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Music Businesses Media Apple

HP Dumped Napster for Apple 236

Posted by michael from the napster-is-dying dept.
Pieter Townshend writes "Found on GMSV: 'In the days leading up to Napster's re-launch last October, a deal that would have put Napster links on millions of Hewlett-Packard computers went bad. HP withdrew from the agreement at the last minute, its reasons for doing so becoming clear three months later when it announced a surprise partnership with Apple to feature the iTunes Music store on HP computers and sell Hewlett-Packard branded iPod music players.'"
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HP Dumped Napster for Apple More

HP Dumped Napster for Apple

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  • One reason why I think (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mpost4 ( 115369 ) * on Friday February 20, 2004 @12:59PM (#8340387) Homepage Journal
    Based on the last line of the article "But he expects the business will mature as users realize it's cheaper to pay a flat fee for access to 500,000 tracks than to pay $1 a song."

    The problem with the $15 a month is, I don't want to have to pay if I don't use it for a month. As it is I have spent less then $10 a month on iTunes store (and this month I might not spend anything), for me it has been cheaper. So if I look at it I have saved about $25 by not going with Napster. And since I am the only one in my circle at work that uses it, but every one here drinks Pepsi, I am getting free songs from my co-works (that or they would just trash the winning caps), but that is just a non-issue in the long run. With the iTunes store there is great integration into OS X and my iPod.

    Also it does cost $.99 do download the song form Napster, so you have to pay for access then to download. From Napsters (www.napster.com) front page "Choose your own tracks for $0.99 each, or get the whole enchilada for just $9.95 per album."
    • Another could possibly be the iPod

    • $15 a month (Score:5, Funny)

      by bad enema ( 745446 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:04PM (#8340435)
      Equivalent to going out and buying a CD every month. With the rate of quality music being released these day, buying once a month is way too frequent for my taste.

      Personally I have gotten most of the pre-Internet era music from Kazaa Lite, so paying $1 a song would suit my needs much better. Or I could just stick with Kazaa Lite some mroe.
      • Funny, I've bought quite a few excellent CD's released this year. Maybe you're not looking in the right places.

      • Re:$15 a month (Score:3, Insightful)

        by wankledot ( 712148 )
        If you can't find quality music to buy, you aren't looking hard enough, or the genres you like suck to begin with.

        Seriously, I'm tired of seeing "there is no good music" comments, there is a TON of music in any genre being released all the time, and even when there isn't, there's usually a massive back catalog of things that most people don't own, and could look at.

        • Re:$15 a month (Score:3, Interesting)

          by letdownjournals ( 737635 )
          I used to think, "Man, what happened to music? There used to be so many great bands, and now they all suck."

          Then I found my old collection of cassette tapes in my parents basement, all the 80's indie/alternapunk bands that I remember so fondly... Most of that stuff isn't so good either. But life was a lot more fun then, so the music seems a lot better.

          Maybe I just hate modern bands because they're all younger, richer and having a lot more fun than me.

    • Re:One reason why I think (Score:5, Interesting)

      by vonPoonBurGer ( 680105 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:06PM (#8340452)
      I think the major reason HP jumped from Napster to iTMS is the iPod itself. Comparing the two music distro partnerships, I doubt HP saw much difference in terms of the profit potential. But selling rebranded iPods?? The margins on those things are huge! And they have serious cool factor going for them right now. It's no wonder HP would switch to iTMS, given the chance to tap the kind of hardware profit margins Apple is currently enjoying.

      • Margins? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Gorimek ( 61128 )
        I've heard from several places that the iPods cost very little more than the plain hard drives that are in them, and thus have very low margins.

        If so the business plan would be to run the music store without a profit, in order to sell iPods without a profit, in order to sell macintoshes. But that doesn't sound too smart, so I'd be willing to believe they do make money on iPods, and maybe what I heard only applies to the first models.

        If anyone knows any more or less real numbers on Apples iPod margins, I'd

        • Re:Margins? (Score:5, Informative)

          by EvanTaylor ( 532101 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:56PM (#8340962)
          apple makes about 27% profit margin on all hardware, ipods included. Their PR for investors explains this.

