What is Digg?Warning: The Content in this Article May be Inaccurate
Readers have reported that this story contains information that may not be accurate.90 Comments
- gwalbridge, on 10/12/2007, -19/+38"...so it can catch Apple by secret?"
I hope English isn't your primary language. - homestar14, on 10/12/2007, -10/+28"Mac fanatics are amazing. Steve Jobs doesn't give out his whole gameplan (like 10.5 at WWDC) and people say its a strategic move to keep the competition in check. But if anyone else does it then "theyre just caught off guard and are cowering under the brilliance of Apple". Give me a break."
The difference is that Apple is withholding some info on 10.5 _before_ Vista is released.
Compare that to Microsoft and Zune, who are not providing pricing details _after_ the new iPod videos were released.
Apple was withholding information to stop others from copying it that long before 10.5's release. However, Microsoft can't be holding this info off to stop Apple from copying it's pricing because _Apple has already announced it's pricing_. - adolfojp, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17Conpetition always benefits the consumer. :-)
- Oktober, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Just a note, Microsoft never "made up" for the loss they took on their Xbox hardware.
Over its 4-year lifetime, the original Xbox lost almost $5 billion for MS. - drlha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13It's "Ridiculous" for f***s sake!
- cmilki, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Well I meant catching by surprise. And no English isn't my primary language.
- drlha, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14So does digg's "Check Spelling" feature.
- grunherz5x5, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12"It's "Ridiculous" for f***s sake!"
Rock on. And since it's friday and I don't give a ***** if I get thumbed down:
It's 'a lot' not 'alot'.
You're and your are two different words that can't both be replaced with 'your'.
They're, there and their are three different words that can't all be replaced with 'there'.
and um ...
It's a Mac not a MAC!!!
I've left a ton out.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled program. (It's the red thumbs down button up there on the right for you folks who don't care about grammatical clarity.) - djSyndrome, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"WiFi and sharing are two pretty big features"
Who are you going to share with - the rest of the world that already owns iPods? Or those that hate iPods and have already hopped on the Creative/SanDisk/iRiver wagon? - panique, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@monkeybutter - "Mac fanatics are amazing. Steve Jobs doesn't give out his whole gameplan (like 10.5 at WWDC) and people say its a strategic move to keep the competition in check. But if anyone else does it then "theyre just caught off guard and are cowering under the brilliance of Apple". Give me a break."
Are you serious? Microsoft's strategy when it comes to new products is to promise a world of new features in a short time, then as the delivery date slips for multiple years, reduce the feature list until they create what is barely a .1 version upgrade. They never ever say "Here's what we're doing, AND there's going to be more". - Vermifax, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Nah. Just another chair or two...
- noodlez, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11perhaps they'll take a loss on the item like they are with the xbox and hope that they'll turn a profit elsewhere? music sales or accessories?
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Music sales aren't anywhere they can turn a profit (as most sales net very little to the seller, but a huge amount for the RIAA). Accessories may be a great market, but unless they have some sort of "certified accessory" program (like Apple's "Made for iPod" program), they're not going to see very much profit there either (and Apple's not exactly rollin' in the money from this move either).
No, the truth is, either they sell these things for profit, or they don't make them. They can't afford to sell them at a loss because there's no lifeline model for Portable Music Players. Microsoft's DRM system is almost a lifeline, but as most consumers prefer a one-time purchase model, Microsoft can't cash in on that ability either. Furthermore, most people using these players are still using MP3, which isn't DRMed, and which means Microsoft nor Apple can profit off them. - rkettner, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9The Wi-Fi features are really only any good if the device takes off... I mean, if there is no-one else to share music with... it's kind of lame.
- mkoby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6There is probably some truth to this.
However, Apple's new pricing structure just puts their players in line with other product lines, specifically the Sandisk players so it's not really that much of a shock that they did it.
Personally I like the new pricing structure of the iPods though it does make upgrading to that 80GB just that much more tempting. - shortstack, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8its odd that MS would want to take a loss on the hardware, seeing as apple barely breaks even on iTunes, yet reaps profits with the ipods.
i'd like to see Zune do the oppositte - phpfreak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6C'mon... you don't buy a digital music device to listen to FM radio...
- namochan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I agree, someone is going to blurt it out. Same thing with that origami.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6After you've paid for the hard disk ($$$), LCD ($$), and various logic bits ($$) to run these things, you're not going to have enough money left to price it under $200. It's actually amazing Apple is able to price them under $250, but they make up for a lot of that in volume (as they ship a ***** of iPods, they're able to buy those hard drives at a lower cost than Microsoft will be able to in the beginning). The problem really is that Microsoft is getting into this game way too late to directly compete with Apple in any meaningful way. Their best hope would to be to buy one of the other companies that are currently making rival devices and start buffing it (Creative would be an ideal target for takeover), which is sad; Microsoft is so big and slow that it has to resort to buying other companies to compete with smaller, more nimble businesses.
- totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The "official launch" yesterday did seem a bit odd. No price, no launch date, no real details-in fact the "official Zune Blogs" had already previously leaked the news about video being supported, content being available free, etc..So, what WAS the point of MS doing this now, unless they had originally intended to release pricing, etc. and Apple surprised them by (holy *****) actually lowering the prices of their products?
- 6pintsofbitter, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8In Short:
However, pricing and timing were not revealed likely because our sources indicate that Apple's aggressive pricing at $249 for its new 30 GB video iPod took Microsoft by surprise."
It has long been rumored that Zune, which also features a 30GB hard disk, would retail for $299. But Apple's unparalleled component supply pricing is allowing it to price new iPod models at levels in which no other corporation could both compete and turn a profit. - drlha, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7The last 5G iPod didn't have a dock or charger either, so the fact that the new one is $50 cheaper with no loss of features or accessories does I think qualify as a price drop.
- drlha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5If Microsoft "was able to make up the loss" why has their gaming division only ever posted multi-million dollar losses? Like everything else at MS apart from Office and Windows, it doesn't make any money for them yet.
- cybermort, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6it doesn't work like the game industry is backwards. their margins will be coming from the devices not the media. the question is will they take a loss for possible market share. Something that hasn't been seen favorable by investors since the dot com burst.
- Phyltre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4That's the "Getting In The Established-Market Door" tax. Microsoft is one of the few corporations that can pay it.
- rileyjt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4>>
One has to wonder how long Microsoft's shareholders would sit around and watch the company enter into another industry it couldn't make money in
>>
As a customer though - I'm all for it, bring on the subsidies! - coolbru, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Don't you mean this week's iPod killer?
- Vermifax, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7I'm ordering my new 80G iPod Monday...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4it was released in japan as the play-yan, can play movies (mp4) and mp3's from SD card, works with any gba, and any DS, only 70 bucks from lik-sang
http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=246&products_id=7482& - monkeybutler, on 10/12/2007, -22/+26Mac fanatics are amazing. Steve Jobs doesn't give out his whole gameplan (like 10.5 at WWDC) and people say its a strategic move to keep the competition in check. But if anyone else does it then "theyre just caught off guard and are cowering under the brilliance of Apple". Give me a break.
Its really getting sickening to read any Mac news lately because its all so skewed and exaggerated. - panique, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Well, they did keep a secret for quite a few years. Though it is not a secret any longer, it was a secret for a while that Vista really wasn't going to ship with WinFS, the Secure Computing Base, or the ability for normal users to run without being a member of "Local Administrators".
- flag564, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Yeah, that whole feature is just stupid.
What the Zune needed is the ability to play a 5.00 game of Pac-Man and Tetris.
Thats where the real innovation is.... - ShrimpCrackers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Nothing more is needed, you have no idea how "Rediculous" you sounded.
- ShrimpCrackers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Agreed, I purchase it for sound quality, unless you have a headphone amp, you'd probably go with iRiver.
- dechah, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8(The Zune looks rediculous.)
It looks like a fine media player to me, what is rediculous about it? - rileyjt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Why is it odd? Microsoft is entering in this business to build an entertainment platform, not to sell music players. It is simply a means to an end for them.
- betterth, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6@Homestar
Oh, huh. I guess you could consider Microsoft's completely open beta and rc system where anyone who wants to see all of Vista's ins and outs has been able to with "completely unreleased and secretive project worthy of fearing".
Don't even pretend that Apple is withholding OS10.5 information because Vista isn't out yet. I don't think /anyone/ believes Microsoft is going to suddenly turn Vista around and add fifteen dealbreaking features. Vista is probably already in a feature-freeze, with anything unfinished being axed anyway.
They're definitely BOTH withholding information "after" seeing the others product.
Apple is withholding information because they're apple. Probably wanting to let their customers drive themselves insane with speculation (like always) so they get tons of free hype. - Erasmus1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3They do it's called the DS and requires you to store the music on SD cards.
- inpHilltr8r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2MS still hasn't made a profit on XBox, well, apart from that one quarter when Halo 2 launched. Even with that, they've been losing over 1 Billion dollars per year on the project.
- olegk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1old Walmart tactics - get rid of competition, even if costs you alot, and then raise prices
- newbill123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Selling an item for no profit is one thing. I actually think Apple does this with the iPod and as suppliers drop their prices, they get their margin by keeping the consumer price the same.
On the other hand, selling an item at a loss is a really, really bad idea. The more popular it is, the worse off your company does. Sell 1 and you lose $50. Sell 1,000 and you lose $50,000. If it was known that you were selling the product at a loss, your competitors would buy your product, strip it down, and use the parts for their devices. Does damage to their competitor just by buying their product.
Does the XBox lose money like everyone speculates? Probably not anymore. It probably did lose money when they were first put on the market (and compensated by developers who wanted to make games). But since the general wisdom is, "Every Xbox you buy hurts Microsoft financially" it becomes the pinacle of viral marketing when trying to figure out how to appeal to people who hate Microsoft products.
