Sowing the Apple Seeds of Love: Because we all know how well Apple has done with clones of its hardware.
At a high-tech expo stuffed with an overabundance of company announcements, PC maker Hewlett-Packard stole the show yesterday when it announced it will resell a version of Apple Computer’s iPod music player under the H-P brand and bundle Apple’s iTunes online music software on its upcoming PCs.
Actually, I read that Apple will still be manufacturing the iPods, they'll just put a HP-colored case on them, and HP will sell the devices. So, they're in fact genuine iPods rather than clones.
I'm kind of left wondering what the point is. Apple has a much stronger brand than HP does. Perhaps they want to make it appear more Windows-friendly?
More importantly they got iTunes (and iTMS) bundled with nearly every HP made. This is a shot at MusicMatch's partnership with Dell and Windows Media Player's current saturation. This probably has more to do with spreading the Apple brand to firmly entrenched Windows users than it does with short term profits.
I'm glad this is happening...
I just want a cheapr iPod option that supports .AAC
This seems to be a good idea since it will broaden the exposure to Apple greatly while most likely retaining their existing market. I think that Apple and HP will both gain by this and the great thing is right now, innovation is winning over the supperior power that MS has!