        • Re:Margins? (Score:3, Informative)

          by GizmoToy ( 450886 )
          This is just not true. I forget when, but Apple publicly released information to investors showing that they made between $50 and $150 per iPod, depending on the model. This is due to the extensive discounts they receive by buying the components in huge quantities. You might remember that the original iPod debuted at the exact same price as the hard drive it contained ($399, if I'm not mistaken).

    • Re:One reason why I think (Score:5, Informative)

      by wo1verin3 ( 473094 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:14PM (#8340526) Homepage
      >>Also it does cost $.99 do download the song
      >>form Napster, so you have to pay for access
      >>then to download. From Napsters
      >>(www.napster.com) front page "Choose your own
      >>tracks for $0.99 each, or get the whole
      >>enchilada for just $9.95 per album."

      You're confusing two different things.

      Napster allows the following:

      1) Subscribe for $10 a month and have unlimited download access to songs, you can not burn these but can download so as long as you are a subscriber. The vast majority of the library can be accessed by download but there are a select songs that are 'buy only'
      2) Purchase a single track for $0.99. No subscription required.
      3) Purchase a single album for $9.99. No subscription required. It's a one time purchase and not tied to anything else.

    • Re:One reason why I think (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Patik ( 584959 ) * <.cpatik. .at. .gmail.com.> on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:26PM (#8340615) Homepage Journal
      The problem with the $15 a month is, I don't want to have to pay if I don't use it for a month. As it is I have spent less then $10 a month on iTunes store (and this month I might not spend anything), for me it has been cheaper.
      That's the same rationale I use for choosing my cell phone provider [virginmobileusa.com]. My friends laugh when I tell them it's 25 cents/min, but since I only use maybe 30 min/month I'd just be wasting 470 minutes with a "normal" $30/month plan. And if I don't use it one month, my balance waits until I need it.

    • Re:One reason why I think (Score:5, Funny)

      by Xaymot ( 754751 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:29PM (#8340643)
      See what the man did to you? Now your chasing down other peoples' trash to snag some free songs. Its like when a GHB addict goes to Home Depot to sniff some thinner.

      RC cola is better anyway.

    • The other problem. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:32PM (#8340667) Homepage
      But he expects the business will mature as users realize it's cheaper to pay a flat fee for access to 500,000 tracks than to pay $1 a song

      But then the question is, what happens as the users realize it's even cheaper to listen to the internet radio built into iTunes for $0 a month.

      Okay, yeah, you can't choose exactly what song you hear next on internet radio. But generally, if I go "hey, I want to listen to X specific song", this indicates I'm going to want to listen to it again someday in the future. Unless I keep paying for Napster's streaming service for the rest of my natural life, I can't get that. Perhaps worst of all, last I heard not *all* of the songs Napster has up for sale are free to stream when you have the $15/mo service, and there's no way to tell which songs can and can't be streamed unless you've already paid for the service. ...well that's encouraging.

      The $15-to-stream-from-our-library thing is a really neat business proposition, and I'd call it real innovation, but I just can't see buying it. I'd rather just stick with actually buying in some form the tracks/albums. And if you're only looking at buying tracks/albums, Apple's software works both on my macs and my PCs, and they seem to have a bigger and more indie-friendly library. I think I'll stick with them.
      • "The $15-to-stream-from-our-library thing is a really neat business proposition..."

        I am torn on the idea myself. I do know that once I started buying songs from iTMS, after several months of thinking about it, I had to push myself away from the keyboard after 50 songs. It's downright addicting. The interface design is fantastic and really encourages jumping around through recommendation links. This leads to many, "Oh man, I love _____ (fill in song/album/artist)" moments. A quick click-charge-downloa

      • Re:The other problem. (Score:4, Informative)

        by Smack ( 977 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @02:39PM (#8341429) Homepage
        Personally, what I dislike about the iTunes radio is a different problem: that I can't say "hey, I don't want to listen to X specific song". With Napster, even in the "radio" mode you can delete future songs from the playlist or skip ahead any time.

