Welcome to the big leagues Apple!
If you have an MP3 player these days, it's most likely an Apple Ipod. If you have an Ipod, you are using iTunes to download your music (and may even be dowloading movies now).
Both are ubiquitous. Sales of the Ipod are fast approaching the 100 million mark. In fact, Apple sold 22 million iPods during the 2006 Christmas season alone!
People are in love with their iPods. The well designed software and ease of perfectly connecting with iTunes has made it the music media player choice for the past 3+ years.
I would argue that the vast music choice and well designed iTunes music store has had more to do with the incredible success of the iPod than the other way around. Apple was the first to create a legal music download site with the selection that consumers demanded. Apple sold 600,000 iPods before iTunes came out on April 29th 2003. They have sold 87 million since then. Although I have to admit that the ease of using the iPod itself and the excellent marketing programs have had a huge impact on the success as well.
As Microsoft found out from a number of government anti-trust lawsuits, being the undisputed dominant champion in an industry has it's drawbacks.
Holland, Germany and France are launching serious investigations into the iTunes software. They're investigating the fact that the music purchased on iTunes cannot play on any other personal media player (other than iPods). Holland and France has already claimed this software locking is illegal, and are meeting with Apple representatives to decide on next steps.
What does this mean? There is a very real possibility that Apple will be forced to unlock the software and allow the songs to be played on other personal media devices in Holland, Germany and France. If this should happen, it won't be long before other countries jump on the bandwagon and Apple will have no choice but to license the software to competitors (to allow iTunes music to play on a competitors digital media player).
I have to say I agree. If I'm legally buying something such as a song, I should be able to own it outright, and play it anywhere I want on any machine I want.
Most of us remember the Sony Walkman. For those that don't, the Walkman was a portable tape player made by Sony, and was easily the most popular personal media device in the 1980's. In fact, Sony sold 186 million Walkman's between 1979 and 1999 (Apple has sold about 90 million iPods so far). When you bought a Walkman, you went out and bought tapes (lots and lots of bulky tapes). Once you bought that cassette tape, you could play it on any cassette player made by any manufacturer. Some competitors made better "walkmans" as the years went on, such as Panasonic (in my opinion). When it came time to buy a new cassette player, I could choose any one of them, knowing they would play all the cassette tapes I bought. The same thing happened when CD's came out.
In the coming years, competitors are sure to develop a better "iPod". It would be nice to know that the music I have already paid for will be able to load up on my new digital player from another company without any problems. Apple, of course, doesn't want this to happen.
When governments are looking into your business practices because of your size and domination, you know you've reached the big time.
Apple has done an incredible job with iTunes and the iPod. They are now facing the challenges of that success.
