When Apple released the iPod, Apple started to receive monstrous profits, and now Microsoft want a piece of the profit by releasing their own mp3 player. It's reported that it can hold more songs than the iPods largest, and is supposedly cheaper. Why can't a merger happen for a great mp3 player and they can share the abnormally large profits.

Because we don't all live in the world of candy and fluffy dog tails like you do.

HA HA HA!!! Yes 'cause i live in a world filled with chocolate, right? No.

Just putting out the idea of two of the well-known companies in the world having a side project that could make more money working together with their technology.

Plus, "wouldn't it be nice..."

Hell I'd like to live in a candy world...

Anyway... let M$ and Apple duke it out... competition is good for the market... look at AMD and Intel or Nvidia and ATI.

Yeah. Its just like Coke and Pepsi, but look what happened in that. Guys were going to sell coke's formula to pepsi. I mean everything will be used. Extortion, sabotage, anything to make the other look crap.

[QUOTE]When Apple released the iPod, Apple started to receive monstrous profits, and now Microsoft want a piece of the profit by releasing their own mp3 player. It's reported that it can hold more songs than the iPods largest, and is supposedly cheaper. Why can't a merger happen for a great mp3 player and they can share the abnormally large profits.[/QUOTE\

Um... Microsoft has always been a good business player. They do it so THEY can dominate. It's the same in most businesses as demonstrated above. It's not like Steve Jobs steals anything from Microsoft now

Yeah. Its not surprising they dominate, but how they dominate. They dominate with an iron-fist. Look at how much they've made since microsoft first started. $83 184 000 000 Who else has made that much in the world? Microsoft are the best because they excel at what the produce, technology.

Could you imagine the problems which a device would have? You wouldn’t be able to do anything without first activating the player, downloading 1gb of updates, then checking that you have a genuine player then download a song that has more DRM on it than song and only listen to it once you have accepted a license for you to play that song today.

Oh and you wont be able to use any of it unless you mange it through a windows xp media centre computer.

Um, Microsoft doesn't tend to have restrictions like that. You would be able to use any Windows based machine, or Virtual Machine. If anything, Apple has restrictions imposed like that. Apart from that, how true

I say let the rich bastards duke it out. Competition is good for markets like that, as it encourages innovation and efficiency.

Like, I could see what you mean though CyPod. You're saying that logically if Microsoft and Apple worked together on a MP3 it would be incredibly awesome. And there's a chance it could be. MP3's are luxury goods yeah, and they require a lot of time and resources to develop. So a monopoly would be good in that it would allow Microsoft + Apple to invest a lot of time resources into their MP3 player and make it ridiculously good.

But there already is a kind of monopoly. Apple are the only company that can produce the iPod and Microsoft are the only company that can produce Windows. So I don't really think it's needed, but it has potential.

In any case... look at the recent mergers of both AMD with ATI and Gigabyte with Asus. The fall-out of this is definitely going to be interesting. If it's good - why can't Apple and Microsoft be good? But if it's bad... The problem with having one 'global' company is that with so much money, people, or just generally power, is that they can do as they wish... For example (this could be legally wrong... but it is an EXAMPLE) with the release of Microsoft's MP3 player they brought all the companies that also produce the players. Any new companies that make MP3's they just buy out as well. Suddenly Microsoft have no competition... which means they can do as they wish. They could charge a 256mb player for $500 and all you can do is buy or go without.

Competition also keeps companies on edge... in order to sell one's product and make a decent profit, companies must find a way to update their products so that they are in some way better then another companies product. Back to the MP3 example. Say Company A created a MP3 player that stored roughly 2000 songs and had 5 hours battery life, and charged $250 retail. Then Company B made a player that stored 10 000 songs and had 12 hours battery life, and charged the same price. Which would you go for? In order to really remain competitive company A must update their product in some way. Usually this means either a new revision (think of Ipod generations 1-5) or make the product cheaper.. say $140ish would start making me decide - Company A's product, or Company B's product.

Unfortunately, buying out another company isn't illegal. The cases Microsoft has been in trouble for is anti-competitive behaviour. If Microsoft buys out other companies, then there is no competition, and thus no anti-competitive case. There is no reason for Microsoft to buy Macintosh. Remember, what does Microsoft make? They make the Operating System, Microsoft Windows.

Considering Macintosh is advertising on their behalf that you can run Windows on a Macintosh, and that Microsoft has for many years developed applications for Macintosh, then there would be absolutely no reason why Microsoft would buy Macintosh out. All of my friends with Macs have ran Windows on them for years - and I know for a fact Microsoft makes alot of money by selling Microsoft Office for Macintosh.

As for the MP3 player market, if Microsoft was really that hungry for marketshare, they would have brought Sony ages ago with the PlayStation 2's sucess. Also, if Apple sells an iPod for $499 for example, you can gurantee Microsoft will sell an equivalent for $399. Take a look at the XBOX360 vs PLAYSTATION3 price, or Windows XP Home + PC v MAC.

Microsoft doesn't rip people off, they create decent platforms cheap enough for the home user to pay (if home users bothered to go through licenses that is). For example, whilst everyone here has a member of the family under ANY form of education, you can buy Academic editions of any program. That means that Windows XP Professional Edition Academic is $120!!! Office 2003 Academic Edition (through the University Bookshop atleast) is also $120!!! Considering these are 1 time prices, that's a total of $240 added to a PC that would last you long enough.

By the way, I'm surprised this thread hasn't been a fanboy thread

But the Academic licenses have restrictions on them. You are limited to the number of computers you can install it to so while you may think that you are only ever going to install it on one pc every time you reformat and install it again and activated it you take away from the allowed installations. We have run into this very problem at home and I know other students who have as well. Most of them are stupid (I make no apologies for calling them that) and go out and buy another copy of office or windows. This is part of the reason I never say I have the office disk (most of the time I don’t but even when I do) because they don’t understand the licensing agreement and activation amounts (I don’t even understand it but then again I never bothered to try). When people ask I offer them free alternatives like Open office and star office but they generally say that they will go home and buy/borrow a copy of office.

I have installed my AE version of VS.NET 2003 more times than I care to remember, and Office 2003 about the same. I have never had that issue at all. And like all software from Microsoft (unless you buy certain licenses), you are going to be restricted to ONE pc only. As a matter of fact, my brother is using an XP Pro version of AE that has been installed 20+ times.

EDIT: By the way, Academic Editions of programs are restricted to who can purchase them. You can't compile programs in the AE VS.NET under the license for commercial purposes. Technically, there are no usability differences that one should notice. My point was though for those who complain about M$'s pricing obviously don't look further into it.

Tip: you can install a single copy of windows on like 80 computers.

Just phone up an MS rep and tell them "the hard drive crashed and i need to re-install windows."

unlimited activations.

hahaah Its like Cheating in rl.

Spek's found the Contra Code for Windows .