    • it's a business decision (Score:5, Informative)

      by mm0mm ( 687212 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:41PM (#8340751)
      Napster is compatible only with Win---s XP and 2K [napster.com]. Not even with 98 or NT will you have access to it. Meanwhile HP -- iPod by HP; Linux by HP? Maybe HP wants to diversify their products and is aware that relying too much on one technology will limit their business. IMHO HP has better business sense than Roxio, who targeted Napster only to part of 94% desktop users.

      • Re:it's a business decision (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        iTunes also requires windows 2k/xp.


        Maybe you can tell me where I can buy a NEW HP consuer PC that doesn't come with Windows XP?


        Maybe then you can tell me what your point was?

  • Napster Sigma? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pirogoeth ( 662083 ) * <mailbox&ikrug,com> on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:00PM (#8340398) Homepage Journal
    Even though they're under new management, I wonder if Napster still has a bit of a stigma to them that gave HP cold feet?

  • AAC versus WMA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by King Elessar ( 754728 ) * on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:01PM (#8340409)
    AAC versus secured WMA, no big surprise here that HP decides to go with the non-MS solution.

    • Re:AAC versus WMA (Score:4, Informative)

      by sharlskdy ( 460886 ) <scottman@ t e l u s.net> on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:55PM (#8340945) Homepage
      It's nice to see an alternative to WMA catching on, and this deal with HP gives AAC a huge boost, breaking away from the perception that it is confined to the Mac world.

      I've been looking at the choices in media media formats and I have not been very happy with the fact that WMA (WMA7 from what I have learned) has been showing up everywhere. I don't want to have a MS-proprietary format running everywhere. I know it's supposed to make my life easier (and make it easier for MS to extract more money from me later, and don't tell me they aren't trying to think of some way to do this).

      With iPod Mini and iPod-HP, iTunes pre-installed on HP computers, with a very significant market share being carved out, and with AAC as the contendor to WMA it seems as though Apple has done the right thing at the right time. Once AAC is established as the popular everyman's format, then consumers will be locked into Apple's system.

      This isn't something someone can just Netscape. Once someone is locked into a format, then any purchased music is stuck in that format. Unless the record store allows you to go back and download the media in an alternative format, you are stuck on that format (apart from burning / ripping yourself, but then you'll have aliasing issues to deal with).

  • Fly on the wall, eh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:01PM (#8340411)

    Steve Jobs : We'd like you to use our music service, we'll even let you HP-brand the iPod.
    Carla Fiorina : Nice idea but we've got a handshake deal with Napster and a cheque for $250K to make the deal concrete.
    Steve Jobs : Here's a suitcase full of money, an iPod and a contract to let you do voice-acting in the next Pixar flick. Return the $250K and consider my proposal.
    Carla Fiorina : Napster who?

  • I'm glad (Score:5, Insightful)

    by andyring ( 100627 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:02PM (#8340417) Homepage
    I am happy to see that HP has some sense in this. Instead of picking Napster, which is doomed to failure, they instead went with a company who has a solid, proven track record of being THE industry leader in online music distribution and top-of-the-line MP3/AAC players.

    Smart move, HP! Good on their part, good for Apple, and most importantly, good for the customer.

    • Re:I am sad (Score:5, Insightful)

      by yintercept ( 517362 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:19PM (#8340563) Homepage Journal
      Personal, I am sad about the whole state of affairs in this industry. Basically, the computer manufacturers are choosing which programs the end user will use for listening to music, which antivirus software they will use. Each new computer that comes off the shelf is bundled with more and more ads and programs that monitor behavior.

      The boxes coming out of the shop should stop being called "computers" and should be correctly identified as "ad delivery units."

      • You have no clue. (Score:4, Informative)

        by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:48PM (#8340850) Homepage
        Basically, the computer manufacturers are choosing which programs the end user will use for listening to music, which antivirus software they will use.

        No, computer manufacturers are choosing which programs they, as manufacturers, want to pre-load on a machine. It may or may not have to do with contracts or what the sales guys want, or even what the hardware developers want, or download what you want. The point is, it you don't like what's loaded on your machine when you buy it, go to any decent hardware retailer and build your own parts, it's all plug and play, no tech experience required. It's an afternoon project. Then load what you want. But a manufacturer can load whatever fit's their fancy.

