Steve Jobs A Music Visionary?
Steve Jobs is a Bob Dylan fan because the folk singer is, in the words of Apple's CEO, a "clear thinker."
Jobs' own lucid and careful contemplation of the music industry is apparent in a 2003 interview he gave to Rolling Stone magazine's Jeff Goodell. My colleague Tom Krazit pointed me to the story after stumbling on to it recently. We were bowled over by the preciseness of Jobs' assessment of what the future held for digital rights management, music subscription services, the four largest recording companies, and Apple. The interview in retrospect is a fascinating read.
Jobs correctly predicted that attempts by the major labels to find a technological solution to piracy would fail. When it came to subscription music services, he said the public would reject them. He foresaw a day when iTunes would sell 1 billion tracks a year--a bold statement, considering that at the time, iTunes had only sold 20 million songs.
One can sense from Jobs' comments that he was ready to pounce on a music sector that five years ago possessed precious little tech savvy. He described leaders at the top labels as technologically innocent.
Also by 2003, Jobs had concluded that Apple was ready to move beyond computers. He suggested that his company's talent at melding innovative hardware and software designs could help it build winning consumer products.
Jobs warned that competitors would find it difficult to duplicate the success of Apple's iTunes music service, then just 8 months old. Yeah, that's another thing that's striking about the interview. In every word, there's a fierce confidence.
At one point, Goodell asks Jobs if he wrung his hands over the decision to bring iTunes to Windows. The tech legend responded, "I don't know what hand-wringing is."
Here are some highlights from the interview:
Jobs on whether the iPod could become more important to Apple than the Mac.: Apple has a core set of talents, and those talents are: we do, I think, very good hardware design; we do very good industrial design; and we write very good system and application software. And we're really good at packaging that all together into a product.
We're the only people left in the computer industry (who) do that. And we're really the only people in the consumer electronics industry (who) go deep in software in consumer products. So those talents can be used to make personal computers, and they can also be used to make things like iPods.
On major music labels: When the Internet came along, and Napster came along, they didn't know what to make of it. A lot of these folks didn't use computers--weren't on e-mail; didn't really know what Napster was for a few years. They were pretty doggone slow to react. Matter of fact, they still haven't really reacted, in many ways.
On iTunes: We've created this music store, which I think is nontrivial to copy. I mean, to say that Microsoft can just decide to copy it, and copy it in six months--that's a big statement. It may not be so easy.
A defense of copyright: If copyright dies, if patents die, if the protection of intellectual property is eroded, then people will stop investing. That hurts everyone. People need to have the incentive that if they invest and succeed, they can make a fair profit. Otherwise, they'll stop investing. But on another level entirely, it's just wrong to steal. Or, let's put it another way: it is corrosive to one's character to steal. We want to provide a legal alternative.
You know how it turned out. Apple's iTunes surpassed Wal-Mart to become the largest music retailer in the land. Jobs proved prophetic about the difficulty in competing with iTunes. Apple's music service trounced those of Sony, Microsoft, and every other competing site. Amazon's digital music store has yet to show it can dent iTunes' 75 percent market share
Most of the top subscription services are either shuttered, have changed their business models, or hover near irrelevance.
As for Jobs' predictions on iTunes' song sales, it took the service three years to sell 1 billion songs. Last June, Apple topped the 5 billion mark and earlier this month announced that it had reached 6 billion.
Is Apple selling a billion songs every six months?
The major labels have given up on DRM but not as fast as Jobs may have thought. The music industry is moving away from suing individuals for copyright violations and has enlisted the help of Internet Service Providers to help thwart illegal file sharing. The music industry is focused more now on competing with piracy in the marketplace. Rio Caraeff, Universal Music Group's digital chief, told me recently that his label's approach now is to try to win over file sharers by providing easy and inexpensive ways to acquire music.
