other services and/or players. This will keep iPod/iTMS as the primo combo but let other folks into the market. Such a move would doom not only WMA but M$'s service.

Oh yeah, bye bye Scott Blum!

And not once did they release any solid numbers - they'll just go quietly into the ether as a failure. And rightly so.

doesn´t say its dead, just being consolidated with other activities of the parent company -the commentary is just from another mac rumors site and you all take it as gospel as death.

"doesn´t say its dead, just being consolidated with other activities of the parent company -the commentary is just from another mac rumors site and you all take it as gospel as death."

I personally received one of the emails in reference - I bought one song from BuyMusic.com when it first launched - just to see how it worked compared to iTMS. The integration into Buy.com is fact - not rumor.

Buy.com was not the parent of BuyMusic.com - not at launch anyway. They have the same founder but it was a stand-alone company. So, it is significant that the download business is being made just another department in Buy.com's list of products including books and toys. So, yes, I think it is safe to say that BuyMusic.com as an independent stand-alone business is dead!

Bwah hah hah hah
*lucky me, I just vaccummed my carpet*

They are really just closing now before M$ comes in with the MSN Music Store and takes all the WMA buisiness. They should hold out a while longer, and sue M$ for antitrust violations when they do open their store.

Buymusic done, Napster next?

If it's as good as windows media player, we're safe... because it really sucks! - Poor Mac User

No, we are not. Notice that how suck WMP does doesn't affect Windows users from using it. You forget one thing: Windows users have high tolerance for pain and bad taste As long as MS plays dirty, nothing is safe until it is well proven that MS fails miserably and drags everyone with them. That is why I am clamoring for EU to restore the balance of competition.

Wow, we really f*cked up! I spent $40million of my own money to launch a terrible alternative to the iTMS. I haven't even sold one song for each of the 1.5 million PC-users in this country. Damn cheap PC users! Napster 2.0, as horrible as it is, is doing way better than us. Why did I have to proclaim that we were going to do 1million songs per day. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I'm continuing to loose tons of money on a daily basis so I thought I'd take advantage of the loss to offset profits at Buy.com - less taxes!

I really thought the nearly naked Tommy Lee would work! I'm such an idiot. I should have gone with David Hasselhoff instead.

I've been so wrong about so many things. Could Mac actually be the right platform?

uhh was buymusic banking on apple NEVER entering the PC market..

oops.. should have read the articles scotty..

ps. does anyone here think BUYMUSIC or BUY.COM has one one millionth the brand power that apple has..

napster has done an about face, like Xerox selling computers.. it doesn't really work.. when i think of real, i think of streaming.. which is renting music.. won't work.. MS is not hip, doesn't know a damn thing about music.. but VIrgin will be a great service..

Maybe Scott should have payed for the surfboard he bought from me less than $400.00.
He might have had better Karma

[They are really just closing now before M$ comes in with the MSN Music Store and takes all the WMA buisiness. They should hold out a while longer, and sue M$ for antitrust violations when they do open their store.]

They should, but they won't.

What will happen will be more in the line of...

S: "Did we do a good job, Bill? Did we do a good job?"

B: "Yes Scott, you did a good job. Here's a cookie."

S: "Gosh! Thanks, Bill." Munch, munch. Mouth full of cookie, "Bill?"

B: "Yes, Scott."

S: "Bill, what about all that money that I spent propping up WMA?"

B: "You done good Scott. But, how are you helping me if I've got to pay you back?"

S: "Oh yeah."

B: "Here's another cookie, Scott?"

S: "Okay, I feel better now."

^ LOL :D

I doubt that M$ can build a decent music store/player. If they do try to undercut Walmart, it will only mean theyll be losing more money, iTunes makes hardly any profit by itself. BG is already losing money with XBOX. If they cant guarantee people that XP reloaded will play nice with all programs many people may not download it, meaning wasted time and money. Pushing Longhorn even further away. We may be witnessing the downfall of windows as an operating system. OSX is only getting better, MACs are being seen as essential by schools and govt for serious computing projects. Linux is becoming more of a player and getting friendlier all the time. Should we all hope for the fall of Redmond to a measly software developer?