      • Re:I am sad (Score:3, Interesting)

        by the_2nd_coming ( 444906 )
        only the big PC companies...

        Alienware and Apple do not do such things.

      • Re:I am sad (Score:5, Insightful)

        by NaugaHunter ( 639364 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @02:23PM (#8341259)
        Um, how is this different from other large-ticket items, like your car? They decide what brand of radio, what type of transmission, what kind of tires are sold with each model. You're free to replace any of them you want when you've bought the car.

        I think you're overgeneralizing from Microsoft and their vendors. With a Mac, yeah it comes w/ iTunes and Sherlock and whatnot. But you can use other programs without any negative consequences. Many people use other programs for a lot of things. Heck, you could set up to log directly into XWindows if you want and use no Apple software (other than their changes to work on the hardware, natch).

        Now, Apple computers may not be easily configurable at purchase time as far as hardware goes, but they use industry standards and most pieces you'd want to replace you can. But all of their software packages are just that - software packages.

        I have no idea what you mean by 'ad delivery units'. My computer is a tool that actually lets me get things done.

    • Re:I'm glad (Score:3, Insightful)

      by paranode ( 671698 )
      ...they instead went with a company who has a solid, proven track record of being THE industry leader in online music distribution...

      Wow, I didn't know it only took a few months to become THE industry leader with a solid and proven track record. That is an accomplishment.

    • Re:I'm glad (Score:3, Funny)

      by plj ( 673710 )
      Instead of picking Napster, which is doomed to failure, they instead went with a company who has a solid, proven track record of being THE industry leader in online music distribution and top-of-the-line MP3/AAC players.

      But hey. We all know Apple is dying too, don't we?

  • HP don't play that way, Microsoft. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:03PM (#8340427) Homepage Journal
    ]Hewlett-Packard] withdrew from the agreement at the last minute, its reasons for doing so becoming clear three months later when it announced a surprise partnership with Apple to feature the iTunes Music store on HP computers and sell Hewlett-Packard branded iPod music players.'

    Which would make Microsoft unhappy [slashdot.org] and it did and for other reasons [slashdot.org] as well. That Microsoft took iTunes so lightly [slashdot.org] is a mystery [slashdot.org].

  • M$ arm twisting (Score:5, Insightful)

    by millahtime ( 710421 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:03PM (#8340431) Homepage Journal
    I wouldn't suprise me if they went with apple just to get away from M$ dominance. M$ has twisted so many arms at HP, Dell and the likes over the years I can understand why they would stay away from M$ if they have the chance. What company wants their arm constantly twisted?
    • The same company that likes being tied up and handcuffed to the bed, while Billy Boy whispers "you've been a bad company" in its ears...

      Seriously, though, how does eschewing Napster for iTunes benefit HP from the point-of-view of independent operation? Instead of being dependent on Napster and MS, and having to develop or purchase and promote an unknown player, they're dependent on Apple, and get a really popular, already developed, and expertly promoted player to go with.

      It has nothing to do with gai

      • Re:M$ arm twisting (Score:3, Insightful)

        by p4ul13 ( 560810 )
        I disagree. By passing up Napster (and its WMA licensed music) for iTunes; HP is accomplishing a couple good moves.

        1-They are differentiating themselves from other computer makers.
        2-HP is reducing their lock-in with MS (indirectly but it's still one less tie)
        3-The iTunes / iPod combination is highly successful and therefore very visible, so this lands them a lot of brand recognition to ride on.

  • i would love to have been a fly on the wall... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JWG ( 665579 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:04PM (#8340432)
    ... during the HP meetings. I can think of so many reasons to dump Napster in favour of Apple, such as: DRM, WMA, and cross-platform compatibility issues. All of these are, of course, aside from the fiscal reasons to favour Apple. From my /. perspective, I wonder which technical reasons, if any, came into play.

  • They almost have it (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jchawk ( 127686 )
    They have almost got it right. I will shell out up to $49.95 a month when I can have access to just about every song ever released by a major record label and some of the independants.

    Here's what I want.

