Microsoft Moves For Long Haul; Apple Needs To Take Notes, Pt. 2

  By Chris A. Heidelberg, III, Publisher & Managing Editor

     Microsoft is setting up a siege of both Google, Apple, Sony and Nintendo for the long haul through Facebook and its networking power and advertising and through Digg's rating. Apple has to be careful now. On one hand revenues are skyrockets as Macs are selling like hotcakes, iPhones are the rage and iPods are the king and iTunes is the engine that drives them all. On the other hand Apple is involved in an unwinnable war with hackers and its customers over the iPhone and with its content partners on pricing. Apple created the model for successful online music and video downloading and partnering it with the iPod, the Mac, PC's, and now the iPhone. Apple has to make up its mind: is it going to expand its market by marketing its software to PC's and cellular phone makers or will Apple stay too close to the vest with its technology and get left behind when the future is clearly open sourced software especially since Microsoft has cut deals with most of the open sourced developers. Apple needs to make peace with the content owners and sell the content for the price that the content owners want to sell it for and when people stop buying and start pirating then Apple can make a case. Apple should lose the ego and think about the customers who want to download to their Apple network content to their ipods. Apple needs to recognize that Amazon, Microsoft, Sony and the networks are creating their own distribution centers online and they cannot afford to lose marketshare as HDTV will be the law of the land within 2 years. Apple needs to develop relationships with Digg and Facebook for iTunes and for free podcasts since Apple and Microsoft are technically software partners on the Mac, the iPod and the iPhone. Apple can then begin working on creating its own social networking group for all of its iPod, iPhone, Mac and iTunes users and others who want to join the Mac family. The .mac experiment should stay for premium customers who want extra bandwidth and other services. Apple would develop the iTunes Network where it would stream or allow downloadable versions of shows with ads attached so that people can download what they want on AppleTv.