Microsoft's Monopoly vs Apple's 'Monopoly'

There's been some talk in the media that since the EU has sought to tackle Microsoft's abuse of market dominance on the Desktop Operating System market, Apple should be next for its dominance in mobile digital music.

This, in my opinion, is crazy and this is why; Choice. Apple's so-called monopoly has been achieved through the choice of people wanting its products. Microsoft's monopoly has been achieved through people having to use their products where no choice was offered.

Let me put this another way, if you were to walk into a high street electronic store or a computer store with a view to purchasing a digital music player, you would find choice. Lots of choice. There'd be so many different makes and models of digital music player from which to choose that your head would spin. You'll find music players by Fujitsu, Sanio and Sony (to name but a few). There'd be a bunch of cheaper ones with a brand you've never heard of before. You'll find players that can handle video made by Creative and yes, you'll find media players by Apple. What you'll see is that you have choice, you can choose which player you want and guess what, they will all play MP3 files.

But what if you were looking to buy a computer? Granted, you could walk into a store and find computers made by HP, Lenovo and Sony and many more. Is that choice? Kind of. But what about the Operating System? Sure, you can choose between Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Enterprise and so on, but the bottom line is this, you will be buying a Microsoft operating system. Sure, if you ask around and make the effort, you can get yourself a Linux box and maybe even a Mac, but let's look at the shop window; All you can have is Windows.

Whereas you can choose your music player, you can't choose your Desktop Operating System. And this is the difference between Microsoft's monopoly and Apple's 'monopoly'.

But how did we get here?

Microsoft got here by illegal means. They bullied companies into not including other Operating Systems on their computers thus making sure that the only Operating System that could breathe was Windows. Anything else suffocated through lack of exposure. Ever heard of BeOS? There we go then. Windows succeeded by becoming the default installation on almost every computer sold. Not many people actually choose Microsoft Windows because, as far as they can see, Microsoft Windows is all there is.

How did the iPod become so dominant? Apple released it, marketed it and people chose it. It's that simple. Apple didn't have to stop others from making music players and it didn't have to stop shops from selling them. In other words, Apple made a media player that people wanted more than the others, hence their market lead. If Apple were to start making media players that people didn't like, people could move on and buy something else instead. Apple doesn't own the market through bribery and corruption, it owns that market by appealing to the materialistic values promoted in today's modern media - in other words, Apple owns the market because it makes things that people want.

But the EU is worried because Apple is locking people into the iPod. They say that there's no means for people who use iTunes to use their music with other devices. That's not strictly true. I play my iTunes music on my Nokia smartphones by burning the music to a CD ROM and ripping it back in MP3 or unprotected AAC. It's my music, I listen to it on my phone and my iPod. What's the EU talking about?

I really don't see what there is to investigate regarding Apple and it's alleged monopoly. Nobody forced me to buy an iPod, I could have just as easily bought a Windows Media Compatible player (that would be compatible with Windows Media, for a while, before Microsoft changed the format without giving me a path to upgrade for free - a la Plays For Sure), but I wanted an iPod.

Yes, Apple has a massive chunk of the mobile digital media market. Ok, it's a hugely massive chunk and it is the biggest fish in the pond, but it got there by the market (that's us) choosing to put it there, not because people were forced or tricked into buying Apple products.

How much of a stranglehold does Apple have in order to force the market to do what it wants? Ask NBC who have decided on their own volition to not work with Apple and instead work with Amazon. Nobody stopped them and people are as free to buy NBC products from Amazon as they were when NBC were in iTunes.... Well, except that NBC video will no longer play on Apple Macs because Microsoft doesn't support protected Windows Media on the Mac..... Wait a minute!

So, EU dudes, before you complain about Apple's media monopoly, take a look at the BBC's iPlayer, ITV.COM, Amazon's video service, Channel 4's 4oD and tell me where you see Apple's monopoly. Then pop down Currys or Dixons and count how many music players support protected WMV and WMA compared to protected AAC. If there is a lockout monopoly going on, you want to be knocking on doors in Redmond, not Cupertino.

Universal Music - Peeing Into The Wind

Universal Music has decided to start selling DRM-free music for a trial period, just to see if people are interested.

But they're not doing it with iTunes, one of the biggest music vendors in the world. That's like saying that a computer game company giving away games to see how popular the game is likely to be, but it will only run on BeOS.

How much of a moron do you have to be to be an executive in these big corporations?