    1. On Demand Access - meaning I can login from anywhere and stream the music to my PC or internet connected device.

    2. Download / Burning Rights - I want to be able to create cds that I can take with me and play in the car.

    It's that simple, hell work a deal out with ISP's and let them offer it as a val
    • The problem "they" will cite..

      2. What's to prevent you from burning LOTS of these CDs and giving them to friends?

      You may say "well I can do that today", but you can't as you don't have an original CD of "just about every song ever released". What you are proposing would give pirates very easy access to illegaly copy just about every song...

      This is why "they" are all pushing DRM :S

    • Re:They almost have it (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Golias ( 176380 )
      Of course this means that you (and anybody else who is thinking) will join for 1 month, download the whole damned store, and then quit, having "purchased" a library of the entire history of pop music for $50. Sounds like a real winner of a business plan!

      Subscription models only work if you are not allowed to own a copy. =

      Of course, no model that prohibits you from owning a copy will work either, because most of us don't want to "rent" our music. This is the real reason why subscription-based services ar

  • Pay by month or each time? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) * <jhummel.johnhummel@net> on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:08PM (#8340468) Homepage
    When the iTunes store came out, I went a little nuts, and probably spent more on music in 2 weeks than I had in 2 years.

    Why? I could finally get that "one song I wanted" issue out of my system. Why by the entire "Queen: Greatest Hits" when I can't stand "Another one bites the dust", and just want "Bohemian Rhapsody"?

    Once that was done, I slowed down. I'll still buy an album once every 2-3 months when the fancy strikes me for something new or when another band joins (I'm still holding my breath for the Beatles to get into the music stores, even though I'm starting to see black spots).

    So why use a subscription service? Maybe if I could copy those tracks to my iPod (or some other MP3/portable music device) I could almost see the worth of it, but for $15 a month compared to $10 every 2-3 months, I don't see the worth of it.

    Otherwise, I think that Napster, and other online stores like unto it, are pretty much in trouble. As the article states, they really don't have a revenue model. The songs probably barely make enough money for the bandwidth/server costs/customer support (meager though the latter should be), and Apple has made no secret that iPods are driving its profits. Sony has come out with their service with probaby superior encoded tracks, but selling them at $1.99 a song is a death kneal for all but the dedicated fans. At that price, I might as well just buy the CD and rip the songs into FLAC or something instead of wasting time downloading them from Sony.

    In the end, I see Apple surviving, then as time goes on perhaps making a bigger chunk from the $0.99 per song track once they become the de facto standard (Apple? A dominate player in something? Shock!) and not having to rely so much on iPod sales. I see advertising based music sales doing pretty well - Coke and so on, but my money's on 12 months from now a lot of those services offering iPod compatible tracks through a licensing deal with Apple.

    Of course, I could be wrong, but the trends so far seem to support it.

    • Apple Domination... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by oneiros27 ( 46144 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:50PM (#8340890) Homepage
      Actually, Apple has lead markets before. Anyone remember when the IIgs was the premier graphics and sound platform?

      You still see a lot of Apples in graphics and sound industries, but Apple's not been so great about maintaining their niche. [I mean, hell, Photoshop, one of the reasons for having a Mac in the 90s was one of the reasons people didn't want to switch to OS X, as Adobe wasn't going to make the jump right away].

      When I worked in we development, I saw us go from 6:2 mac:pc user preference, to their current 1:12. [As most of us mac users left... and the manager [one of the two pc users] kept hiring non-mac people] . Okay, that might be a bad for empirical evidence.

      The real question is going to be if Apple can keep the lead, or become complacent, and have someone else take the market from them.

    • Re:Pay by month or each time? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by shotfeel ( 235240 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @03:02PM (#8341711)
      Once that was done, I slowed down.

      Reminds me of one of the other factors the RIAA seems to ignore when looking at sales trends. Many of us older folks have spent a lot of money not only on new music, but to replace all the vinyl we still wanted to listen to. I don't remember where I read it about a year ago, but it seems most of us have replaced everything we think worth replacing and have slowed our purchases to new stuff only.

      IOW the upgrade gravy-train in over for the RIAA and they still haven't figured out how to maintain sales with only new stuff.

