Is the iTunes phone a non-starter?
Net Imperative has an interesting perspective on the non-appearance of the Motorola iTunes phone at the CEBIT exhibition in Hanover the other week.
While the standard line that has been trotted out revolves around Apple’s view of products appearing one day and in the shops the next, which contrast with the Moto view that products have to be shown to the industry and then launched later, Charles Arthur takes as slightly different slant. He argues that while Apple is brilliant at marketing product, when it
comes to technologies it doesn’t always get it right. Arthur cites as
his example Firewire, which is considerably better than its rival USB
2.0 but was poorly promoted by Apple.
And while the iTunes handset is a phone, it is mainly being sold on its technology – iTunes.
One other point worth noting, especially from a UK perspective, is that the British networks might not be in as much of a rush to bite Motorola’s hand off and adopt the phone as Moto had hoped. Each network has its over the air music download system, which is many ways are direct competitor to Apple’s iTunes service.
So why launch a handset that may cannibalize some your own revenue?
