Apple

No work for Cubie until May, baby! I agree derelict. It is such a disappointment that the Apple TV won’t do any of this even though it probably has the capability. I would buy it in a second if it could hook up to stuff like Joost. Apple makes much more of its profit from selling iPods (and iPhones) than from the iTunes Store. Therefore, the iTunes Store, while profitable, is more of a means of selling more Apple hardware. NBC Universal makes it profit from selling content.

THAT is the primary difference that defines this competition. Apple wants to make it as inexpensive and simple as possible for consumers to obtain content. iTunes software and Store fits the bill perfectly, and helps sell more hardware. NBC Universal, on the other hand, wants to charge as much as possible for consumers to obtain content, or make it more complicated through “free” schemes with strings attached.

Since Apple defines and controls the market for the devices that play the content, and consumers generally want to pay less for content to play on that hardware, Apple will obviously win this battle. The loss of NBC will cause a modest dip in iTunes revenues. Worst case, none of the purchases will convert to replacements. This is unlikely to “lead to the death” of iTunes as iTunes, and only iTunes, feeds the vast army of iPods out there laughing at the antics of the “iPod killers”.

Both iTunes and the iPod family initially gained market share because they were “from Apple”. That alone lasted them until it became obvious they were also “better than the rest”, which was how they won the bulk of the Windows market. They are still better than the rest despite millions spent to change that status. I don’t see how the loss of any one, or group, of content providers is going to change that. NBC will learn that a bigger share of a much smaller cookie is NOT always “more cookie\”.