For the Zune, Microsoft may give away tons of them on college campuses, or strike deals with their suppliers to get parts for below what the general market can get. But they aren't going to sell the Zune to the general public for a loss. Giving away a few thousand at beer fests is where the loss will come. Selling to Uncle Mel so he can listen to his Polka music will be at least at a break-even price. - addicted44, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@theblackgecko - The reason apple is able to command that markup is manifold.
1) They buy in huge volumes, and have deals with manufacturers (esps in the flash memory region) where they have already paid in advance for flash memory, hence commanding the best prices in the market. By tying up such a large share of flash memory, they make the prices for everyone else go up as supply for others is constrained.
2) They have been doing this for a long time, and so have been able to introduce remarkable amounts of efficiencies in their manufacturing, shipping etc processes.
3) Pretty much all of their capital and one-time costs have alread been recovered, allowing them to sell it at basically any price they want, as long as it is above cost.
Besides, did it ever occur to you, that if Apple is marking it up that much, then they can even more easily drop the price of the Nano etc. if their sales reduce due to high prices? - addicted44, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@monkeybutler.
I think the reason people are surprised that MS did not reveal the pricing is because of history. Historically, Microsoft has released all information and specs well in advance of announcing their products. On the other hand, Apple is always like, oh today we are gonna tell you for the first time about product Z, and if you go to an apple store at the end of the conference, you can buy it off the shelf, or order it online, as Steve Jobs speaks about it.
Hence, it is surprising that Microsoft revelaed pretty much everything about the Zune (look at their Word Doc about the Zune) but refrained from revealing prices. As has been said, 299 is what most people were talking about (and those most people were pretty right about the rest of the Zune's features) so how bad would it have looked if MS announced a product to be shipped a couple of months later, for 50$ more than an ipod available that day itself with same HD space?
On another note, I am also getting quite sick of the excess Apple news, but only because most are quite useless, and not really news. But on the other hand, we have had quite slow news days recently (last 2,3 days excluded) so maybe that explains it.
About mac fans just talking good about Apple products, I would suggest you visit the apple forums. You will see a ton of people complaining about their products. Mac users dont only talk about the good of Apple's products, but recently, Apple has really been doing a good job of delivering great products.
About negative comments about the Zune, what does it have over the Toshiba Gigabeat, for instance? Only wifi, which as a lot of people have suggested, initially will be absolutely useless because very few will have Zunes. And then comes the point of whether people actually want to waste time sending music from one player to another, when hanging out with friends. And yeah, battery life might (probably) take a significant hit. On the flip side, it doesnt play music from any currently established online store, and is bigger than other competing music players (even non-ipods). So with all the talk about it being the ipod killer, these are serious hurdles, that have occurred to people and so they are discussing it. - addicted44, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@shrimpcrackers - But for a shareholder, the question is, if they are not going to make money off the Xbox, why does MS have it at all? After all, if they did not have the Xbox, they would not sell less windows copies. So they would continue making those profits, and even more, because they would not lose billions every year. Besides, assuming MS has released a billion shares in the market, that means that because of the Xbox, the share value is 1$ less than it could be, every year. And when your shares have been trading in the low 20's for such a long time, each of those 1$'s mean a lot.
Shareholders (rightfully so) hate loss making products, esp if there is no plan to actually make money off them. - NtroP, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Uhmmm... I don't see a price on that page. Did they remove it?
- zang74, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You do realize that that MS investment in Apple was orchestrated right? That Apple was very close to losing a very large lawsuit against it by Apple (for violation of patents), so their "investment" in the company was a payoff/settlement that resulted in them literally just giving money to Apple (for non-voting stock I might add). They would likely have fared worse had the lawsuit actually gone to trial. They'd have paid more, and not made a tidy profit in the end. They sold off the stock the second the 5-year "investment contract" ended.
MS did not "save" Apple. MS' "investment" into Apple was done to increase stability and viability in the minds of stock holders and investors. At that point, Apple still had hundreds of millions of dollars on hand and had things gone terribly wrong, they'd still have had enough cash to last years.
At least do your research if you wish to make such claims. - panique, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3LOL. A Priest, a Rabbi and a Lesbian walk into a bar. The bartender glances at the three of them and says "What's this? a ***** joke?"
- nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Apple will corner this market as long as they produce the best player you can buy, regardless of a $50 price difference (in either direction).
Save for a slightly larger screen and wifi music sharing (which is crippled with DRM unfortunately, effectively useless IMO) I don't see any specs where the Zune outdoes the iPod. - HiCaP, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The first place I've seen it on line, so far, is Walmart @ $284.00 coming soon.
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5223245 - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Funny
http://digg.com/apple/10_Ways_Microsoft_Can_Salvage_their_iPod_Killer -
Show 51 - 89 of 89 discussions
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is