The other day Wired News published an article that cited an unnamed high-level manager at Microsoft who estimated that 80 percent of Microsoft employees who own a portable music player have an iPod. If true, that’s a pretty big indictment of Windows Media Audio.
For a year or two I’ve been on the lookout for a portable audio player that would be a serious challenger to any member of the iPod family. I’ve only found one reason to consider another player– price– and Apple has done a lot to blunt this issue through the marketing of the iPod Shuffle.
When I look at the deeper issues with “other portable audio players”, I see problems that make me ask who Microsoft thinks its customer is? Microsoft is intent on making Windows Media the ubiquitous multimedia environment rather than on creating the best solution for any one multimedia application. Apple sought to create the best possible portable audio environment through the iPod, the iTunes application, and the iTunes Music Store.
People tend to like to own things that seem to be designed with their needs in mind. That’s why everyone doesn’t own the cheapest, most utilitarian version of every product known to man. Apple has always understood this, and has stayed pretty well focused on the customer throughout the iPod’s evolution.
Business journalists of a certain age think they’ve been this way before. They think that Microsoft, given time, will figure out how to dominate any business where it focuses its resources. Microsoft would clearly like to dominate the portable audio market, but it will have to focus on it– not just on the multimedia applications market in general. They’ll also have to make their software more about the customer’s experience and less about protecting the ownership rights of the entertainment industry.
My guess is that Microsoft will not have to convince their own employees to buy portable audio players based on their technology if they focus on customer wants and needs.
For my money, the issue is not which MP3 player Microsoft employees use themselves– it’s which players their kids ask for. I bet the percentages look even worse for Microsoft from that perspective.