When it comes to reverse engineering data formats, no-one can do it better than Jon Lech Johansen. Jon is most famous for his involvement in the DeCSS software which allows users to decode the content-scrambling system used to license DVDs. Now Jon has shifted his focus to music.
Jon’s system will enable companies to emulate Apple’s FairPlay protection, thereby allowing them to directly sell iPod compatible, and protected, music without going through the iTunes store.
Back on June 12th, 2005 Steve Jobs, creator and master of the Reality Distortion Field, gave the commencement speech at Stanford University. While the transcript has been floating around for awhile now, the video has been somewhat elusive; that was, of course, until YouTube came along.
Last week, Apple’s stock price surged 12%, pushing its market capitalization to $72.13 billion, passing Dell’s value of $71.97 billion. In a brief email sent out last Friday to his employees, Jobs wrote:
Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn’t perfect at predicting the future. Based on today’s stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.
Apple continues to amaze as they not only beat the calendar, but also the street during yesterday’s Macworld. Steve Jobs introduced the first Macs using Intel based chips on Tuesday, several months ahead of their July schedule. In addition, he announced that Apple sold a whopping 14 million iPods last quarter alone — that’s over 100 iPods every minute, 24/7 throughout the quarter!
Mr. Jobs also revealed that Apple’s revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31 jumped 63 percent, to $5.7 billion. The figure easily beat Wall Street’s expectations, as sales of the iPod portable music player more than tripled compared with the holiday quarter in 2004. Revenue for that quarter was $3.5 billion.
Mr. Jobs said the company sold 14 million iPods during the holiday quarter, up from 4.5 million during the 2004 holiday season. Perhaps more surprising was the news that Apple sold 1.25 million Macintosh computers in the quarter, up from 1.05 million in 2004, despite the worries of some analysts that consumers would delay their purchases. Sales at Apple’s retail stores rose to about $1 billion, Mr. Jobs said.
Steve Jobs, the chairman and CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, would be open to a sale of the company at the right price, according to a published report.
The New York Times reports Jobs, who owns about 50 percent of Pixar, would want a strong premium to its current $5.9 billion market capitalization to consider a sale, but he would be open to an offer from its long-time partner, Walt Disney Co. The paper attributed Jobs’ willingness to consider a sale to “two people with knowledge of the talks” now taking place between Disney and Pixar about possibly extending their partnership.
But the paper reports that in talks about a new version of their partnership, Disney CEO Robert Iger has yet to make an offer to acquire Pixar. The paper reports that Disney is hoping that its new animated feature, “Chicken Little,” due in theaters this weekend, will give it greater leverage in talks with Pixar.
Steve Jobs made 3 announcements at the Apple “One more thing…” Keynote presentation today:
All new thinner iMac with built-in iSight camera (that is reportedly better than the original). This new iMac also offers a remote control — yes, a remote control! You can control your new flat screen iMac from afar using a new 6 button remote.
New iPod is announced, and what do you know, it does video! The new iPod features a 2.5 inch 320×240 display and will play MPEG-4. This new video capable iPod, complete with video out, will be 30% thinner than the current 20Gb iPod, bringing it down to an astonishing 0.44 inches! A 30Gb and 60Gb version will be offered for $299 and $399 respectively.
iTunes 6. Didn’t they just introduce iTunes 5 a month ago?! iTunes 6 allows video podcasting and the iTunes store will now sell music videos along with Pixar movies for $1.99! And it doesn’t stop there, Apple is offering TV shows as well! Download your favorite ABC shows for a mere $1.99 an episode! All the video content is being protected by Fairplay, so there’s no burning them and you can only play them on up to 5 computers. But who cares, now you can watch Desperate Housewives on your iPod — is that Eva Longoria in your pocket?
On the heals of Steve Jobs’ announcement that he’s standing firm on iTunes music pricing, the record companies are now seeking revenue from an alternate source — the iPod itself; and while doing so, also trying maintain that they are not in fact “greedy.”
On Thursday, one of the music industry’s highest-profile executives responded publicly to Mr. Jobs’ charges, made earlier in the week, that they were “greedy” when they requested a price hike for downloaded songs.
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“There’s no content that I know of that does not have variable pricing,” said Mr. Bronfman at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia investor conference. “Not all songs are created equal—not all time periods are created equal. We want, and will insist upon having, variable pricing.”
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“To have only one price point is not fair to our artists, and I dare say not appropriate to consumers. The market should decide, not a single retailer,” said Mr. Bronfman. “Some songs should be $0.99 and some songs should be more. I don’t want to give anyone the impression that $0.99 is a thing of the past.”
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“We are selling our songs through iPod, but we don’t have a share of iPod’s revenue,” he said. “We want to share in those revenue streams. We have to get out of the mindset that our content has promotional value only.
“We have to keep thinking how we are going to monetize our product for our shareholders,” added Mr. Bronfman. “We are the arms supplier in the device wars between Samsung, Sony, Apple, and others.”
The market already decided, several years ago … how soon the record executives forget of the troubles that plagued them with illegal downloading. Now that the market is beginning to normalize, and illegal download is slowing, the record companies are willing to throw that all away by again alienating their clients and pushing for more money. Instead of battling technology, why not work with it? That’s the only way they are going to survive this “revolution”.
Under recent pressure to raise iTunes prices, Steve Jobs spoke out against the record labels today at a news conference in Paris calling them “greedy bastards”. Okay, maybe he left out the “bastards” part, but that’s what he should have said.
Record companies have begun rethinking how to price songs sold over Apple’s online iTunes store — 99 cents each in the United States and 79 pence in Britain — before new contract negotiations come up with the California-based company.
“If they want to raise the prices, it means that they are getting greedy,” said Jobs, chief executive of Apple, at a news conference in Paris on Tuesday.
“If the price goes up, they (consumers) will go back to piracy and everybody loses,” he added.
As a small footnote to that conference, Steve added that Apple is back on track to roll out the first Mac Intels in June 2006; with their entire line outfitted with Intels by the end of 2007.
The whispering in the halls are telling of an upcoming battle royale, pitting the digital music marvel, iTunes music store, against the quickly aging (and very greedy) music industry. Two of the Four major labels are pressuring Steve Jobs to increase the price of songs from the current $0.99 offering.
Two and a half years after the music business lined up behind the chief executive of Apple, Steven P. Jobs, and hailed him and his iTunes music service for breathing life into music sales, the industry’s allegiance to Mr. Jobs has eroded sharply.
Mr. Jobs is now girding for a showdown with at least two of the four major record companies over the price of songs on the iTunes service.
If he loses, the one-price model that iTunes has adopted - 99 cents to download any song - could be replaced with a more complex structure that prices songs by popularity. A hot new single, for example, could sell for $1.49, while a golden oldie could go for substantially less than 99 cents.
Music executives who support Mr. Jobs say the higher prices could backfire, sending iTunes’ customers in search of songs on free, unauthorized file-swapping networks.