And Jobs' assessment that Apple had the kind of talent to produce consumer devices that could replace the Mac as the company's most important product...well, let's talk iPhone. In an October story, CNET News' Krazit wrote that an internal assessment at Apple--using supplemental metrics--determined that the iPhone represents 39 percent of company revenue, while the Mac accounts for 30 percent.
Jobs' foresight likely has a lot to do with why Doug Morris, chairman and CEO of top label Universal Music Group, called him the smartest man in music.
By Greg Sandoval
CNET Jobs' own lucid and careful contemplation of the music industry is apparent in a 2003 interview he gave to Rolling Stone magazine's Jeff Goodell. My colleague Tom Krazit pointed me to the story after stumbling on to it recently. We were bowled over by the preciseness of Jobs' assessment of what the future held for digital rights management, music subscription services, the four largest recording companies, and Apple. The interview in retrospect is a fascinating read.
Jobs correctly predicted that attempts by the major labels to find a technological solution to piracy would fail. When it came to subscription music services, he said the public would reject them. He foresaw a day when iTunes would sell 1 billion tracks a year--a bold statement, considering that at the time, iTunes had only sold 20 million songs.
One can sense from Jobs' comments that he was ready to pounce on a music sector that five years ago possessed precious little tech savvy. He described leaders at the top labels as technologically innocent.
Also by 2003, Jobs had concluded that Apple was ready to move beyond computers. He suggested that his company's talent at melding innovative hardware and software designs could help it build winning consumer products.
Jobs warned that competitors would find it difficult to duplicate the success of Apple's iTunes music service, then just 8 months old. Yeah, that's another thing that's striking about the interview. In every word, there's a fierce confidence.
At one point, Goodell asks Jobs if he wrung his hands over the decision to bring iTunes to Windows. The tech legend responded, "I don't know what hand-wringing is."
One has to remember that the music industry was vastly different in 2003. Most of the public had never heard of a download and overwhelmingly preferred CDs. Piracy was rampant, and no legal digital-music service had caught on with consumers. The major recording companies were betting big on subscription services and copy protection software. Nobody knew for certain if a digital-music store would work. Wal-Mart Stores was the largest music retailer offline, and Amazon.com dominated in music sales online.Complete Apple Coverage from CNET
Here are some highlights from the interview:
We're the only people left in the computer industry (who) do that. And we're really the only people in the consumer electronics industry (who) go deep in software in consumer products. So those talents can be used to make personal computers, and they can also be used to make things like iPods.
You know how it turned out. Apple's iTunes surpassed Wal-Mart to become the largest music retailer in the land. Jobs proved prophetic about the difficulty in competing with iTunes. Apple's music service trounced those of Sony, Microsoft, and every other competing site. Amazon's digital music store has yet to show it can dent iTunes' 75 percent market share
Most of the top subscription services are either shuttered, have changed their business models, or hover near irrelevance.
As for Jobs' predictions on iTunes' song sales, it took the service three years to sell 1 billion songs. Last June, Apple topped the 5 billion mark and earlier this month announced that it had reached 6 billion.
Is Apple selling a billion songs every six months?
The major labels have given up on DRM but not as fast as Jobs may have thought. The music industry is moving away from suing individuals for copyright violations and has enlisted the help of Internet Service Providers to help thwart illegal file sharing. The music industry is focused more now on competing with piracy in the marketplace. Rio Caraeff, Universal Music Group's digital chief, told me recently that his label's approach now is to try to win over file sharers by providing easy and inexpensive ways to acquire music.
And Jobs' assessment that Apple had the kind of talent to produce consumer devices that could replace the Mac as the company's most important product...well, let's talk iPhone. In an October story, CNET News' Krazit wrote that an internal assessment at Apple--using supplemental metrics--determined that the iPhone represents 39 percent of company revenue, while the Mac accounts for 30 percent.
Jobs' foresight likely has a lot to do with why Doug Morris, chairman and CEO of top label Universal Music Group, called him the smartest man in music.
