[Randman]

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates says Apple Computer Inc. shouldn't get too comfortable atop the portable music playing world.

"I don't think the success of the iPod can continue in the long term, however good Apple may be," the chairman of Microsoft, the world's biggest maker of computer software, was quoted as telling German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview published Thursday.

"I think you can draw parallels here with the computer — here, too, Apple was once extremely strong with its Macintosh and graphic user interface, like with the iPod today, and then lost its position."

The iPod is one of the world's most popular portable digital music players, with more than 15 million sold since they were introduced.

But makers of mobile phones are targeting the device — unveiling models that feature not only phones, but onboard music players so users can download their music from services directly to their phones.

Both Sony Ericsson and Nokia have models, and more are being made by others, including Samsung and Motorola, which is working with Apple directly.

from Yahoo

[demograph68]

So?

[Apple Pro Underwear]

i read an article the other day I think in ars or the ars mac blog that agrees with Gates. thats why in the "2nd stage", iTunes will become the money maker and the iPod itself will be unsustainable due to tech and market reasons.

i will agree as well though. give the iPod a few more years of this breakneck pace and then something will have to shake out. but as of 5/12/05, i have not seen even 1 mp3 player that measures up IMO.

[Ganesha]

As long as cell phone service providers want a piece of the pie ($2 per song as one company ex. said). iTunes/iPod is pretty much safe. Unless they up the battery life, the two devices are in different spaces. No one wants to be stuck not being able to dial 911 because they use up their battery playing back music.

[Wiskedjak]

Apple has a history of developing a wildly successful product and then sitting back on it while the rest of the market passes them by. It'll be interesting to see if with iPod Apple learns from it's past or continues the pattern.

[residentEvil]

on a battery side note: I'll have to dig it up/research it; but I thought one of the battery makers was looking into providing a 'never need charging' battery for throw away/pre paid devices. basically increasing battery life 100x over current tech. a quick google didn't find what i was looking for.

[wdlove]

Bill Gates is just dreaming. He thinks his monopoly should know no boundaries.

[willed]

There are a lot of formerly ubiquitous technologies that have disappeared over time as the competition has caught up. Apple will certainly have to work hard. MS has the advantage of having the financial clout and marketing of not just one company, but of all its many partners (Creative, iRiver etc). Apple is on its own, again.

[gururafiki]

Originally Posted by Ganesha

No one wants to be stuck not being able to dial 911 because they use up their battery playing back music.

Good point. And I think it will be a while before phones can hold 20+ gigs of music. The only iPod that a MP3 Phone threatens is the Mini. And still, I have not seen any phones that come in colors like the Mini.

If MP3 phones were to become big, Apple should start making the iPhone! Imagine if Apple designed a cell phone, how cool (and expensive) would that be? Seems that if they want the "halo effect" to work, doing it with well designed cell phones would be smart. Cell phones have more of a market than MP3 players.

[GSixZero]

Apple is in the sticky place of being an innovator. The innovator creates a market, cashes in with big profit margins. Then the low cost generic competitors will come in and undercut apple with products that are of similar quality, but they're willing to make 10% the profit on every unit, but make up for it on volume.

If apple continues to innovate, they'll be in a great position. If they stop, or overprice themselves out of the market, then they'll be in trouble.

[GSixZero]

Originally Posted by gururafiki

If MP3 phones were to become big, Apple should start making the iPhone! Imagine if Apple designed a cell phone, how cool (and expensive) would that be? Seems that if they want the "halo effect" to work, doing it with well designed cell phones would be smart. Cell phones have more of a market than MP3 players.

I would love to buy an Apple designed cell phone. I think Apple qualities (easy of use, good design) have been missing from cell phone design for years. The problem is that the cell phone industry is way more complicated than the computer industry. Apple's customer wouldn't be consumers, it would be carriers like version, t-mobile, sprint, etc. The carriers are more than willing to cripple phones or not buy phones that don't meet their specific needs. Getting FCC approvals takes forever too. Apple would want it's phone to be the coolest, most awesome phone on the block, but the industry moves so quickly, they'd have to release a phone every 3 or 4 months to maintain that. All of these things would make it really hard for apple to enter the mobile phone market the right way. I could imagine Apple building a total kick ass phone and have all the carriers decide to cripple all of the good features out of it.

I'd love an apple phone, but I don't think Apple is really in the right position to enter the mobile phone market.

[Randman]

Apple's working with Moto right now.

[alphasubzero949]

< Insert picture of the Nile river here >

[GSixZero]

Originally Posted by Randman

Apple's working with Moto right now.

You're right, and judging by the progress, it shows how hard working with the mobile phone industry is.

MacWorld was abuzz with rumors of the iTunes phone, and then Steve mentioned it at the keynote, breaking his rule of not announcing products before they were ready for sale. Then we expected to see it a couple weeks later at the consumer products shin-dig in vegas, but since then, no news.

