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Analyst: Apple must change video strategy

Posted by Cory Bergman on December 5, 2007

Forrester analyst James McQuivey predicts that Apple won’t be able to do with video what it did with music. “MP3 players, including the iPod, are valuable from the day you buy them because your entire CD collection provides immediate content to fill the device. The video hardware business is different,” because you can’t rip video DVDs to iTunes, he explains. “To make matters worse, the one bright spot iTunes had going for it — the TV show download business — is stalling.” His advice for Apple? Get NBC back, for one. And get more aggressive in bringing professional and user-generated web video to iTunes. “Envision ubiquitous ‘download this to iTunes/iPod’ links that go beyond those few web videos formatted as video podcasts,” McQuivey writes. Hmmm, good idea. Because at the end of the day, there’s not enough interesting stuff on my AppleTV compared to my DVR. What do you think?

  • Dan

    Yeah, it seems like it’s not quite there.
    What I thought Apple TV should be is a video server-like
    situation that did all things video, wirelessly.
    My computer sits over here and my TV is way over there. I figured you connect your DVR to the Mac, (then I could save shows to hard disk that I wanted) you download videos to iTunes and everything is available at your TV via Apple TV. It’s your video hub.
    I guess my vision wasn’t shared at the mother ship.

    Dan

  • Marc Rullo

    The value distinction made between Apple’s music and video hardware initiatives lies in the content owned by the user of such hardware? Wow! If that were true, then Apple should buy TiVo, turn the iPod Touch into a remote control for a hidden set-top box (no need for that to be a sexy piece of hardware) and they’d have a broadband-enabled media extender with portable peripherals and all the content under the sun out of the box. Music, photos, videos, on-demand downloads, cable, broadcast, HD, and more on your TV, computer and iPod all synched seemlessly with iTunes via WiFi. Throw in a built in ad platform with metrics and I’d call that a strategy overhaul. Am I missing anything? Oh yeah, the ability to license the software if you choose to go with some other hardware setup.

  • http://www.accommodate-me.co.nz steve

    video demand online by consumers was what stalled this market. not apple.

    now that broadband penetration has increased globally by a few more percentage points, download speeds increased and most MP3 players now sold play video – watch demand for video content skyrocket.

    next will come pirating software that will make downloading video content as simple as it is to download illegal music files.

    its called tipping point ladies and gentlemen.

    NBC’s strategy does not provide for the demand of users want content loaded onto their new ipods, zunes, iphones, itouchs and creative zens.

    demand needs to be satisfied… logically the winners are iTunes and Bit torrent that i can foresee.

  • Robert Hutwohl

    I have to agree with Steve’s 12-5-07 3:14 pm comment.

  • Tom B

    It isn’t Steve Jobs’ fault that the TV/Movie execs are dumber than music moguls. They will capitulate in the end. What choice do they have? Half–umm–”baked” measures like NBC’s HuLu will fail.

  • CapnVan

    The reason iTunes lost NBC has nothing to do with who’s powerful in the video download market. It has everything to do with Universal Music’s inability to get what they want out of Apple in contract negotiations.

    Apple can’t get NBC Universal back without bowing to Universal Music’s demands, in particular, for variable pricing.

  • Anon

    I actually agree with James McQuivey. There is just not enough “click here to download to iPod” links. It’s far too difficult to find good video to download and I personally refuse to pay for it (but don’t mind commercials). With the rise of TV on cell phones, Apple better jump quickly to keep in this market.

  • Tonto Weinstein

    If you want a taste of where it’s going, look toward the copyright fights are developing. They’re all focusing on Bitorrent, which if history is any indicator, the cutting-edge nerds have it figured out how to watch TV shows and movies. Once a mainstream product becomes available, the rest will follow suit.

    Whether or not it’s something from Apple is another question. The article has valid points about how Hollywood doesn’t allow DVD rips to AppleTV (well, not without MacTheRipper anyway). But I don’t think for a moment the situation has anything to do with NBC. NBC is working on become completely irrelevant, and for those who still hold some affection for NBC, I’m sure the relationship will be soured after being repeatedly called “thieves” by the NBC executive management.

  • msm

    Hey CapnVan — Did you fail to notice that NBC Universal and Universal Music are unrelated companies?

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