Friday, September 03, 2004
apple offered sony a deal and the hp ipod
interesting news story coming out of tokyo about how steve jobs approached nobuyuki idei of sony and offered him a partnership deal in the itunes music store service. according to the report, apple and sony would have shared joint operations responsibilities for the service. such an alliance would have given apple a stronger foothold in the music content business, a chance to expand compatibility and technology formats with sony products (ie through NetMD based products), and some marketshare to further impending threats from microsoft in the music space.
in other mac related news, HP has launched the "hp+ipod" product which is basically, an ipod that you buy from HP. there doesnt seem to be any design change to represent a special edition so i'm not quite sure what the marketing hook is. however, i do think the move was a good decision by apple. they were able to line up with an excellent value PC maker who does high volume home/small office sales. i havent looked at the numbers, but im sure that HP sells more small to mid-range home computers than apple sells..therefore, there is a chance to tie ipod sales to all of these initial purchases. hp has also done a very good jojb of branding the home digital experience with its cameras, scanners and printers. the fact that there is some sort of connection (albeit a non-visual one) between HP and the ipod makes it more likely that someone will choose the product over a competitive music player product as it may fit in the HP digital experience that the consumer is buying into.
it looks as if HP launched their campaign during last sunday's mtv video music awards. the spot is interesting and touch on the trend of customization.
in other mac related news, HP has launched the "hp+ipod" product which is basically, an ipod that you buy from HP. there doesnt seem to be any design change to represent a special edition so i'm not quite sure what the marketing hook is. however, i do think the move was a good decision by apple. they were able to line up with an excellent value PC maker who does high volume home/small office sales. i havent looked at the numbers, but im sure that HP sells more small to mid-range home computers than apple sells..therefore, there is a chance to tie ipod sales to all of these initial purchases. hp has also done a very good jojb of branding the home digital experience with its cameras, scanners and printers. the fact that there is some sort of connection (albeit a non-visual one) between HP and the ipod makes it more likely that someone will choose the product over a competitive music player product as it may fit in the HP digital experience that the consumer is buying into.
it looks as if HP launched their campaign during last sunday's mtv video music awards. the spot is interesting and touch on the trend of customization.
# posted by Chad Stoller @ 5:03 PM 