  • Napster's Public Image (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PurdueGraphicsMan ( 722107 ) * on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:08PM (#8340470) Homepage Journal
    One obvious consideration is the fact that Napster's name isn't exactly crystal clear in the public's eye. With all of the lawsuit stuff they went through back in the day, the name Napster has a lot of negative baggage with it. That alone would be enough to keep me from dealing with them.

  • iTunes vs. Napster (Score:5, Insightful)

    by malchus842 ( 741252 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:08PM (#8340471)
    If I were in HP's position, I'd certainly be disposed to selecting Apple as my partner over Napster. iPods are wildly popular, and iTunes is a going concern run by a company that is a profitable going concern. If I'm HP looking for business partners, I am certainly going to select the one who looks like the way of the future.

    Say what you want about Apple, but they keep coming up with great innovations and products that are slick, well designed and quite useful. HP made a very wise choice here and I think they will make a handsome profit from it. Not to mention Apple being "validated" by someone in the WinTel clique, and having a WinTel producer OEM their gear and install their software by default. This is win-win for Apple and HP, and not bad for consumers.

    Yes, there is the DRM issue, but is it realistic to think that there will ever be a time when there is no DRM on material like songs? While I wish DRM wasn't necessary, Apple's license is pretty good - use on multiple machines, use on multiple iPods and burn them onto MP3 disks. Perfect? No. Good enough for the vast majority? I'd say so.
    • Just an FYI, you can burn as many audio CD's of them also to play in any CD player. While the quality will obviously not be of the usual CD variety (as you are creating the AudioCD from rather good AACs, but still compressed nonetheless), you still do not have to burn them onto MP3 disks to listen to them sans iPod or computer.

      It's the best DRM/Purchasing out there, which is why iTunes MS has risen to the top.

    • Re:iTunes vs. Napster (Score:5, Informative)

      by shawnce ( 146129 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:56PM (#8340963) Homepage
      burn them onto MP3 disks

      Just a small correction: You can burn them to audio disks, you cannot transcode them to MP3 but have to encode from an audio disk to MP3.

      (of course solutions exist to get around this but their use is not allowed for by the iTMS usage terms).

  • breakups... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Enze6997 ( 741393 ) * on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:09PM (#8340480)
    Maybe HP and Napster will run into each other at some bar after one to many rum and cokes and for some reason Apple will be out of town on business or something... sparks will fly and BAM... 10 years later herpes!

  • H-Pod? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Johnny Fusion ( 658094 ) <(zenmondo) (at) (gmail.com)> on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:11PM (#8340502) Homepage Journal
    So, what will HP call thier branded I-Pod? I supposed they could go with H-POD, but then people might get confused. "H? But H comes before I, is it the older model?" Then I guess there is HP-POD, which could be pronounced "Hip-Pod", but then Steve Jobs would be all, "Waitaminute, Apple is WAY MORE Hip, than HP! OK so we both started in Garages, but I sold my my VAN, to start the company, a VAN, man. And Woz had to sell his Calculator! His Calculator, man, one of those nice Programable HP ones... oh, wait. OK"

    --- Ready to be modded down this time...

  • Napster's Client (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bob670 ( 645306 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:15PM (#8340533)
    interface sucks, and their plug in for MediaPlayer 9 barely works, and fails completely with large fonts enabled. On the other hand, iTunes works perfectly, delivers on every aspect of the experience, from simple purchasing, sleek library management, fast searching and easy burning and sharing with authroized PCs and devices. Apple, as usual, delivers on user experience while solutions based on WMA deliver on inconvenience. I was a long time Wintel/Musicmatch user, but iTunes wins hands down. Buh-bye napster 2, buymusic.com, MusicMatch and whateve half-cooked dish MS will serve.

  • HP isn't dumb (Score:5, Interesting)

    by scifience ( 674659 ) * <webmaster@scifience.net> on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:16PM (#8340539) Homepage
    I think that the reason HP didn't go through with the deal with Napster is that they aren't dumb. Anybody with half a brain can see that Napster is doomed to failure.

