Apple has very little use for anniversaries. Recent milestones--like 2006's
[Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...] , the Mac's 20th anniversary in 2004, and the
[Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...] last fall--passed without much official to-do from the company. But when
[Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...] recently, the company made sure not to let the occasion go by without comment.
And for good reason, tech industry analysts say: "Obviously it's a big threshold for Apple and industry," said Tim Bajarin, president of high-tech consulting firm Creative Strategies. " This clearly reinforces Apple's dominance in the market."
Both analysts and executives at Apple expect the iPod's hold on the market to continue, even as more "iPod killers" emerge to take their shots at the music player.
"It's interesting," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of worldwide iPod marketing. "2004 seems to be when the floodgates of competition opened, and that's the same year we saw our market share soar. The competition had to relate themselves to the iPod--this is one of those rare situations where more competition actually helped us."
"I don't think anybody knows what it takes to knock them [Apple] off," Bajarin said. "They are in a leadership position that is not threatened by anyone."
With the latest would-be iPod rival, Microsoft's Zune, failing to make much of a splash--
[Only Registered and Activated Users Can See Links. Click Here To Register...] have the Zune losing market share between December 2006 and February 2007--the only questions facing Apple as the iPod surges past the 100 million mark seem to be how the company managed to sell so many devices in the past five-and-a-half years, and whether there's still room to grow.
Secret of the iPod's Success
There's little doubt that the iPod strikes a nerve among consumers. "People have an emotional connection with music and the iPod allowed them to reconnect with their music," Joswiak said. "The iPod is so easy, the emotional connection is preserved--with the competition, the product gets in the way, so the connection is countered by the negative experience of using the product."
If that's true, then how did Apple get the formula right? Joswiak credits the company's ease of use--both with the music player itself and with the iTunes software that connects the iPod to either a Mac or a PC. The total package only became stronger when Apple added digital music sales via the iTunes Store, launched in 2003.
"We've always said the music market was very diverse and nearly everybody loves music," Joswiak added. "It was the matter of making the right product for that broad range of people. Nobody else has the best hardware, software and services--they may have control of one of those items, but we control all of the pieces to the puzzle and that allows us to move quickly in this market."
04-23-2007, 02:09 AM
