Submitted by acohill on Thu, 04/01/2010 - 14:01
Earlier this week, I wrote how Apple is forcing publishers to move away from Adobe's buggy Flash plug-in, which is used for multimedia content display. Today, this article comes out about how Apple's pricing for books in the new iPad bookstore has forced Amazon to change its pricing model. Amazon was telling book publishers what they could charge for ebooks using the Kindle distribution system. Publishers didn't like that, and Apple took a different approach, giving publishers more flexibility in setting the price of a book, and taking a straight revenue percentage for distributing.
Apple gets criticized for using its muscle to make deals, but the deals it makes usually end up benefiting both buyers and sellers. And the overall lesson is that Apple's general approach--open access to markets achieves success--is lesson that is slowly gaining headway in the broadband world.
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Ummmmm, Andrew? ... perhaps
Ummmmm, Andrew? ... perhaps you were not aware of something called the iTunes store? You know, where Apple used its iPod dominance to force musicians and labels to sell at prices chosen by Apple?
I'm all for open ecosystems, which is why I refuse to buy Apple products. If anything, they seem to be more vertically integrated than the monopoly from which I buy my Internet. Apple's general approach is to do what they want, including locking down the iPhone and iPad with apps that are arbitrarily approved or not by Apple. Hardly open access. I have much higher hopes for open access networks than I do for an Apple that allows users freedom on the devices they purchase (lease) from Apple. I hope you forgive the rant, but for all the things Apple does well, open access is not one of them.