Quote:
Originally Posted by murraypaul
It is a box-ticking measure.
They wanted to be a viable ebook reader, they didn't want to be controlled by a third-party, so they wanted their own ebook platform.
They didn't want to be hassled doing much with it, hence the Agency agreement. It provides them with a store that for all major books will be no more expensive than anywhere else, without having to compete on price.
And what they did with the Agency agreement wasn't to start a war, but to enshine a non-aggression pact. They can't go to war with Amazon or anyone else on price to win market share, but neither can anyone else go to war with them on it. It is a method that almost guarantees they won't win a major slice of the market, but also guarantees that their offering won't be so poor compared to the alternatives that it impacts the desirability of the device, or allows one of the other booksellers to get a hold over them.
Obviously the focus of people here on MobileRead is going to be on eBooks, but in the grand scheme of things, they just aren't that important. How much money is there to be made in eBooks vs music? eBooks vs movies? eBooks vs TV-on-demand?
They do have the new iPod, they are selling every iPad they can make and dominating the tablet market. It isn't as though books are swinging it one way or another.
From the results:
"From the results, iPhone is growing 142% year over year, and with 9.25 million units sold the iPad saw a 183% increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold sold 7.54 million iPods with a 20% unit decline. The third quarter has been the best non-holiday Mac quarter ever, best iPhone quarter ever, best iPad quarter ever. There are now 28.7 million iPads out there, including 14 million units shipped this calendar year."
(I had the iTunes revenue wrong before, it was $1.4Bn. iPad revenue was $6Bn+. They made more than four times as much revenue from selling new iPads as from selling iTunes content to all iPods, iPhones and iPads that already existed.)
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I'm not trying to change your mind...and I doubt you can change mine.
I still believe that Jobs looked at the growing ebook market and thought that Apple could control that market the same way they controlled the music market. AND THEY WERE WRONG. They wrote a check that their asses couldn't cash and the result is Agency6 and the removal of bookstores from the iOS apps.
Of course ebooks don't make the kind of money that music/whatever does for iTunes - cause it FAILED. I think that Jobs feels that if he isn't going to make book money on the iThing than
no one would make money on the iThing.