Apple iPod Doomed?
(Column) – You know, it’s entertaining to read about the next iPod Killer simply because you learn to appreciate the truly innovative products time and again. It’s not that all companies and products are useless. No, not one bit. It’s just that their idea of innovation around the ever popular iPod is silly. Few days ago, Microsoft releasing its own variation of the iPod Killer grabbed headlines…again. How long have we been hearing about this? This time around, the news was passionate and more assuring than previous times. Then again, Microsoft’s unclear launch plans were disheartening, but totally expected. As much as Microsoft wishes, there’s no way it can crush the iconic iPod.
Microsoft may have the marketing budget to unreasonably promote the MicroPod, but it doesn’t require millions of dollars for marketing to be as successful as the iPod. That’s not how Microsoft is going to win the music war with Apple. Apple has a tendency to create brands, not products. In return, all of these brands have loyalists and followers. It’s a marketing hub with branches, if you will. What Apple has done is released an iconic product (or at least that’s what it became overtime) that is now mainstream. Sony, Creative, iRiver and Apple wannabees of the world combined together haven’t had much luck decimating the iPod, so I don’t see how Microsoft could damage it overnight, or even in the long run.
Apple is great at PR because it evangelizes products. How many companies grab headlines when they update their MP3 player from 1GB to 2GB? Exactly, there aren’t many, if any at all. In today’s market where consumer interest is divided between 10 different knock-offs, it requires more than advertising budgets and one time news headlines to be as successful as Apple with its iPod. Mainstream consumers might not know who/what Apple is, but they sure know what an iPod is. {mospagebreak title=2. Continued…} Continued…
Granted Microsoft has the brand leverage over Apple, but the company would still have a troubling time relating its products to mainstream buyers. Consumers who are aware of technological trends and follow latest technologies can only make products successful to an extent. Like it or not, companies must rely on mainstream purchasers to accept their products. When that happens, only then a product is successful by a magnitude. Apple could have been successful by selling a few million units each year, but due to whatever reason (call it luck, great timing or clever PR), Apple became the Microsoft of the music industry as soon as it became a mainstream brand. Despite having a brand advantage, Microsoft simply can’t persuade mainstream buyers to accept its music player. Not only do they have an iPod and are perfectly satisfied with it, but Microsoft can’t expect to impress this crowd with long features list and specifications. No one cares about any of that outside of the technical world. Give them good audio quality, simplicity and sexiness, and they will spread the word (otherwise creatively known as viral marketing).
Other than corporate strategies, marketing ideas and whatnot, the product design in itself needs to be downright impressive for users to accept it. Many technically oriented consumers will be swift to declare Microsoft’s MicroPod a loser before even interacting with one. Microsoft has a counterproductive brand in the technical community than it should, which of course isn’t going to help the company unload 14 million MicroPods every quarter. Apple understands its customers, their liking and disliking and works feverishly to cater to the community. Microsoft, on the hand, has a tendency to work with its own standards and expectations of what customers want without intimately understanding them. That’s where Microsoft lacks, and the downfall of MicroPod will show that.
While there are no official specifications and features for the MicroPod online, Microsoft is doomed if it introduces proprietary technologies and standards and doomed if it doesn’t. No one will switch to another Microsoft proprietary standard, and there won’t be anything exciting in the MicroPod for people to grab them by the dozen. Is Apple iPod doomed? No, not by a long stretch! But unfortunately for Microsoft, it’s too late to the market. There’s nothing going for Microsoft (other than a hefty marketing budget) that would yield a successful iPod Killer. There are iPod Killers in the market arguably that are better than the iPod, but they have comparatively failed when it boils down to the bottom line.
Sorry, Microsoft. Better luck next time.
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