E-Commerce Times reported a survey, Students Use iTunes, Even With Free Napster at Hand which indicates that seven out of ten students will still get their music from Apple’s market-leading iTunes software even when they are offered a free service to Napster’s lame subscription model.
What does this say? Ease of use and good karma will prevail. Copycats like MSN Music, Yahoo! Music, Walmart Music (yes, even Walmart is in the game), Buy.com Music, Napster and countless others continue to feed on Apple’s continued innovation. This is not to say that those other services may still have one thing or two to teach Apple.
But will Apple take notice? Apple probably doesn’t care. It’s happy where it’s at right now… that is, until someone starts to steal its market share.
A number of reports (here, here and here) are saying Dell will be partnering with Napster in an attempt to unseat Apple from its crown in the music download business. This represents the first serious attempt from a major company to target Apple’s market share. Given Dell’s sheer muscle and position in the hardware market, this might be somewhat damaging.