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HP Music Player and Music Store

..because the world just can't have enough online music stores.

*sigh*

Who's next? 7-11? Love the CDs they sell at the counter.
 
it's the .com all over again with music downloads. Everyone will have their own store and in a year or so it'll be down to one or two.

Then Apple will make a video service, and it'll happen all over again.
 
Originally posted by adamberti
it's the .com all over again with music downloads. Everyone will have their own store and in a year or so it'll be down to one or two.

Then Apple will make a video service, and it'll happen all over again.
Click to expand...
so true.
 
News: ABC Chinese Restaurant* will be opening it's own music store soon! And will partner with KFC for the player!
*That is a real restaurant name
This is of course a joke.
 
Welcome HP

My guess is that HP will do better than the other iTMS/iPod competitors.
 
Re: Welcome HP

Originally posted by gekko513
My guess is that HP will do better than the other iTMS/iPod competitors.
Click to expand...
True but they still wont have the best MP3 player on the market and will also have to achieve a high rate of market penetration over a short space of time to do any good. It will be interesting to see who is the last player standing in this race for world domination.
 
I think it's good. Watch them all struggle like mad, then crah and burn. Apple will be referred to constantly as the company who did it right. Also, this will get more people into music downloads and MP3 players, as there will be more advertising money floating around. Then, when all these new consumers start to suffer from poor service levels and lack of quality downloads, they will go looking for an alternative. It's a little bit like the internet early days. When you first get the opportunity to go online, you just follow the crowd using the browser, search engines and sites suggested. Once online, people start to think for themselves and want better service, so they find a new browser, search engine etc.

More competition is a good thing, especially as Apple genuinely makes a quality MP3 player and runs a top class download service, and it is always nice that people feel the need to imitate, Apple must be doing it right!

Marc
 
My pet budgie is due to announce an online venture attempting to sell a portable .ogg player and recordings of him singing music online.

Oh wait, did I just hear crickets chirping? Why is this news? We all know that every man and his dog will attempt to replicate Apple's success because its money. Sadly every man and his dog isn't Apple and lots of customers aint going to be too happy in a few years.
 
does anyone honestly think they can make money with this many people in the market? What's gonna make any one of these services so good that people will choose it over another? They are all the same, and there probably isn't enough demand for more than one or two. If a company had something specific to add, or a clever improvement... but this is just silly.

Especially for these companies who are gonna be late to market. How will they motivate people to leave the download service that they already have? There would have to be something amazing about the new service... like half the price. But that's not gonna happen.

Maybe the thing here is not so much that any company expects to make money, but that they are all willing to take a loss so that the others don't make money/ dominate the market. Or maybe they're all just idiots. Or maybe both.
 
Originally posted by marccarter
I think it's good. Watch them all struggle like mad, then crah and burn. Apple will be referred to constantly as the company who did it right. Also, this will get more people into music downloads and MP3 players, as there will be more advertising money floating around. Then, when all these new consumers start to suffer from poor service levels and lack of quality downloads, they will go looking for an alternative. It's a little bit like the internet early days. When you first get the opportunity to go online, you just follow the crowd using the browser, search engines and sites suggested. Once online, people start to think for themselves and want better service, so they find a new browser, search engine etc.

More competition is a good thing, especially as Apple genuinely makes a quality MP3 player and runs a top class download service, and it is always nice that people feel the need to imitate, Apple must be doing it right!

Marc
Click to expand...
If there are no other orignal players out there in the market and evrybody can only knock Apple then I think for sure that Apple has got it right and that imitation is in this instance the greatest compliment the competition can give to Apple ( As ironic as that might sound)
 
Excellent, more lambs to the slaughter for us to feast on.

More music download ventures = more failures = more iTunes converts = money for Apple = better for us :D
 
Originally posted by ShadowHunter
Excellent, more lambs to the slaughter for us to feast on.

More music download ventures = more failures = more iTunes converts = money for Apple = better for us :D
Click to expand...
you hit the nail on the head :)
I agree that it is interesting though how many people who knock Macs have PC s that crash including their work PCs.
 
Yeah, this is getting kinda funny... HP puts out a big press release and the world responds with a big "whatever...". :D

Just gonna be another half-assed WMA file server paired with some HP toy.

HP probably thinks it has an advantage because they can bundle the portal with their machines-- until MS boosts their license fees in retribution. Maybe they're going to build their player around Itanium to boost volumes of the chip?

We should start a pool on which will collapse first. All these companies fighting for, what, 100,000 users?

At least HP and Compaq merged already-- that's one less store...
:rolleyes:
 
I wonder how this will all pan out once acquisitions and mergers start happening?