By Greg Sandoval
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As far as MP3 players go, there were a few already on the market. The iPod was the first to marry an MP3 box with limited RAM to the newly developed Hard Drive. The innovators in this product were the scientists of IBM that developed the technologies to make a hard drive so small. As for a model for an online music business, well NAPSTER showed the world how that was done. The music industry was the last industry to come aboard to the NAPSTER''s download music idiom. Jobs happen to be the person who was at the right place at the right time with the right amount of capital for a "new business".
Jobs, like Gates, have never been innovators. Neither one of these two invented anything worthy to note. They have been early adopters of technology and are made of the materials the circus owner, Barnum, would be proud of. Barnum''s credo: There is a customer born every minute.
Posted by rsmik at 05:13 PM : Feb 01, 2009--
LMAO!!!
Exactly, I''m tire of these VNR (video news releases) promoting these mediocre paper-billionaires for contributing nothing significant to the improvement of mankind.
Since IBM came out with a home-based PC I had already started drawing designs on a piece of paper of hard drives storing music and installing it in my 1974 Ford Mustang.
These clowns have done nothing new.
Japan came out with a camera phone back when the cell phone was introduced in the 80''s.
As a matter fact Japan went HDTV back in the 80''s and started passing regulation to go full digital back then; something we''re just getting around to doing.
These clowns like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates who walk around on stage with a mic-headset and try to WOW us over the fact of a ''BRAVE NEW WORLD'' is all scam.
These monopoly companies purposely *** the speed of computers and their software, purposely program the software to be vulnerable to security breeches and run-time errors so they can perpetuate a ''credit-default-swap'' derivative on Wall Street.
They''re not fooling anybody anymore.
Steve Jobs acquired his reputation for being a "visionary" by stealing the major interface, graphics rendering, OS components, and mouse from the Xerox Star to create the Apple Macintosh. Xerox was stu.pid to let Jobs bring in his top developers and let them poke around the Star for days on end and ask it''s developers all about how they did it. The ONLY thing "visionary" about Jobs'' Mac adventure is that, rather than sell it for $100,000 to corporations for secretaries to make nice flow charts to make their bosses look good (as Xerox did), Jobs sold his toy version for $2500 to the masses.
"and Apple products are top notch to say the least." - quartersaw
I guess they''re the best junk you can buy in China these days. They DO have nice rounded edges and bright, pretty colors! Ooooooh! Aaaaaaaaah! THAT''s just what I need! (--NOT!)
Jobs is a visionary,and Apple products are top notch to say the least. So,go ahead. Carry on with your "Zune" and the rest of the buggy c r a p that comes out of Redmond....
Ha ha!!
More like A Music Scammer!!
Scammed me of $300 way back in 04.
Sold me an Ipod with a battery that he advertised as lasting 8 HOURS!!
And the freaking thing barely lasted 2 hours!!
WHEN IT COMES TO APPLE PRODUCTS, IT''S BUYERS BEWARE!
IF THEY CLAIM IT LASTS 8 HOURS, EXPECT 2 HOURS!!
STEVE JOBS, NOTHING BUT A LOW LIFE SCAMMER!!
And don''t even get me started on paying for the irritating audio quality of MP3s...
The problem with that statement is that it fails when it is considered that the majors still try every trick in the book to avoid paying royalites to content creators. From mandatory contract clauses for software companies that state that programmers'' output belongs to the company, not the creator, to groups like the RIAA, which sued downloaders for over a half billion dollars, then didn''t pay any of that money to the owners of the music they were supposed to be collecting for, the concept of copyright has become so corrupt that it will commit suicide.
I am an internationally known music producer, and the idea that I have to pay royalties to perform my own songs is patently ridiculous, the publishing company takes an "administrative cut" of my own money, then try to avoid paying the remainder to me. As a result, I register with the Library of Congress, groups like ASCAP, and RIAA, can go phock themselves.
Same with Sony''s rootkits, I hack them off any CDs I buy, and don''t care if they object, as I object to the harm they cause to my computers.