In a war of words, Apple dropped a nuclear bomb on Microsoft last night. Just hours after Microsoft moved its stupid little iTunes Music Store knockoff out of official beta-testing mode and into "we're pretending this is a finished product" mode on the promise of providing customer choice, Apple shot back with the following lethal dose of reality: "There is a lot of customer choice happening today, it's just that Microsoft doesn't like the choices customers are making."
Short, sweet, to the point...and painful if you're not on Apple's side of the ball. And moreover, it reveals a truth that I've long believed applies not just to digital music, but to every market Microsoft is involved in: given a choice, people will generally not choose a Microsoft product.
But how can that be, you say? After all, ninety percent of all consumers have chosen to have a Microsoft-based computer in their home, right? Well, no, wrong. Actually, very few of these people made a choice. In fact, the precise reason that most of them ended up with a Microsoft product is that they thought they had no choice. And that, of course, is not by accident. Microsoft and its equally worthless personal computing partners (Dell, etc.) have done nothing if not a fantastic job of creating one of the thickest clouds of misconception in modern history, when it comes to what a consumer's actual choices are when it comes to buying a personal computer. You all know the key words and phrases by now: incompatible. no software. incompatible. not expandable. incompatible. not compatible. incompatible. you get the idea.
And as amazingly asinine as the above list may be, the vast majority of consumers have actually fallen for it, as if any of the items on the list were remotely true, or had remotely any meaning. For that matter, up until more recently, the above was a list of absolutely "known facts" when it came to anything to do with Apple. But why? How? How is it that this imaginary laundry list of made-up, meaningless nonsense could have pinned so many people into thinking that they had absolutely no choice but to buy a Microsoft-based computer for home use?
That's simple: no one understands computers.
Think about that one for awhile, and you'll realize just how true it is. The fact that you're reading this site means that you're likely already in the upper echelon of computer users, but think of all the computer users around you. Think about how little they know about what's really going on with a computer, what a computer is supposed to be for, and what a computer really even is. Even without the Mac-PC thing in the equation, trying to have a conversation about personal computing with the typical consumer basically comes down to you trying to correct one of their misconceptions after another. It's no wonder they can't figure out that they're using the wrong platform; they've got bigger issues. And all they think they know about the Mac is that it probably has all the same issues as their PC, plus the laundry list of reasons that are supposed to make using a Mac even worse.
But take a look at these numbers: sixty-five percent of MP3 players bought by consumers is an iPod. And ninety-two percent of hard-drive-based MP3 players bought by consumers is an iPod. Think about that for a minute: more than nine out of every ten people who buy a large-capacity digital music player are choosing the Apple product. Hmm, no laundry list of "reasons why you shouldn't buy an Apple product" here. Or at least, no one's buying into the list if there is one.
Why? Because unlike personal computing, people actually understand music. And the iPod is really just music, which as been around since a caveman first began beating a stick against a rock in rhythm. Microsoft can't come up with an imaginary list of reasons why consumers shouldn't buy an iPod, because all you really have to do is see an iPod user listening to music on their iPod, and it really doesn't need to get any more complicated than that. Word has spread quickly and emphatically and almost unanimously that the Apple solution is the best on both the hardware and software side, so nearly everyone is choosing Apple -- it's as simple as that.
I don't know when, if ever, the general public's familiarity with the realities of personal computing will improve. Computers are complicated beasts, often just barely understood even by the experts who are most familiar with them. But personal computing is still in its infancy, and slowly but surely, consumers and computers will achieve some happy middle ground in which they're a little more comfortable with each other. And although computing will never be as well-understood as music, it will get to a point where consumers finally know enough that they're able to shrug off Microsoft's fear-mongering about computer platforms just as easily as they've shrugged it off regarding music.
Just keep in mind the three laws regarding Microsoft products:
1) Most consumers don't need a given Microsoft product.
2) If consumers are aware that they have a choice, they will typically choose something other than a Microsoft product.
...and the resulting third law:
3) The more consumers understand about a given product, the less likely they are to end up with a Microsoft product.
And really, it's not about getting people away from Microsoft products. I've used various ones over the years (PowerPoint, Explorer) during the times in which they were the best options available. It really just comes down to consumers becoming aware that they don't need a Microsoft product. The rest will likely come naturally.
Ninety-two percent of users of hard-drive-based MP3 players are using an iPod. About ninety-two percent of consumers ought to be using a Macintosh as well. That ain't going to happen. But try as I might, I just can't see any reason why thirty or forty percent of consumers couldn't end up on the Mac platform ten years from now. We already know that the mass migration to the platform is already underway, and there's really nothing to stop it any time soon.
