Charles on… anything that comes along

At The Register, I’ve written an analysis of how things look following the release of the iPod nano. And the answer is: not too good for the other companies, though they’re going to be trying their damndest to promote it if Apple’s share of the hard drive music player market shrinks - as it might, because iPod minis (the previous best seller) had drives, but the iPod nano (ready to inherit its crown) is flash-based.

Well, that’ll be fun for the press releases, but if Samsung’s MP3 division can say that it wants to be No.1 in the market in 2007, but then its flash memory division goes and cuts a deal to sell Apple 40 per cent of its output, then..

What we’re seeing is a company achieving dominance of an emerging market. Apple announced this month that it has 80 per cent of the music download market in the UK. It’s got the majority of the MP3 player market. When even your rivals realise they’ll do better selling you parts than competing with your players, you can say you’re in charge.

And the nano is a damn fine piece of machinery. Pity the screen scratches so easily. My advice: leave the plastic cover on.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Two data points on the iPod's continuing popularity in the UK (19 October 2004; score: 123.36%)
• How do you stop Nicole Kidman being famous? If Sony et al can answer that, they can beat the iPod (21 September 2005; score: 95.41%)
• Steve Wildstrom gets it wrong - unusually - on the iPod vs WMA (9 November 2004; score: 91%)