the publication of a pessimistic installment of The Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street column pointing out that Apple's famous online music store generates little profit. The more interesting point, noted in the back half of the column, is that Apple doesn't expect it to generate much profit -- it's a ''Trojan horse'' whose real function is to help sell more iPods. Given that the store was widely seen as a pivotal moment in the tortuous process of creating a legitimate digital music source that at least some paying consumers are willing to use, this is an amazing notion: Apple, in a sense, was willing to try and reinvent the entire music business in order to move iPods.
Comments
How very Apple of them. Apple has, for years been known as a company that sets the bar for technical innovation in the comsumer computing industry, reaps lesser profits, and has the rest of the world (the Microsoft world) adopt the technology (i.e. The Desktop, the mouse, desktop publishing, USB, firewire,LED screens, wi-fi, plug and play).
But i agree with you, it's a major shift, because Apple is now for the first time about to show what convergence is really all about, when a consumer computing project starts to influence other major industries.
Err, then again, i guess they did it before with the Publishing industry...
Go Apple!!
