Actually, better product is subjective, I should say better ideas as the iTunes store was just as important in gaining the iPod popularity.
Powerful I believe is not the right word, it was more popular.
So the popularity of the iPod is stopping other companies from selling more portable music players? Well of course it is, better come up with something equally as popular I guess, that's called competition.
So perhaps we should not allow all the good athletes to compete in any sports as it would be unfair to all the not as good athletes to lose.
Microsoft is an entirely different ball of wax and not the same thing as what Apple is doing.
Microsoft used its market share dominance to hamper competition. Just look what it did to Netscape. You could not even uninstall Internet Explorer at one point.
At least now, Microsoft comes up with its own ideas instead of cloning someone else.
I never stated my opinion that the Zen Vision:M being an overall better product is itself a fact, however, there are features of the Vision:M that are factually superior to the rival iPod's and there are (IMO) nontrivial features of the Vision:M that the rival iPod lacked.
Power was the right word to describe it. When you have a product that dominates the market and a brand people specifically pay money for, especially in the face of cheaper, arguably superior alternatives, thats power.
So the popularity of the iPod is stopping other companies from selling more portable music players? Well of course it is, better come up with something equally as popular I guess, that's called competition.
It think you missed my point. There
was competition,
superiorcompetition, IMO. In my eyes, the Vision:M merited more popularity than the iPod. IMO, it was a superior device that cost less money. Its a token example of why its not as simple as "come up with something more popular". A device will ever only be as popular as the consumer base makes it. If the consumer doesn't care about the device because the word "iPod" is was immediately comes to mind when they think portable music player and they're content with that, then it doesn't necessarily matter if your product offers greater value, its simply not gonna be as popular. Microsoft realized that, and its why they gave up after producing the Zune HD. I firmly believe many other high quality portable music player lines would be on the market right now if there was a realistic market for them. To me it looks like there isn't, because the consumer dollars evidently go the iPod, regardless of what the competition offers. That is what I've experience with my Zen Vision:M and my Zune HD. Its why I dislike I dislike the iPod's dominance, because I know there is potential that will be unrealized and/or unappreciated, not exactly because it "won't" exist, but because it
can't exist.
Finally, it looks to me like you took my statement about stopping Microsoft out of context. I was saying the iPod's dominance stopped Microsoft from trying to compete with its Zune line. I don't know how you linked that to whatever tangent you were going off on.