    No company that has no source of generating any profit is going to exist. The only reason Apple can afford to do iTunes is because they are using it to sell iPods, which do make them money. Napster has no such device, and as such have no hope of staying in business for long. Roxio may have thought that they would sell CD burning software as a reuslt of Napster, but I imagine most people already have burning software that they are happy with.

    I give Napster another 6 to 12 months, at best.

  • Napster's a baggage (Score:3, Insightful)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:29PM (#8340650)
    I think the legal troubles with Napster that's forever ongoing would scare anyone away.

    They say this and that case is settled, but it's BS. You know those damn lawyers keep spawning like bacteria.
    • Uh, Napster, LLC, is gone. Roxio just bought their assets, including the name. They combined that with PressPlay, a stupid music service that had at least 2 shitty incarnations before coming out as the new Napster 2.0.

      IANAL, but if a company breaks the law and then goes chapter 11, you can't be held accountable for their actions if you buy their liquidated assets. I mean, if I buy one of those fancy, meshy office chairs from the Enron yard sale, you couldn't sue me for sitting in it. Roxio is sitting o

  • Reg article on HP and dropping the ball on tunes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by plopez ( 54068 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:37PM (#8340708) Journal
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/34980 .html

    This is an interesting article. It appears that Compaq had a good device for tunes before being purchased by HP. THe question is why did HP go and outsourced tunes appliance when it already had one it purchased from Compaq? Lack of faith in Compaq? Then why did they they buy Compaq? Did they even know it existed? Then the question becomes did they even know what they bought?

    Interesting...

    • This is an interesting article. It appears that Compaq had a good device for tunes before being purchased by HP. THe question is why did HP go and outsourced tunes appliance when it already had one it purchased from Compaq? Lack of faith in Compaq? Then why did they they buy Compaq? Did they even know it existed? Then the question becomes did they even know what they bought?

      My guess would be that they took a look at their own device and they took a look at what was already out there and then made a deci

  • The problem with "legal" music services... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by djeaux ( 620938 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:38PM (#8340722) Homepage Journal
    ...is that you can't download surreptitiously-recorded concerts, studio outtakes, or other "bootleg" materials.

    I already own all the legit releases by the artists that interest me, but last time I checked I still need about 1,000 Bob Dylan shows just to get that part of my collection up-to-date. God help me when I start on the Grateful Dead or Phish!

    Thank goodness for broadband & good ole FTP server software!

    • yeah the client sucks, but there's boatloads of free concerts out there for the downloading...legally. And they sure do suck up disk space.
    • Nothing prevents an artists or record company from distributing such items on a music service such as iTunes other then any legal restrictions or lack of desire on the part of the artist or record company.

      I bet this is a temporary problem. I have heard talk about some artists making such items available on iTunes. Currently you can get "exclusive" tracks from many artists on iTunes and those are often special cuts, remixes and/or live performance versions.

  • 5 reason of why Napstare will fail (Score:5, Interesting)

    by brainnolo ( 688900 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:44PM (#8340776) Homepage
    As many pointed out, the first is certainly - They dont sell a player like iPod other's are: - User experience isn't at iTunes level - Napster history doesnt make it sound "clean" - They are not coming out with Pepsi caps :P - Doesnt work on Mac, that is the platform of artists since its creation. In my opinion HP doesnt want to break good relelations with Apple especially when they can enter in profitable business through Apple itself (last is the ITMS, but what about pro-printers?)

  • Interesting marketing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by blackmonday ( 607916 ) * on Friday February 20, 2004 @01:47PM (#8340834) Homepage
    You'll probably mod me off-topic, but I walked into Target a few days ago, and I was walking by their electronics section and noticed that they are selling *Napster-branded* CD-Rs, CD boxes, media cases and such. The little cat logo and everything. I couldn't believe the irony.

  • Question: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by HoldmyCauls ( 239328 )
    How long before iTunes is running under GNUstep [gnustep.org]? That way we can have it under Linux, too!

    • Re:Question: (Score:4, Informative)

      by Arkham ( 10779 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @02:27PM (#8341301)
      iTunes is a Carbon [apple.com] app, not Cocoa [apple.com]. So, never, unless Apple rewrites it.

