Why the iPod is Not a Walkman
April 30th, 2008Whenever an analyst wants to write something without thinking, it’s easy to pontificate on such silliness as the alleged resemblance of the iPod to the Sony Walkman. Both gained iconic status, but the latter was eventually largely supplanted by me-too products that were cheaper and offered identical or additional features.
And let’s not forget the famous IBM PC, where the clone makers took the market from under them.
So wouldn’t it seem logical that Apple’s days in the sun will ultimately come to a close in the same fashion? Well, at least that has been the theory every time a potential iPod killer is discovered. The only thing is that the imitator usually self-destructs, or simply fades into near-irrelevance.
One example was the Microsoft Zune, a music player that was almost as good, but merely imitated an older iPod rather than a recent model. Microsoft simply followed the pattern. So what went wrong?
