I guess now
we know why John Mayer's demo of Garageband during the MacWorld
Keynote was so overly long. He was merely filling time that
had been slotted for the announcement of a deal that
ultimately had to be kept under wraps because it was
still a few hours from being finalized: iTunes will be pre-installed
on
every new Hewlett-Packard and
Compaq
computer, and
HP will sell an Apple-manufactured iPod with an HP logo on
it.
Oh. My.
God. That's perhaps the most shocking news out of
Cupertino since the 1997 announcement that Apple was hiring
some guy named Steven Jobs. What's ironic is that Apple had
been moderately criticized for its conservatism during Tuesday's
keynote, hitting several singles, a few doubles and perhaps
a triple or two, but distinctly lacking a home run-type announcement.
Well, here it is, even if it's a day or two late. In making
this
deal with Hewlett-Packard, Apple didn't just hit a home run,
it hit a game-winning grand slam...and then ran out into the
parking lot and started smashing opponents' windshields
with the bat. Yep, this deal is that big.
And yet,
having read no less then a dozen reports on the Apple-HP
deal from the mainstream press today, I'm forced to conclude
that not one of them was able to grasp what this deal was all
about.
Some of the theories presented are ridiculous and ignore the
facts of the matter, such as the notion that Apple is doing
this
because it can't meet
iPod demand.
Nevermind
the fact that Apple will be the one manufacturing these clones,
not HP. One media outlet proclaimed that this would allow iPod-like
devices to "finally" be made available in stores such as Best
Buy and CompUSA. We'll just overlook the fact that the iPod
is already being sold in both those stores. But the ongoing
competition among mainstream media outlets to see who can cram
the most Apple-related factual inaccuracies into one article
notwithstanding, they each managed to miss the fact that there
is one, and only one, reason that Apple made this deal: to
sell more Macs.
At first
glance, one might think that the opposite is true. Purchasers
of HP and Compaq computers now get access to iTunes and an
iPod clone, so one might question where the motivation lies
for consumers to buy a Mac instead. But HP and Compaq purchasers
already had full access to iTunes and the iPod. All this deal
does is greatly increase the chances that they'll actually
take advantage of them. This move certainly isn't going to
cost Apple any potential Switchers, because it's not going
to cause any additional HP computers to be sold. Why would
it?
So why would
HP even want to enter into a deal like this? What does the
world's premier computer peripherals manufacturer stand to
gain by ceding the mp3 player market to Apple entirely? Well,
for starters,
you have to figure that HP took a look at the lack of success
that Dell has had in pushing its own
mp3 player in an iPod-dominated market, and foresaw itself
ending up in the same position. So rather than become yet another
also-ran in a market where everyone
starting
with second place on down currently qualifies
as an also-ran, HP decided to stay out of the fray altogether
and simply resell iPods. Sure, this is
the mighty Hewlett-Packard, so it gets to put its own logo
on the back of the iPods it resells. It even gets to come up
with its own brand name for the product and ship it in a blue
color that more closely matches its own computers. But these
are merely face-saving moves for HP, so that it doesn't have
to admit that it wants no part of this market. As of now, HP
is nothing more than a glorified iPod reseller. And HP seems
to be OK with that.
Sure, Apple
has made similar agreements in the recent past. For awhile,
before Dell was able to begin shipping its own mp3 player,
Dell was reselling iPods through its own online store. But
there was no pretense that the marriage between Apple and Dell
was going to last any longer than the recent Brittany Spears
nuptial. It was a quick fix that ended as soon as it needed
to. But the deal between Apple and HP is not only multi-year,
it's exclusive (at least on HP's end). In the fast-changing
world of personal computing, this deal might as well be considered
infinite. In some respects, it's remarkable that HP would even
want to participate, considering the way that the whole
thing seems to so heavily favor Apple. But I guess that's what
happens when one company so heavily dominates a market. Just
ask Microsoft.
So how does
this all translate into an increased number of Mac users down
the road? Apple's strategy as of 2003 has been to sacrifice
the number of people who would have switched to the Mac just
to get to iPod/iTunes, in favor of going ahead and putting
iPod/iTunes in their hands as Windows users under the assumption
that a much larger number of them will eventually figure out
just how much they're missing by shunning the rest of Apple's
offerings,
and go ahead make their next computer a Mac. This week's deal
takes that strategy and expands on it by putting iPod/iTunes
in the hands of not just those Windows users who volunteer
for it, but every unwitting Windows user who opts for an HP
or Compaq computer...all without any further sacrifices on
Apple's
part.
But that's
just the beginning. By putting iPod/iTunes firmly into the
hands of everyone who purchases an HP or Compaq computer, Apple
is simply creating an army of future Mac users. By the next
time they go to buy a computer, they'll have purchased
a Mac-compatible mp3 player along with a library of music encoded
in Apple's AAC
format (all of which will transfer seamlessly to their future
Mac), and they will have spent the past few years staring at
an Apple
logo
every time they boot up their mp3 player or fire up their jukebox
software. Heck, they're so likely to make their next computer
a Mac, that we might as well start referring to them as "Mac
users in training".
The next
layer of speculation, of course, is whether that "Mac" that
they finally switch to might also have an HP logo
on it. But I'll leave that for another day, because the thought
of (I'll go ahead and say it) HP selling licensed Mac clones...now,
that would just be too much to bear in one day. This article
has been difficult enough
to type as it is, with my jaw, still resting comfortably
on the ground as a result of reading the initial press release,
keeps getting in the way of my typing. And frankly, I don't
want to be responsible for the implosion of the entire Windows
world quite yet.
Rumor has
it that in the past twenty-four hours, Michael Dell's head
has popped clean off his shoulders,
and Bill Gates is holed up under Michael's desk in a fetal
position. There's just no way they could have seen this coming.
Their plan was to use the Windows Media audio format to force
the iPod off PC desktops, but someone forgot
to give Carly Fiorina the memo. Instead of playing along, she's
out there putting Apple's AAC file format on more PC
desktops. Lots and lots of them. And as the rise of Windows
has taught us all, those who control the format, control the
market.
The
funny
thing
is, Apple didn't have to resort to any threats or devious tactics
in order to get HP to adopt the whole iPod/iTunes/AAC format
-- all it had to do was ask.
And the biggest
thing about this deal is that by now, we all know it's not
the last of its kind.
I'd like
to take a moment to welcome all the "Mac users in training"
(or for now we'll just call them Compaq and HP users) to the
Apple
family. Just be careful while you're in the parking lot,
as Apple is rumored to still be out there doing things with
that
baseball bat.
Click here
to read Bill's Blog.
Are you as
completely blown away by the HP/Apple deal as I am?
Give me a
shout,
or share your thoughts over on the billpalmer.net
discussion boards. And if you haven't
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MUG yet, then you're not among the 295 coolest
Mac users on earth.
