MSN Music store & C|net
It's simple! #iPod = Sum(from 1 to 100 of #other BRANDS)
no question apple is only one but it produces more than all other PMP producers. so how can WMA be played by far larger number of players??!!
Unless Microsoft would not plan for any digital rights management scheme, and MSN music store would instead of WMA sell MP3 files that can be copied on almost any player in the world without a protection! Then of course everybody would love that service!
Find the discussion here,
I'll copy the discussions so far here, in case they would like to erase it from news.com.
PMPs that play MS format
Posted by: Shauheen Zahirazami
Posted on: September 7, 2004, 8:54 PM PDT
Story: Jobs offered to let Sony into iTunes, report says
Christophe Guillemin says: "Microsoft's music downloads, on the other hand, can be read by a far larger number of music players", I tried to find a good supporting info for the above sentence!
I came up with another article on CNET News.com by Ina Fried [1] wich says:
"..the bigger question is whether Apple will be able to maintain its current lead--claiming 70 percent of legal music downloads and roughly half of the U.S. digital music player business."
so I wonder how the writer concluded FAR larger number of music players play MS format???
[1] http://news.com.com/MSN+Music+is+off-key%2C+Apple+says/2100-1027_3-5345131.html
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Device support for WMA
Posted by: Evan Hansen
Posted on: September 8, 2004, 4:33 PM PDT
Story: Jobs offered to let Sony into iTunes, report says
HI, I'm CNET News.com's department editor for the Internet and Networking sections. Apple is the market leader in digital music sales, both on the hardware sales and commercial song download side. But more portable music player devices support Microsoft's Windows Media format. There are about 70 devices on the market that you can buy that play WMA files. By contrast, only the iPod plays iTunes songs. That said, the MP3 format has the most support--almost every device supports it, including iPod--but not many paid download services use it because MP3 doesn't have a digital rights management scheme to protect against unauthorized use.
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Number vs Brand
Posted by: Shauheen Zahirazami
Posted on: September 8, 2004, 6:35 PM PDT
Story: Jobs offered to let Sony into iTunes, report says
Unfortunately Evan Hansen is making the same mistake as the writer of the article.
Facts:
1. Apple is the market leader in digital music sales; both hardware (iPod) and commercial song download (iTunes)
2. There are many other companies that produce portable digital music players than Apple (e.g. Creative, RCA, Rio …)
But:
The number of iPods sold, and already in the market (at least US market) is equal to the total number of all other 70 companies that produce and sell PMPs which play WMA together. Therefore it is defenitely not true to say "Microsoft's music downloads, on the other hand, can be read by a FAR larger number of music players"!!
maybe you could say "More brands can be found in the market, which can read Microsoft's music downloads".
which still would not be an informative phrase cause it misses the point that their number is FAR less than iPods!
Posted by Shauheen at September 8, 2004 09:41 PM