Why Amazon MP3 service is a great thing for Apple?
Everybody is talking about the new Amazon MP3 service which directly compete with the iTunes Store from Apple. Some are saying that it is the beginning of the end. I am saying the opposite. Apple is currently in court for monopoly over their iPod and iTunes services. It is not Apple’s fault if nobody was able to reproduce the success of the iTunes Store so far. Amazon has great chances to do so, but it will be good for Apple because it will give them arguments in courts. They are not the only one on the market right now. Microsoft tried it, Creative, Real, MTV, and many others tried it but they failed or were not able to replicate the same level of success…
Amazon MP3 services looks promising and if you look at the news lately, they even got contracts with all the major labels, which is great. Apple on the other hand lost some contracts over the last few months. It does not mean that Apple is in bad position, it just means that the labels must show that they still have the power over Apple. Which it isn’t so true anymore and they like the Apple store because it is really easy to manage for them.
Apple decided to put a one-price per song fee which is not making the major labels happy. I have one thing to say only: the major labels are wrong. It must stay like that or the iTunes Store will fail just like the other ones.
Plus, Apple will have to show “ouverture” and probably open their platform so if you don’t find a song on the iTunes Store then you can go on Amazon instead and buy it out from there. It will make customer’s life much easier but not Apple’s wallet of course! Well, they could get more money out of it. By selling more hardware, of course!
Why can we believe that Apple is still in really good relationship with the labels? Apple launched the iTunes Movie Rentals service last Tuesday and they have all the major studios. It’s no surprise to anyone to know that the major labels are also major studios. Universal and NBC, 20th Century FOX and… well FOX! It proves my point that the labels resigned from their restraining contract to be able to deal better clauses later. It will shake Apple down for a while but with 15G$ in bank, they can handle this also for a while.
Let’see who will win this battle: Apple, the major labels or the consumers.