Microsoft`s Vista Industrial Design Toolkit: Taking a Bite out of Apple - Facing the music
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It is this last point that makes the most significant impact: the purchasing of music. The iTunes store has certainly proven to be a cash cow for Apple and, despite Apple's current legal problems with the iTune's store and the French government, will continue to be into the near future. Microsoft's venture into this world will prove to be a decisive factor in this war of two computer giants and will prove to be the undoing of one or both of them.
Microsoft has been looking for the ability to create a continual income stream business such as the iTune's store for the past several years. Microsoft has been actively searching for subscriber services but continually seems to join the party just as it's winding down. A number of notable attempts include WebTV and MSN dial-up service -- both seemingly great ideas when acquired, but within a few short months, both were usurped by newer emerging technologies, i.e. broadband in both cases to varying degrees.
This foray into the online music business is notable as being another attempt by Microsoft to step in and start working with an idea when it's already near its peak. It's also interesting because it is Microsoft's first direct assault on its long time rival in a considerable amount of time.
How will all of this pan out for the end-user, namely the consumer? Well, Microsoft's attempt to encourage manufacturers it has a love-hate relationship with into sinking hundreds of thousands of dollars into aesthetic design has promise. However, in a continually constricting market where every penny shaved off the cost of a unit earns an executive a week in the Bahamas, convincing the likes of Dell and Hewlett-Packard to take a risk and indulge their repressed collective creativity may prove to be a difficult sell. Conversely, a number of smaller "screwdriver shops" may willfully embrace the toolkit and implement a number of Microsoft's design suggestions in an effort to establish a greater awareness of their brand. This could see a greater emergence of the luxury PC and a more willing acceptance of the living-room computer, or it could be a mildly successful failure that finds adherents in the niches of the PC fan base but little general acceptance.
Microsoft's emerging and rapidly increasing revitalization of hostilities with its old rival Apple is the real fight to watch. While Apple, too, is trying to increase its computer user base it is going to have considerable pressure placed on its iPod and iTunes service once the muscle of the MS marketing and finance departments begin to flex. It wasn't that long ago that Microsoft entered the home console market very late in the game -- and not long thereafter that it emerged as the leading provider of games and gaming systems over both of its rivals. Can Microsoft do it again to Apple as it has done in the past?
Only time will tell.
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