If Microsoft focused all of their attention to making a good OS, instead of making a myriad of different useless attempts to dominate the tech world (MSN messenger, MSN Music Store [even the name is the same!!], internet explorer, windows media player, movie maker [what a joke] etc etc etc), maybe Windows could suck a little less...

Then again, they would have to remove all the code they add to make applications from competitors seem sloppy and improve their own... and god forbid.

"Buymusic done, Napster next?" - rhamon

I doubt that. Microsoft needs lackeys to counter iTMS and Napster is it. NY Post (too lazy to google for links) made an assertion that Microsoft was propping Napster. OK, it's New York Post, but I am inclined to think it's true given the fact that Gorog's lips are inseparable from Gates' behind. I think Real is next (and Microsoft won't lift a finger to help).

Wonder why Microsoft got off the hook thanks to the DOJ?

Name Occupation Employer Contribution Candidate

William H. Gates CEO Microsoft Corp. $2,000 George W. Bush

From a nifty site that enables you to search for campaign donations. Check out your neighbors:

http://www.fundrace.org/neighbors.php/

(No donations listed for Steve Jobs)

Sobe Beverages (an independent unit of Pepsi) and BuyMusic had announced a promotion to begin in May. I wonder if these new events will jepordize this promotion?

I find it funny their site still says "World's Largest Download Music Store"! Are they serious?

I'll say this for about the fiftieth time, but the Windows legal music download market is not that big.

The people I know who use Windows machines (mostly young people under 20) to collect music, mostly steal it from the internet. They laugh at the idea of paying.. I know because i've been trying to convert them to the ITMS.

Statements like "Don't you feel like supporting the artists you like?" just don't mean anything to them.

Anyway, 50% of the Pee-Sea 'marketshare' goes into business offices, government and educational facilities. Of the remainder, the percentage of people who are music fanatics enough to own mp3 players, and who are active legal downloaders is just not that big.

Maybe twice as big as the Macintosh market.. but not 90%. Which is the number that people throw around when they try to quantify the Pee-Sea 'marketshare'.

And maybe the Mac music download is half of what the Pee-Sea market is, but I bet you that the Mac downloaders buy three times the amount of music.

All of this explains the ITMS numbers versus the Windows music services, which seem to be just limping along. Until these people can be talked into buying instead of just taking, not much is going to change.

dv

I hope that in the second round of music download services competitor to iTunes recognise the contribution of Mac users to this market and include us in whatever they plan. There may not be as many of us but on average we are less likely to pirate software and content than the average Windows user. Even if the iPods remain closed, the compatibility that other MP3 players have with OS X is all the reason online music services need to offer their services to us too.

I'm sure you will see the same donation to many dem's too by Mr. Gates, he ain't picky and the Clinton's didn't exactly hurt MS during the previous 8 years when he shipped, win98, me, xp all with media players, browsers, networking software and made companies pay more for a computer if it didn't have windows on it. Remember, he basically ran Netscape and Novell out of business by giving stuff away free without one word from DC except the repub senator from Utah who was trying to save Novell and WordPerfect.

David Vessey:
I think Apple has indicated that it iTunes sells most of its songs to Windows users. In any case, sales doubled or tripled right after iTunes became compatible for Windows. So a fair number of Windows users are paying to buy music--they're just going to Apple to do it!

Bye-Muscic.com

Mac User wrote:
"I think Apple has indicated that it iTunes sells most of its songs to Windows users. In any case, sales doubled or tripled right after iTunes became compatible for Windows"

I've never seen concrete numbers, and I do a fair amount of Apple watching, but I will trust that your numbers are correct.

