Five years of iPod demonstrates Bach's prediction

By Stan Beer
Sunday, 22 October 2006 10:45

Opinion and Analysis

Earlier this year, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, predicted that it may take Microsoft up to five years to get into the music player business with Zune. He must have based that premise on the rise of iPod.

With the fifth birthday of iPod coming up this Monday, the five-year principle seems to have been well and truly demonstrated.

Over the past five years, Apple has succeeded in getting about 60 million iPods into the marketplace. Just short of 40 million of them were sold in the past year.

Each successive quarter seems to bring a rise in the number of iPods sold for the quarter and Apple now has between 70% and 80% share of the music player market depending on whose statistics you believe.

Yet at the very beginning back in late 2001, no-one was interested in iPod. Then in early 2003 Apple launched the iTunes music store for the Mac and later in the year made it available for the PC.

The combination of a well managed online music download site with a seamless connection to a portable music player, plus some slick marketing was arguably the turning point for iPod, which from 2004 on has never looked back. Many have attributed Apple's resurgence as a serious computer company to its success with iPod in the music player market space.

Microsoft, which is desperately seeking growth markets to reinvigorate the company after a period of relative stagnation, has no doubt watched the iPod's rise and taken notes. Whether the big software company can emulate iPod's success with Zune by copying Apple's business model is another matter.