Many speculated that Apple might use its September event to roll out a fully cloud-based music service. Indeed, I’ve noted previously that the iTunes interface took on a decidedly more Web-like appearance with iTunes 9, and the acquisition of Lala by Apple hinted that Apple might move further in that direction.
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Tags: Apple, Apple TV, iPhone, iPod Touch, itunes, Lala, Ping, Zune
Consumer Technology, Entertainment | Ross Rubin, Executive Director, Industry Analysis | 
September 2, 2010 3:09 pm | 
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Those of us in retail and consumer marketing are often confronted with this truism. And while consumers are the ones plunking down their hard earned money on the latest (or cheapest) tech gadget, we in the business often think we know what the consumer wants better than the consumer does. Sometimes we are right, and then sometimes we are wrong. And the best companies move to take advantage of that customer feedback and can accept that sometimes their initial marketing or sales tactics missed the mark.
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In our private lives we all despise traffic. It slows us down and deprives us of making full use of our time. Too much (fill in the blank) in too little space. In our professional lives as a retail tracker we have the opposite view … traffic is good. Retailers love traffic. Sellers love traffic. Crowds are great. We all want more and more shoppers, because we all know more shoppers lead to more buyers.
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As I’ve noted when discussing the e-reader market, Amazon and Barnes & Noble have an inherent advantage in garnering overall revenue given that they can call upon databases of millions of active book-buyers. When I wrote about the in-store Nook angle that Barnes & Noble was taking, I mentioned how electronics retailers could benefit from this level of integration. Last week, prior to the Google TV announcement, Best Buy announced it will offer its version of Sonic Solutions’ RoxioNow video program under its original CinemaNow brand, which Best Buy has acquired.
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I admit to being biased. I work at a company that tracks actual sales results and I spent 10 years at retail. I have always lived and breathed sales results. And while shipments are a great tool (and I worked at a place that tracked those as well), the final verdict of success or failure of an item is sales. If a consumer puts down their hard earned money for a product you can be sure that they saw some spark of value or usefulness to their lives in that device. That is why it is shocking to me that many folks in this industry don’t understand the difference between sales and shipments - and often confuse them in the most basic ways. The latest example is a report this week in DigiTimes and repeated all across the web that the Barnes & Noble Nook out-shipped the Kindle in March. Note I said, and DigiTmes said as well, shipped, not sold. This has caused shock and disbelief throughout the blog community. We will now hear for a few days about how the Kindle is doomed; the iPad is killing it, and various other conspiracy theories.
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Visit Amazon.com’s home page and you’ll learn that the Kindle is the retailer’s best-selling product (even beating out 50″+ rear-projection televisions). That’s not too surprising given the momentum of the category as well as its shipping-friendly dimensions. But the Kindle’s success at Amazon has also been helped by the device being sold exclusively there, whereas Amazon must compete with other retailers for nearly all of its other products.
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In last week’s frenzy of iPad news it is entirely likely many folks missed the revelation that Microsoft is looking for employees for two new stores to open later this year. New stores do not mean that the concept has proven totally successful, just that Microsoft has seen enough to warrant further experimentation. If you’ve ever been involved in the rollout of retail stores you know that it is hard to keep changing the in-store experience on the fly so, to Microsoft’s credit, they have gone slow in expansion, and of course they can go slow since this is not their primary business, likely gathering up all they learned from their first stores and hoping to improve on the experience in the next two.
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Reading the first set of reviews of the iPad I have been struck by one comment: That this is a notebook killer. Our recently completed iPad survey also revealed a considerable amount of overlap in consumers’ perception and usage intentions between the iPad and the notebook. Now, with the first reviews in, our initial assumption in our first iPad blog post appears more correct than ever - the iPad is aimed squarely at the heart of the notebook market. And while we mentioned in that post that the lack of certain features might prevent a direct cannibalization, the initial reviews indicate that, even without those features such as Flash support or a camera, this product can take over much of what your notebook does, and do it more elegantly and more comfortably.
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As we near the release of the next market-changing device (maybe!) from Apple, NPD has released some interesting numbers from a new survey Apple iPad: Consumers’ Perceptions and Attitudes. The good news is that awareness among the general population for the iPad is unbelievably high. Almost two-thirds of all respondents were aware of the product with that number ranging from a low of 61 percent among 55–and-older consumers, to more than 80 percent of consumers who owned another Apple branded product. Among the most aware demographics; young people, $100k income earners, and current Apple product owners not only was general awareness high but ownership interest and purchase intent over the next six months were much higher than overall. More than one-third of those expressing interest in the iPad in both the 18-34 year old demographic and among Apple owners claimed they intended to purchase the device in the next six months. Among the high income earners intention to buy in the next six months was more than 50 percent.
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Just when you thought, after years and years of decline, it was safe to give up on the desktop it has roared back with a vengeance. Revenue has been positive for five consecutive months as of February 2010, and that is the result of improvements across the board. Windows 7 is propelling the PC side of the market where desktop ASPs have been higher than notebook/netbook ASPs in three of the last four months. We are seeing even more stunning growth numbers from the iMac in what had been generally accepted at this time last year as a fading product line.
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