My 'guesstimates' are a compilation of what I have read and anecdotal evidence. Anyway, in the end, I don't doubt at all that the Windows download market is 2-3 times that of the Macintosh..and I did note in my post that the Windows market as probably being twice Mac market, I was just wondering about the volume of buying per computer owner.

But in the end the case I was, clumsily, trying to make was that the actual, real, music downloading Windows market does not appear to be 15-20 times
that of the Macintosh.

If you subtract the the ITMS customers from the Windows market, and subtract the number of people who frequent KaZaA, the number of customers left for the Windows only music sites are not as high as they would lead you to believe. And the sales figures bear this out.

So I do not think we have a lot to disagree about.

DV

Currently BuyMusic continues to boast being the “World’s Largest Download Music Store” in spite of having 100,000 less songs than the iTunes Music store or Napster.

Strange that the BBB would complain about Apple's G5 ads, claiming it to be the fastest PC, but not this kind of blatantly false advertising.

DaveMac, Bill Gates is listed as only contributing to Bush. Do the search yourself. Search your neighborhood too, it's pretty enlightening. It gives people's names, addresses, occupations and who and how much they donated to. ($2000 is the maximum for individual contributions).

I will miss BuyMusic.com. Not because it is any good, but because of the chuckle I get when I go to their site, watch the page load in it's entirety, then it redirects me to this:

Thank you for visiting BuyMusic.com.

In order to take full advantage of BuyMusic.com's offerings you must be on a Windows Operating System using Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher.

Good times.

in the LONG run.... I think one of two things MAY happen:

1. If by some chance one of these WMA stores catch on, Apple will include WMA into the iPod. After all, it should be clear that the money is NOT in selling the songs but in hardware to play them(and in MS's case the royalties from licensing WMA), so if there are two major players in the market, iTunes and some WMA site, at that point, Apple could still make tons on the iPod by including WMA. Don't look for this to happen 'til the market shakes down to a handful of players.

OR

2. If all the WMA sites continue to crash & burn(and I hope they do), Apple will license fairplay for cheaper non-disc based players. Drawing the line at players without HD's will contiue to keep the iPod the king of the hill, and solve the issue of in-expensive players for folks who don't have $250 for an iPod Mini. Apple still makes a bit of money on both the downloads as well as the license fees for non "iPod-ers", while still maintaining the upper end of the profit margin with the iPod.

Apple needs to stay ahead of the curve and bring out a home (non portable) media player or allow third parties to build one that will work with iTMS. As with digital photo, once the market starts to move over you have to move over the entire product line eventually. iPod is nice but it does not repleace a home media player. The problem for Apple though is because the iPod is priced so high, any fixed home media player would be even more expensive! Will be interesting to see how they get round that.

"The problem for Apple though is because the iPod is priced so high, any fixed home media player would be even more expensive! Will be interesting to see how they get round that."

Not necessarily... If you want an iPod, you pay for an iPod, if you want a home media player, you pay for that. So it can be the same price or around the same price.

I don't want a home media player but I would buy an iPod any time. It's not exactly the same market. If they want to make it, they can make it and sell it for same the price of the iPod or more (which is more likely)

Since the two devices wouldn't compete with each other, you can pay around the same amount for each. At least that's what I think

Forget home media centres. The iPod should get into the car and kick the CD stacker out.

I seem to recall Microsoft greasing both sides of the shaft...

http://www.commoncause.org/publications/sept00/092500.htm

http://www.opensecrets.org/softmoney/softcomp2.asp?txtName=Microsoft+Corp&txtUltOrg=y&txtCycle=2000&txtSort=name

Whats really interesting though is how much Apple spent in 2000, and where they spent it:



http://www.opensecrets.org/softmoney/softcomp2.asp?txtName=Apple+Computer&txtUltOrg=y&txtSort=name&txtCycle=2002

Seems the mood then changed a bit:

http://www.opensecrets.org/softmoney/softcomp2.asp?txtName=Apple+Computer&txtUltOrg=y&txtSort=name&txtCycle=2000

very interesting