From the looks of things, all these music stores will be dividing the PC market, and I dare say some of the larger players (Microsoft? Dell?) might start looking at buying up their rivals, especially if they've got agreements with record labels that the buyer might want for themselves.

Apple have some advantages -- massive installed base of iPod users, brand awareness, excellent service and the benefit of the Macintosh userbase, which looks set to be excluded from the PC world's online stores (err... boo... hoo).

PC users' inertia might work in Apple's favour so long as manufacturers keep releasing their own stores. They'll just use the default installed store - be it HP or Dell, thus dividing the market. This'll help head-off the threat of Apple being forced to go one-on-one against a hegemonising Microsoft Music Store.

Just some random thoughts....
 
Re: Geez

Originally posted by Archmage
Hasn't anybody ever heard of market saturation?
Click to expand...

Maybe this one will be programmable in RPL and have a voltmeter accessory.
 
Originally posted by marccarter
I think it's good. Watch them all struggle like mad, then crah and burn. Apple will be referred to constantly as the company who did it right. Once online, people start to think for themselves and want better service, so they find a new browser, search engine etc.
Marc
Click to expand...

I don't think so. WMP is standard on PC boxes not iTunes or Quicktime. PC users allways use what they have and don't even look at the alternative solutions. It's the same thing once again. PC users already think WMP is a standard not AAC.
With HP joining the game, it's only reinforce this sentiment.
 
I wouldn't count HP out just yet. I work for a major retailer, and I can tell you that their machines are both terribly popular and fairly well built (compared to the rest of the PC lot). They have huge brand recognition and a fairly large installed user base. Couple that with an HP branded player and you've got a recipe for solid performance. Let's all remember that we're not talking about eMachines or Toshiba here. HP is a legitimate player in the home PC market, and they'll be tough competition. That being said, I'll be shocked if they manage to come up with a solution that's half as elegant at iPod+iTunes. Still, they've got a vastly higher market penetration level than most other companies. This should be terribly interesting. :)
 
Originally posted by displaced
I wonder how this will all pan out once acquisitions and mergers start happening?

From the looks of things, all these music stores will be dividing the PC market, and I dare say some of the larger players (Microsoft? Dell?) might start looking at buying up their rivals, especially if they've got agreements with record labels that the buyer might want for themselves.

Apple have some advantages -- massive installed base of iPod users, brand awareness, excellent service and the benefit of the Macintosh userbase, which looks set to be excluded from the PC world's online stores (err... boo... hoo).

PC users' inertia might work in Apple's favour so long as manufacturers keep releasing their own stores. They'll just use the default installed store - be it HP or Dell, thus dividing the market. This'll help head-off the threat of Apple being forced to go one-on-one against a hegemonising Microsoft Music Store.

Just some random thoughts....
Click to expand...
Well I could see Microsoft entering the market with their service because they have got loads of cash and can afford to lose some although it wont gain them any extra market share as they only do software Microsoft would also be entering the market just because they can andf maybe to eliminate some of the competition because Microsoft has the most money

HP will get a similar benefit to Apple in that they are going to bring out their own MP3 Player so they will be using the music downloads to encourage sales it just remains to be seen how they compare to Apple and the iPod, remembering that Apple also plans on introducing new customers to its operating system and hardware which would mean more larger sales in the long term and a new fan base.

The rest are just hopeing to make money from legalised music downloading and to try and build a user base...and we all know that it is not and never will be a profit making exercise.
 
Originally posted by adamberti
it's the .com all over again with music downloads.
Click to expand...

HEH. I was thinking the exact same thing. But this was to be expected. Dell and HP are fierce rivals. There isn't any market one company ventures into where the other doesn't follow. 2004\2005 is going to be known as the year/s of the music .com bust. The market can't support more then a hand full of music companies. My personal bet on the survivors is iTMS and Music Match (=Dell) Both offer fairly robust services and players. I'm wondering if HP may go with a rebranded Napster service similar to how Dell went with a rebranded Music Match service.
I'm not so much interested in the music store aspect as the fact that another, again possibly cheaper, iPod competitor may be entering the market. Apple can't get its next gen of iPod out soon enough. Hopefully this will happen in January along with a cheap 5-10GB iPod.
 
Re: Me too!

Originally posted by DTphonehome
Also, I will soon announce plans for my own digital music player. Stay tuned.

--DT
Click to expand...
He he...
Just what I was thinking.
I would like to start an online music store, I'll call it "iSounds" and it will only sell music by Mike Patton, Zappa, Zorn, Blur, Sonic Youth and Pixies.
:D
 
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