Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are prepared to battle in the heavens and on earth to be the go-to spot for buying, storing and enjoying music, video and books.
Over the past week, both companies have announced new products toward that aim, trying to entice consumers to store what they buy in the "cloud"—that is, over networks—instead of inside an actual device. Through such a service, consumers can access the digital entertainment that they own from a variety of portable gadgets.
At stake is control over how people purchase and consume books, music and video.
Wells Fargo analyst Jason Manyard said.
"A major battle is going on among Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft for consumer Internet dominance. The battle is about the control of data."
The battle isn't seen as "winner take all." Consumers can buy songs on Apple's iTunes and store them in Amazon's online music locker, for example, but the devices make it most convenient to stick with one provider's set of cloud services. As a result, a consumer's decision about which gadget to buy could steer him or her to the store that works most fluidly with that device.
That may be why Amazon is offering its Fire tablet for just $199, a price tag widely thought to make little or no profit on sales of the device itself. Industry researcher IHS iSuppli on Friday estimated the Fire costs $209.63 to make.
iSuppli said.
"The importance of this strategy cannot be underestimated. So far, no retailer has managed to create an umbilical link between digital content and a more convenient retail environment."
Retailers who successfully build shopper/user loyalty will stand to amass a cache of critical data, ranging from what consumers are or aren't buying to their credit-card information.
On Tuesday, Apple launched its new iCloud service, which nudges users toward buying media content from its iTunes Store and purchasing multiple Apple gadgets to use the media. The service, which will be available as a free software update on Oct. 12, automatically syncs songs purchased from iTunes as well as photos, documents and other digital content across all of a user's Apple devices. For example, when someone buys a song on the iTunes store using an iPhone or iPod Touch, it automatically downloads to his or her Mac computer.
At Apple's WWDC, Steve Jobs introduces the concept of iCloud and how this service relates to the Contacts, Calendar, and Mail apps.
Apple said the service "stores your content and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices."
Apple is also rolling out a service called iTunes Match that lets users store music they didn't buy from iTunes for $24.99 a year.
The Fire tablet Amazon unveiled last Thursday, meanwhile, encourages users to make purchases from its site and expands the customer base for its cloud storage service. Amazon offers Fire tablet users free remote storage of digital books, music and other content purchased on its site.
Fire users can store content they didn't buy on Amazon in the cloud, but have to start paying for it after they reach 5 gigabytes, the equivalent of about 1,000 songs, 2,000 photos or up to 20 minutes of HD video. Pricing ranges from 20 gigabytes for $20 a year up to 1,000 gigabytes for $1,000.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon's chief executive, said Thursday the tablet enables a service that will wrap the Web, movies, apps, books and games "into a remarkable product offering customers will love."
Both Apple and Amazon have head starts on rivals in the race to control digital media consumption.
Amazon is the Internet's No. 1 retailer by sales. The company built massive server farms to deal with data generated by its online marketplace. Technology developed for its Amazon Web Services unit, the largest renter of on-demand storage space to other companies, powers some of the Fire's capabilities. Amazon's Kindle e-readers gave it a foothold in digital media devices and e-book sales.
Meanwhile, the popularity of Apple's consumer gadgets guarantees that content will be available for them. The company said Tuesday it has sold more than 250 million devices running its wireless operating system; meanwhile, its iTunes Store is the world's largest music retailer. Apple also has built its own huge server farm in North Carolina.
Apple's cloud music service doesn't require customers to upload songs—those bought on iTunes, at least—considered an advantage over competing services from Amazon and Google Inc.
Google, Microsoft Corp. and others have made inroads into consumer and digital media businesses, but no other companies have done as much as Apple and Amazon to integrate software and hardware, said Ray Wang, chief executive of Constellation Research Inc.
Mr. Wang said that broadly speaking, such devices and services will likely transform the way people shop, advertise and gather information used to make business decisions.
Mr. Wang said.
"This is really about how we access, how we consume and how we share information,"
COMMENTARY: Which ever cloud music storage and streaming service you use will depend on your personal preferences:
- Compatability with desktop and mobile music devices.
- Overall user ease-of-use especially with different mobile music devices.
- Speed of uploading and downloading.
- Amount of FREE storage capacity.
- Cost of storage capacity.
- Compatability and ease of use with different different music players.
- Music, image, ebook and video file synchronization.
Fortunately, there are several sources for comparing the different cloud music storage and streaming services from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and others.
- On June 15, 2011, Lifehacker prepared a very comprehensive comparison of the cloud music storage and streaming services from Music Beta by Google, Amazon Cloud Player, Apple iCloud, Subsonic, mSpot, grooveshark, Rdio and Spotify. mSpot, Rdio and Spotify will be available on Facebook, but you need to download their app. Lifehacker provides comparisons by music platform, price, pros, cons, and who its perfect for. NOTE: This comparison was written over three months ago, so there may be some modifications or updates.
- On June 6, 2011, PC World prepared a comparison of the cloud music storage and streaming services from Apple iCloud, Music Beta by Google, Amazon Cloud Player and mSpot. They also prepared the following comparison chart which you might find very helpful in selecting the right cloud service to meet your individual needs.
- One June 20, 2011, Wired prepared a comparison chart of the cloud music storage and streaming services from Apple iCloud, Music Beta by Google, Amazon Cloud Player, Windows Live and Dropbox which you may find very interesting.
Most of the above cloud storage and streaming services consolidate a broad spectrum of digital files (music, ebook, video, images, etc.) for your convenience. Features, storage capacity, platform and pricing may have changed so make sure that you check with each service.
Courtesy of an article dated October 4, 2011 appearing in The Wall Street Journal
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