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''It's a nice feature for Macintosh users,'' said P. J. McNealy, a senior analyst for Gartner G2, an e-commerce research group. ''But to the rest of the Windows
by jcc80 15y ago
''It's a nice feature for Macintosh users,'' said P. J. McNealy, a senior analyst for Gartner G2, an e-commerce research group. ''But to the rest of the Windows world, it doesn't make any difference.''
Who is this Gartner research group? Ok, I do know who they are but it feels like whenever I read one of these "blasts from the past" articles they have an analyst in there making some statement that is way off mixed with terribly inaccurate predictions.
- TruthElixirX 15y agoIt was useless to Windows users when it was launched. It wasn't compatible.
- Permit 15y agoI wouldn't be so quick to condemn him as the line that preceded your quote was, "Apple said it had not yet decided whether to introduce a version of the music player for computers with the Windows operating system, which is used by more than 90 percent of personal computer users." If Apple hadn't made iTunes available for Windows machines, there's a very likely possibility that the iPod wouldn't have taken off the way it did.
- jcc80 15y agoAh, got it. Thanks.
- ben1040 15y agoAnd as I remember it, it was just a matter of months after iTunes was released for Windows that the iPod really took off. iTunes for Windows came out in October 2003, and then the iPod Mini was released in January 2004. By even that February I recall the iPod Mini being a grand slam seller. The combination of Windows availability and the Mini being an option at a lower price point were when the stars seemed to have aligned for the iPod.
- beedogs 15y agoThey were right: no one bought the first gen iPod. It wasn't until gen 3, when full Windows compatibility was introduced, that the sales numbers really started to matter.
- bigiain 15y agoI did. I dug it out last night and charged it up. It's still working great. It's got a bunch on my music from 04-05 on it, quite a nostalgic commute this morning. I think e big hurdle for Windows users back then was the FireWire requirement. Not many PCs shipped with FireWire.
- Duff 15y agoGartner does consulting, but they mostly provide analysis of IT-related stuff. Think of them as a "Enterprise" Ars Technica who pushes specific products, and whose analysts you can pay to call for a 30-60 minute presentation. Probably 70% of their business is producing analysis that allows people in the government or large companies to justify buying things. Google "Magic Quadrant", which is a gartner thing that lets lazy IT executives pick a list of vendors from a checklist. Like anyone who tries to predict the future, Gartner gets things wrong all of the time -- they base most of their conclusions on client interviews and vendor dog and pony shows. That said, they do collect good information and you get alot of good insight from talking to the analysts.