The iPod insurgency at Microsoft

Apple has always done really well in the area of user interfaces. The iPod is an excellent example of this. Although the iPod is a "computer accessory", most people view it as a "personal appliance". The interaction with the computer is so transparent that we often forget that we need a computer to even use the iPod. For the most part, the iPod is self-sustained, but it relies on a connection to the computer in order to load the library. Even this process, through Apple's iTunes becomes almost invisible to the user. Plug in the iPod, load up iTunes, and the iPod begins to synchronize immediately with your music library.

For a Windows machine, this means loading up and installing iTunes, for a Mac it's even easier, as iTunes is already installed and ready to go. iTunes is ridiculously easy to use to bring music into.

On top of all that, is the major accessorization that comes with the iPod. Once you buy an iPod, you want other things -- a car adapter to listen in the car, an armband to use it when you go to the gym, a speaker dock to listen at your desk and the list goes on an on. And these are just iPod specific accessories I'm talking about -- people will buy other accessories which can be used on other devices like headphones. When big names like JBL, Harmon Kardon and Bose make iPod specific accessories, it's a sign that even the big boys have noticed. As much as Creative Labs or Dell like to toot their own horn about their music players, I don't see people lining up outside to purchase them, nor do I see car manufacturers wanting to put adapters in cars for them. They may have a superior product in terms of technical details -- but without the support from the masses, much like Beta tapes, they too will be technological dead-ends.

Now, going back to the "halo effect". I've already written about how usable the iPod is. Why does Microsoft fear it so much? I believe a lot of it has to do with business philosophy. Microsoft figured early on that the two places that people use computers is at home and at work and they've structured their business accordingly. Microsoft was a little slow on figuring out the Internet, and on gaming (for years all they had was Microsoft Flight Simulator), and as soon as PDAs seemed to be the next big thing, they invested in that too. WebTV got repackaged as Windows Home Media Center and so on and so forth. They leveraged their company brand to create copycat products which eventually outmarketed the original.

The problem Microsoft has with the iPod is that the iPod is a copycat product. All the rough edges have been smoothed out by Apple in their design process, and the iPod has managed to outmarket their competitors. The iPod and Steve Jobs has become as entrenched into the public conciousness as Bill Gates and Windows. Just as companies tried to dethrone Windows (failing miserably), dethroning the iPod will require more than just hardware and marketing muscle. The iPod has already hit the part in a product cycle where getting people to change from an iPod to an alternative product is unlikely because they have already made the investment into the iPod, iTunes and iPod accessories.