    • Re:Question: (Score:5, Informative)

      by CottonEyedJoe ( 177704 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @02:54PM (#8341613) Journal
      As others have mentioned iTunes relys on an API that is not available under GNUStep. Additionally, even if iTunes was Cocoa, and could thus be compiled using GNUStep, it would have to be recompiled to do so, AND for each architecture it ran on. iTunes is NOT open source, only Apple could recompile it. Many people misunderstand GNUStep, believing it is some form of Cocoa emulator and can run binaries built on a mac with cocoa, it cant. GNUStep is a reimplimentation (and an imcomplete one) of Cocoa and apps have to be built with GNUStep in mind.

  • subscription is silly (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zpok ( 604055 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @02:04PM (#8341060) Homepage
    Nobody play the radio anymore?
    And plenty of internet radio's offering great music for free anyway.

  • The Real Reason (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 20, 2004 @02:28PM (#8341305)
    Come on, kids, this is a no-brainer.
    As Steve and Phil told us at the very beginning, and as reality has proven - THERE IS NO MONEY IN SELLING DOWNLOADABLE TRACKS. At least, not for the reseller/portal provider. Apple knew that from the start, and told us as much. They would make their money from sales of the iPod, which would in turn drive more music sales, expand the library, and in turn create more iPod sales.
    But the rest of the gang thought they could change reality and make some easy money where it did not exist to be made. Sure, if BuyMusic's million-songs-per-day fantasy had come true, they might have made a few bucks on that volume, but it didn't.
    Carly is a smart woman, she figured this out before Napster did, and she made an educated guess that Napster would last about as long as Right Said Fred. (bet you don't remember them!)

  • HP Ipods (Score:5, Funny)

    by Enfurno ( 711616 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @02:30PM (#8341323)
    So now im guessing any ipod I buy will be bloated with extra software to check the integrity of my mp3's, give me weather updates, and provide easy online customer support... just what I was looking for.

  • iTunes!=Money (Score:5, Insightful)

    by $criptah ( 467422 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @03:17PM (#8341882) Homepage
    Why would HP deal with Napster? Song distribution does not bring any money. In fact, Apple claimed (in an old article on TheRegister.co.uk; sorry for no URL) that their iTunes online store did not bring any profit. The money that they recieved for the service was just enough to cover their legal expenses. Apple has created the store so they could sell iPods and provide an efficient way of music distribution. By giving people a player and a source for music, Apple said, "Here is our player that you can buy for a lot of money, and here is a source where you can get the tunes. It is stable and everything works together!" And this is why the whole scheme worked out perfectly fine. Within several weeks Apple has distributed a substantial amount of songs, and guess who bought them? It is a perfect match for HP because they can profit from HP branded iPods and an existing (and stable) online distributor. For anybody in business it is a no brainer. What about Napster? Well, Napster was good when it counted. However, not is it completely useless, there are too many fish in the sea.

    • Re:iTunes!=Money (Score:5, Interesting)

      by shark72 ( 702619 ) on Friday February 20, 2004 @05:53PM (#8344171)

      "Why would HP deal with Napster? Song distribution does not bring any money. In fact, Apple claimed (in an old article on TheRegister.co.uk; sorry for no URL) that their iTunes online store did not bring any profit."

      I think people are extrapolating way too much from Jobs' statement. When he stated that they were breaking even on iTunes and making the bulk of their money on the iPod, lots of Slashdotters have assumed:

      1. That he was being fundamentally truthful (ie. not counting the entire iTunes/iPod ad campaign expenses as an iTunes expense, or similar shifting of numbers which companies do all the time)
      2. That this is to be a permanent situation -- that is, that iTunes, unlike many other new businesses, doesn't have a bunch of startup costs like development and advertising which will go down over time, and that their cost of sale will remain constant (ie. they are not expecting fees paid to the record companies to every go down).
      3. That the profit and expense model of any other given music download service is fundamentally identical to iTunes -- that is, the other vendors are spending the same amount on advertising, have spent the same amount on development and other startup costs, and make the same margins and have the same costs per sale.

      Those who've run a business know that these are groundless assumptions. Extrapolating "song distribution does not make any money" based on a statement that Jobs made about Apple's own unique business many not be accurate.

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