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Microsoft: iTunes is too spendy
- TAGS:AAPL, Apple, iPhone, iPod, iTunes, Microsoft, MSFT, Wes Moss, Zune, Zune 3
- IT TOPICS:E-Business & Web 2.0, Macintosh & Apple, Personal Technology, Windows & Microsoft
In Tuesday's IT Blogwatch, Richi Jennings watches Microsoft laugh at how iTunes users pay through the nose for music. Not to mention DickensURL.com...
Previously in IT Blogwatch:
Emil Protalinski foresees, "Microsoft's next Apple price attack":
Microsoft's Laptop Hunter ads ... must be doing quite well, because what Microsoft started off as a price attack on Macs seems to have transcended over to the online music store business. Sure, Microsoft doesn't refer to it as the Apple Tax this time around, but the company still makes a point to use price as the main factor. ... Microsoft has put Wes Moss, Certified Financial Planner, to work in telling everyone why the Zune Pass makes more sense than purchases from the iTunes store.
...
Moss compares $30,000 for iTunes to $15 for the Zune Pass. ... The $15 is a monthly fee, so you're likely going to be paying more if you plan on playing music for more than a month. That said, it would take you 166 years and 8 months to shell out $30,000 for the Zune Pass; many of us won't be living that long.
Harry McCracken points out, "An odder thing about the ad.":
While it shows an iPod, It doesn’t even mention the Zune explicitly. Unless you’re paying reasonably close attention to the digital music wars, it might be unclear to you that what Microsoft is suggesting is that you go out and buy a hardware device called a Zune. I’m not sure if this is intentional on the company’s part–it may be sick of people making fun of its poor little audio player–or what.
...
Moss also doesn’t mention a notable virtue of Zune Pass: the monthly fee lets you keep ten songs [each month]. ... Microsoft has a point here: Anyone who’s considering buying a music player should at least consider whether buying one that supports subscriptions is a smarter move than springing for an iPod. (I suspect I’m in the same camp as a lotta folks, though–I’d switch from buying music to subscribing it in a heartbeat…if you could do so and still own an iPod or iPhone.).
But Matt Buchanan's not impressed:
This is a retarded ad. Why? Because it ultimately cheapens what it's promoting as a consequence. Zune 3.0 is fantastic in its own right—better than iTunes in many ways for music lovers—and Zunepass's 10 free songs a month is a legitimately brilliant stroke. This throws away everything that's great about Zune for some stupid price argument that's going to sway precisely nobody, since everybody downloads music illegally anyway.How about just telling people what's great about Zune? That's what Apple does, and it seems to be working pretty well.
And Mel Martin munges the math:
Of course, a lot of the math here is fuzzy, and if you stop buying the Zune pass you lose all your music, except for the ten tracks you get to keep a month. It also doesn't address how many people, like myself, use their iPod. I have a large collection of music on CD going back to the 1980's. I want it to be portable, and to have in the car, so I rip the music in iTunes, and it costs me nothing additional to have about 500 CDs at my beck and call.
...
I give Microsoft props for trying. It keeps the Apple fans riled up and on their toes, and certainly choice is a wonderful thing in consumer electronics.
Nilay Patel tells us what we really want to know:
If Wes looks familiar it's because he was a contestant on Donald Trump's The Apprentice.He was fired.
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Earlier IT Blogwatchings:
- Wolfram|Alpha: searching mixed reviews
- Windows 7 bloggers' panties in a bunch
- Kindle DX: Amazon's next *big* thing
- Microsoft layoffs, round two... 3,000 heads roll
- BlackBerry outsells iPhone; or "RIMM > AAPL"
- ...more
Buffer overflow:
Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 24 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him on Twitter, pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.
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