Will we ever see it? Who knows. Personally, I'm thinking no.

[ManOfSteal]

I heard the other day on the news that the iPod is popular. Yeah, it really is.

[GSixZero]

Found this...

Interesting read

http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story....bulu1pve9st0Xb

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

gates is jest a dick

[James L]

Originally Posted by GSixZero

Apple is in the sticky place of being an innovator. The innovator creates a market, cashes in with big profit margins. Then the low cost generic competitors will come in and undercut apple with products that are of similar quality, but they're willing to make 10% the profit on every unit, but make up for it on volume.

If apple continues to innovate, they'll be in a great position. If they stop, or overprice themselves out of the market, then they'll be in trouble.

Very true.... unfortunately, Apple's history has been to overprice, mismanage inventory, and make bad business decisions. It has only been in the last 7 or 8 years that Apple has been on an upswing, prior to that it was a whole different time that included exponentially decreasing market share, horrible product matrix, almost a billion dollars in back orders to due to poor inventory management (the reason Apple now only keeps a few weeks of product in the pipeline at any given time), etc.

Here's to hoping they have learned a hard lesson!!!

[gururafiki]

Originally Posted by James L

Very true.... unfortunately, Apple's history has been to overprice, mismanage inventory, and make bad business decisions. It has only been in the last 7 or 8 years that Apple has been on an upswing, prior to that it was a whole different time that included exponentially decreasing market share, horrible product matrix, almost a billion dollars in back orders to due to poor inventory management (the reason Apple now only keeps a few weeks of product in the pipeline at any given time), etc.

Here's to hoping they have learned a hard lesson!!!

Oh, I think they have learned a lesson or two. The upswing has occurred since Steve Jobs took over again. Although, that is not to say that he has not made a few mistakes of his own (3ghz anyone?).

[sminch]

on a battery side note: I'll have to dig it up/research it; but I thought one of the battery makers was looking into providing a 'never need charging' battery for throw away/pre paid devices. basically increasing battery life 100x over current tech. a quick google didn't find what i was looking for.

yeah, i'm sure they all are, as are all the battery manufacturers, and a couple of hundred research labs... batteries with a massively improved life will be a huge moneyspinner if / when they happen, but i'm not holding my breath. how long have we been on the current tech (this isn't rhetorical - i'd like to know)?

as for the ipod dying out, i guess it'll come down to price vs competitors, and how innovative / cool the ipod and its competition is. the ipod is still rocking out because its competitors are ugly and crap while failing to be cheap enough in comparison to ipods to override their faults - if this situation changes then the ipod will be in trouble. it's gotta happen eventually, but it's taken a while already.

sminch

[GSixZero]

I think the super sweet new battery technology won't be in longer battery life, but in shorter recharge times. If I could recharge my cellphone or iPod in 120 seconds, then having 12hours (ipod) or 72 hour (cellphone) battery life would be fine.

[PacHead]

Wow, Gates sure is some fortune teller.



Nothing lasts forever. Something else, some new technology, something totally different will eventually come along, and that will be the next hot thing.

Isn't Gates the same genius who predicted something about nobody ever needing more than 128 k or something like that ?

[andi*pandi]

I would love an apple branded phone, or even a phone that works with a) my choice of cell provider and b) my mac address book. Verizon just didn't have much that was compatible, so ended up with a non-mac friendly phone, and keying in all my numbers by hand.

topic: gates is hoping people will listen.

[boots]

If it wasn't for his rugged good looks, no one would listen.

[ironknee]

sure nothing lasts forever...but i have my bet steve and co are already 2 moves ahead...

if the ipod "fad" lasts another year...doesn't matter...it has made apple a player bigtime

[storer]

Bill Gates is a fool. He must be worrying about the iPod so much that he decides that he must downplay it. What he needs to realise, that even people in the Windows world think that he is a big lanky fool, so he needs to stop putting forward his little "opinions."

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by ironknee

sure nothing lasts forever...but i have my bet steve and co are already 2 moves ahead...

if the ipod "fad" lasts another year...doesn't matter...it has made apple a player bigtime

Not if you look at Apple's track record. Apple seems to jump 5 steps ahead, wait until the rest of the industry has passed them by 4 steps, and then jump ahead another 5 steps.

[ironknee]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak

Not if you look at Apple's track record. Apple seems to jump 5 steps ahead, wait until the rest of the industry has passed them by 4 steps, and then jump ahead another 5 steps.

true. but the things like the "look and feel" of the os, a closed system and even the cube, were disasters for apple. but we have steve back. yes he wanted to keep the system closed for the original mac but the fallouts happened when he was gone...not the best argument i admit but i think this is a new ballgame. it's that vision thing...that perfection of design plus the elusive "cool" factor.

yes it's up to steve/apple to lose. but for now i like to gloat about it to my pc friends

[ghporter]

Didn't Bill tell everyone that 64k was enough RAM for anyone, ever? Something like that. I'll take his pronouncement on iPods with that same grain of salt.

