iPod - Yahoo & Microsoft

We recently covered the significance of launch of Xbox and also covered Bob Cringley's perspective on Google, Yahoo, Apple: Three Inflection Points. Russell Beattie writes interestingly, by choosing to license PlaysForSure from Microsoft, Yahoo was able to launch YME with 10+ devices right out of the gate. Going a proprietary route would have been ridiculous opening itself to criticisms of yet another DRM standard. After the CES show, Russell wrote,Its game over for Microsoft's competitors in the consumer electronice sector.Microsoft has a monopoly on the desktop, and soon they'll have a monopoly on everything else as well: not the OS, but the DRM on which all the media is based. The long view: As the OS diminishes in importance going forward in time, the only thing that's going to separate one system from another is the DRM which is laid on top of it. Microsoft is ensuring their long life by getting their codec in everything from cellphones to set top boxes. It won't matter if Linux catches up to Windows or other OS hurting,if we're all depending on paying Microsoft yearly fees to enjoy to our media. Russel maintains that the main threat to Yahoo's business is not Google but Microsoft. Y! is making more forays into Hollywood, basing the services on Microsoft's technology! By holding the only competitor to the Janus codec (FairPlay) so close to their chest, Apple is not only bringing about their eventual demise in the media market, but also everyone else as well. Yahoo's request to Apple to open up their codec for the YME was perhpas turned down and Microsoft moved fast.Russell ends with a word of caution -It's like 1989 all over again when everyone was begging to license the Mac OS. Two years later Windows 3.0 showed up and Apple is now at 2% market share.
Om Malik provides a differing perspective saying Bashing iPod is futile by correctly pointing to the fact that Microsoft’s game hasn’t worked in Mobile Phones. Symbian continues to outsell Windows Mobile handsomely. Same in the digital music world - once you have seen or used an iPod, you know the better option. In the PC era, Apple’s strategic mistake was pricing, not the product. Well, this time around Apple got the pricing right.The iconic status of iPod has the same status appeal, the very same cachet as say a Burberry plaid, Zegna sports coat, and Armani cologne. It has the same ’sensory’ appeal of a Mini, or a BMW, at prices which can be deemed affordable and belongs to the calls - "affordable luxury." Gucci clutches and Coach handbags - as long as they stay below the $500 price tag, are flying off the shelves. iPod is no different and points to the potential evolution of a possible working arrangement between Apple and Sony.
Scobeleizer points out that The barriers to entry are quite low; the barriers to "doing it well" are much higher, but it’s not clear that Apple remains advantaged as dedicated music players give way to converged media devices and smart/cell phones. Said another way, there’s a lot of mutation happening, and it’s not clear that a single stack (Apple) can be out in front of it all. I tend to agree with Om that it would be difficult to dislocate Apple from its leadesrhip position - so long as it plays the price, product and innovation card well - but have to give it Russ that Microsoft's DRM seems to be gaining ground.