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Construction needs cloud flexibility
Australia’s embattled construction sector could benefit from cloud based information systems that can be switched on and off in lockstep with individual projects – with the exception of those organisations based in remote areas like the Kimberleys.
read moreCould free downloads cause Apple a spot of bother?
Stan Beer
Friday, 08 September 2006 03:42
Even though Universal Music had signed a two year deal with SpiralFrog, I thought, "So what?" Universal was just one company and the departure from user pays for downloads to an ad driven model was just too radical and untested. However, now that EMI has also signed with SpiralFrog, I'm not so sure.
Let's face it, music lovers hate paying for their music. When the original Napster file sharing service hit the scene, it was an overnight sensation.
Then filesharing music was made illegal and Apple siezed the opportunity to introduce a relatively inexpensive way for users to download the music tracks they liked, subject to strict digital rights management rules. Users still didn't like paying for music but being able to choose 20 of your favourite tracks at your leisure for less than US$20 and being able to build your own library was acceptable.
However, no one in their right mind would choose to pay for something that they can get for free, especially music. In the case of SpiralFrog, from December US users are going to be able to download music from two of the biggest recording companies in the world for zero charge. It will all be advertising supported.
This is one of those paradigm shifts that companies that dominate markets such as Apple and Microsoft fear. There may be 50 million iPods in the market but the alternative players are springing up like flowers in full bloom. Most of them have licensed the Windows Media Player DRM and, although SpiralFrog will not support downloads to CD, these days, you can substitute digital music players for CDs in most instances and they make more sense, given that it is becoming common to plug them into the home and car hifi systems.
I am certainly not alone in thinking these thoughts either. We just did a recent poll on iTWire and the results are revealing.
The poll asked the question: Will iPod lose market share to the new online music services and MP3 players coming on the market? The result was split almost down the middle. Of 370 respondents, 191 (51.6%) answered no, 179 (48.4%) answered yes.
It must be stressed that at present we are talking about SpiralFrog versus iTunes not MySpace versus iTunes. MySpace is a different kettle of fish because to date MySpace has not signed any deals with recording companies. However, that may happen and, if it does, MySpace will become a serious player in the music space. On that day, Apple might just have to do some serious thinking about retructuring the iTunes business model if it wants to keep driving iPod sales.
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