[James L]

Originally Posted by PacHead

Wow, Gates sure is some fortune teller.



Nothing lasts forever. Something else, some new technology, something totally different will eventually come along, and that will be the next hot thing.

Isn't Gates the same genius who predicted something about nobody ever needing more than 128 k or something like that ?

Yup... He said no home computer would ever need more than 640K of RAM. Ironically, I was reading about this the same day I installed 640MEG of RAM in my old iBook!!!

Go Billy Go!

[chris v]

He needs to heed his own words, in regards to Windows.

Meanwhile, the shuffle's market share has plummeted from 0 % down to 50%, and the hard-disk based iPod's market share has plummeted from 80% to nearly 90%. Poor, beleageured Apple. Deth knell, etc.

[Zimphire]

Man Gates is sweating it.

I've seen TONS of iPod FUD on the net, and it usually can be traced back to MS.

[loki74]

ha ha ha gates is in denial

[ASIMO]

Quick. Someone needs to shat on this thread. Too much accord.

[alphasubzero949]

Originally Posted by loki74

ha ha ha gates is in denial

Hence, the picture of the Nile river.

[nredman]

Originally Posted by C.A.T.S. CEO

gates is jest a dick

i was going to say bitch, but dick works too

[Randman]

De nile is more than a river n Egypt.

[turtle777]

Cool, another "Gates is a moron" thread. Haven't had my share this week...

-t

[kikkoman]

i'm not defending mr, gates but jobs likes to talk trash too. i think exchange of jabs is amusing and adds a bit of entertaining drama to otherwise dull IT industry.

[budster101]

iPod won't last? It already has lasted... now we have the iPod Photo, and then next will be another revolutionary handheld device from Apple. What has Gates done lately? Oh right, that thing called Longhorn, the cheap ripoff of OS X Tiger that isn't even out yet.

This smacks of whiney little b itch rich guy who has lost control of his company.

[Goldfinger]

Originally Posted by GSixZero

The problem is that the cell phone industry is way more complicated than the computer industry. Apple's customer wouldn't be consumers, it would be carriers like version, t-mobile, sprint, etc. The carriers are more than willing to cripple phones or not buy phones that don't meet their specific needs.

Well that's not true. You can always choose your own phone, right ? Does it HAVE to be one of the phones that your carrier offers ?

Locked phones are even illegal over here. I'm glad that it's like that.
Selling a product that requires you to get another one is considerd illegal.

[gururafiki]

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

Does it HAVE to be one of the phones that your carrier offers ?

In the US, yes. I have not yet seen a carrier that lets you use any phone you please. Some companies don't let you use features that phones have. IE, Verizon has very little Bluetooth phones (1 I think, and it costs a bundle), they want users to use their subscription based service to transfer photo's & etc. to your computer, and bluetooth threatens their profits from that service. So, Verizon crippled bluetooth so you cannot transfer files or contacts through bluetooth on their phone. Foolishness if I've ever seen any!

[Randman]

You're kidding? And people would still use verizon? That's horrible. Bad enough that most of the phones in the US suck compared with the rest of the world but to cripple service is just plain wrong.

[turtle777]

Well, if the US had only one network standard (like GSM in the rest of the world), things would be easier. But the fact that the phones are different for each provider gives the providers a lot of power over the cell phone manufacturers, and they are able to force them to do almost anything...

Yes, it sucks. On the other hand, the minutes and plans are a lot cheaper in the US than in Europe...

-t

[Randman]

Luckily plans are usually cheap in Asia and none of that locked nonsense.

[gururafiki]

Originally Posted by Randman

Bad enough that most of the phones in the US suck compared with the rest of the world but to cripple service is just plain wrong.

I guess thats Capitalism for you. I only have Verizon because they offer the best coverage for my area. But if another carrier with better phones comes up with better coverage I would switch.

[Y3a]

Bill Gates is JUST GUESSING! Isn't he the same dweeb that had that stupid TV contraption on is wrist that he ALSO said was gonna be a big deal. Whewre did THAT piece of junk end up??

[vmpaul]

Bill must think Apple hasn't learned anything in the last 25 years. He seems to have forgotten some history himself.

The ONLY reason Windows took over the world was because it shipped on inexpensive hardware. If Apple keeps it prices too high on iPods then it's likely the same thing could happen. Considering the introduction of the Shuffle and its success, it looks like they've learned their lesson.

Of course, you can't count on that. Look at GM. You'd think they would've learned from the gas crisis in the 70's but they kept selling road hogs and now they've lost a $1 billion last year.