Sun's McNealy: The iPod is doomed

January 12, 2006 3:16 PM PST
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Scott McNealy consistently credits Apple Computer for good marketing--to the point where he listed what he believes will be his own company's glorious iPod moments. But McNealy said Wednesday believes the iPod itself will be replaced in coming years by music stored in the network.

"Your iPod is like your home answering machine. It's a temporary thing," McNealy said at a panel discussion featuring reminiscences by Sun's four cofounders at the Computer History Museum here. "It's going to be hard to sell a lot of iPods five years from now when every cell phone is going to be able to automatically access your library wherever you are."

Of course, Sun has a vested interest in the view: It hopes to sell the hardware and software that would be used for such a networked service.

McNealy doesn't use his iPod, he said, but it's nothing personal.

"I just never have time. With four boys, age 4,6,8 and 10, if you don't hear anything you've got to be scared. Every moment on an airplane I am sleeping or reading hard copy. When I'm in the car I'm listening to KCBS and getting angry. My wife doesn't like it when I come home and put on my iPod," McNealy said, pantomiming the act as he called out "Hi honey" and performed a brief seated boogie.

Apple sold 14 million iPods in the fourth quarter of 2005, the company said Tuesday.

Posted by Stephen Shankland

There you have it. The industry is heading toward eliminating personal possession of a music library. You'll have to pay to access a central repository of music each and every time you wish to listen to it.

Just like Microsoft wants to eliminate an OS that runs on personal PCs, and have users lease the rights to access a machine connected to a central network.

I still have quite a few older machines that run anything from Win3.11 to XP pro.

Too bad I won't be able to use the Internet once they lock it down tight. Oh well, at least I can still use them for word processing. And I'll still be able to listen to all the old stuff I already have in my library.

Kind of makes a case for the Luddites, doesn't it?

I'm sorry, but Scott McNealy doesn't control the future.

Maybe not, but it's been said here before (not by me) that the labels may be moving toward killing the CD. If they make it any harder to actually use the music, it could happen.

Microsoft has been making "leasing" noises for a while now. I can see it happening. A guy like McNealy, who is the CEO of Sun Microsystems, might have some idea of where the industry could be heading.

It's all about control. The RIAA and Microsoft hate stuff you can use without asking their permission.

"It's all about control. The RIAA and Microsoft hate stuff you can use without asking their permission."

ABSOLUTELY!! But which way to companies make MORE money? Do they make more money selling something one-time, or charging for something monthly, until you die?? The RIAA wants to be able to sell you music on a monthly basis, on THEIR TERMS! Since doing so violates to intent of our copyright laws, that creative works should eventually be freely available to everyone in our democratic society, we can only hope that it won't work.

I don't care what McNealy comes up with. I'm not getting rid of my CD's. EVER. No matter what new fangled thingy he comes up with.

I think you guys are missing what he is saying. I think he means that your cell phone will be able to access your computer wirelessly and you will be able to play your mp3s from your comp on your cell phone remotely. I don't think he meant 'connect to itunes with your cellphone and pay for any song you want to hear'. That wouldn't phase out ipods at all.

And you think that service will be free? Dear lord. It'll cost up the wazoo.

And wont work if you're behing NAT/Firewall .

"It's going to be hard to sell a lot of iPods five years from now when every cell phone is going to be able to automatically access your library wherever you are."

No, it won't be hard to sell a lot of iPods in five years. The name will merely have changed to the iPhone. Who do you think is going to lead this revolution? Sun? They'll be lucky to make it the next five years. Meanwhile, Apple will come out with the iPhone sometime in the near future and every teenager from here to Bangkok will want one for Xmas. Then you may have the ability to call your home network and play whatever song you want AND be able to connect to iTunes for that new boy band ditty you just heard.

What they need to make is a PSP/iPod/satellite radio/Cell Phone that has wireless networking capabilities (like an N-Gage), wi-fi capability and with p2p clients built in. Make it all small enough to fit in my pocket. Now that would make iPods obsolete.

I agree with ninjamurf. The same companies that are leading now will be leading the technologies of the future.

"What they need to make is a PSP/iPod/satellite radio/Cell Phone that has wireless networking capabilities " They have... it's called a Pocket PC (Pocket PC Phone Edition if you want TRUE wireless). Pocket PCs have been around for YEARS and have BEEN able to do EVERY "new" thing that all these "new" devices NOW can do. Wanna' know why the masses don't know about it? Because "they" don't want you to know about it. (Even Microsoft profits by Pocket PCs not being in media-circulation.) Have you ever seen a commercial for any Pocket PC on TV besides the little Dell side-blips? No. You don't think Apple couldn't design a new Newton, now that they see how well Pocket PCs are design? The reason Apple, the FIRST "pocket-sized PC" maker (well, brick-sized PC) doesn't have any PDA type device is because they make more money with specialized devices, sold at high prices.

Ask a five year old what an iPod is, and they're tell you. Ask a college student what a Pocket PC is, and they're scratch their head. Is that fair to the consumor? No... but as long as *I* have a Pocket PC in my pocket, a GPS Pocket PC in my car and a Pocket PC in my girl's purse, I'm good. I'll let someone else baby sit the public.

If the Public don't like it, they wont buy it and they'll stop.

IDK if you all remember when they tried to make a format similar to MP3s except it limited the # of copies to 2 and sent some code that rendered all mp3s on your computer useless? It didn't last cuz noone bought it.

As long as we don't give in to the hype of bullpoo, we'll continue to control the industry, instead of the industry controling us.