Scobleizing
Ordinarily, I like Robert Scoble; I like it that he’s excited about the future of Microsoft’s OS, I like it that he’s pumped. Sure, being an evangelist, pumpedness is part of his job… but there’s something to be said for a man who’s always excited about something; just look at Big Kev. Today, though, he kinda lost me. And I have to say it: “Hey, Scoble, that's a lame example”.
He’s been talking about portable digital music devices (PDMD: there’s a horrible acronym waiting to happen); specifically, the iPod versus the myriad devices compatible with Microsoft’s WMA format. Being a Mac geek and new iPod owner, I don’t expect you to believe my writings to be unbiased, but hey: that’s why they call them opinions. The gist of the complaint is that the market is already soaking in WMA support, and the iPod (quite intentionally) doesn’t; opting instead for Apple’s own particular blend of audio encoding and DRM — the AAC/FairPlay combo. There are arguments against DRM altogether, and I have to say I’m on that boat already, but Scoble and the rest of the industry are sold on restrictiveness… so we’ll place those complaints to one side for a moment.
Right next to those complaints, we’ll put aside old arguments about the relative quality–to–file–size ratios of WMA versus AAC (and MP3, and OGG, if you really want), along with the repeated use of the word ‘Fairtunes’ in place of FairPlay. Let the dust settle, and you’ll notice we’re really just seeing the words “WMA is in over 500 devices. AAC/FairPlay is in one” bleated over and over again, paragraph after paragraph after paragraph. Windows’ market–winning strategy was ubiquity —come to think of it, anything at all associated with Microsoft is about ubiquity— so it’s fair to say that Microsoft’s strategy with WMA is (you guessed it) ubiquity. They produce something soft and/or firm (we’re talking about –wares here), and use their considerable muscle (lets not forget Bill Gates’ remarkable business acumen) to license the hell out of it to anyone who produces something hard (again… –wares). What does that spell? Microsoft is everywhere, and you’ll end up using it whether you like it or not. The interesting thing about DRM’d music being that there’s not really an interface to it; so you might just never know your music was encoded with industrial–strength Microsoft gobbledegook… you might’ve thought you were just buying your music from Napster and listening to it on your Nomad, and never thought that Microsoft was making a dime.
And that’s where the dimes are made: ubiquity. Five hundred dimes made on five hundred devices is a lot more than one dollar made on one device, and even when four hundred and ninety devices prove dismal market failures, they still have their dime. The emphasis is on quantity, not quality. Profitable omnipresence, not customer service. And that’s where Apple and Microsoft’s paths seem to diverge all too often.
The ‘consumer choice’ line amuses me, like saying the consumer has a whole lot of choice when they buy a PC. Sure, they can customize their hardware down to the ground; but at the end of the day, if they’re still running the same OS, doesn’t it make Joe Bloggs’ PC functionally identical to Joe Blow’s PC?