Apple is one of those companies you can’t afford to write off. With few people seriously using the Macintosh platform (Microsoft has in excess of 90% of market share with Windows), you could have been forgiven for writing off the “fruit company” from Forrest Gump in the late 90’s.
In one of the greatest examples of re-focused business strategy combining with the ability to deliver technology that is both functional and ‘culturally’ desirable Apple turned around its fortunes with the iPod launch in October 2001.
The decision of Apple to make the iPod based on a hard-disk drive, rather than flash memory meant users could store thousands and thousands of songs and take them anywhere. To help organise and manage this vast amount of music, Apple introduced iTunes, a piece of software that organises and plays music files through the computer, and synchronises with the iPod.
April 2003 saw Apple launch the iTunes Digital Music Store. By entering your credit card details music files could be downloaded in real-time. Licensing and deal-making issues with record companies arose restricting the ability to purchase to Americans. Following the run-away success of the iTunes store in the US, Apple has made iTunes stores available in Europe, and any day now, it is Australia’s turn to catch up to the iPod revolution.
While nothing official had come from Apple at the time of publishing, the launch of the iTunes music store in Australia is widely regarded as the worst kept secret in Australian music. Russell Crowe has announced in a radio interview with John Laws that the store would open this week, with songs available for $1.80 each. This compares with BigPond Music – one of the only other digital music retailers in Australia – at $1.89 (or $1.20 per song if you’re a BigPond customer).
With the international site boasting a library of more than 1 million tracks, and with more than 300 million downloads since its launch, there is little doubt that iTunes Australia – with so many Aussie iPod users – will be a raging success.
For more information, check out http://www.apple.com.au/itunes/.
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