Saturday, April 23, 2005

I'm back... and it's Apple vs. Samsung




After more than a month of absence, I'm back to blogging again.

Anyway, I have a story about Samsung. Last week, my wife chatted with a friend who happens to be an executive from Samsung Philippines and the conversation went to mp3 players. She found out that my wife owns 2 iPods, a 10GB (2nd gen) and a 512MB iPod Shuffle and uses Macs. Uh-oh.

She then started saying..errr.. negative things about the Ipod Shuffle. That it's not a good mp3 player, that it's not worth the price, that it doesn't have an FM tuner, that it doesn't have a display, that it lacks functions and features, that people are buying it because of the brand, that their player, the Samsung YEPP is a much better mp3 player.

And here is the best part.

She told my wife that her goal this year is to overtake Apple/iPod and be the number one mp3 player in the market.

Good luck Ms. Samsung. You will need lots of it. The battle is not about who can fit the most features in such a small device. It's about selling experience, simplicity, ease-of-use, coolness and oh yes, the brand. And Apple's iPod is all that.

I admire her courage and determination but she better focus it somewhere else... or at least look at the reality and find a new goal for her products. iPod rules the portable music device market, and I'm just talking about the brand here. Let's not even talk about market share.

"...that people are buying it because of the brand" - That's it. She has the answer why Samsung can't be number one in mp3 players. No frickin' way. Before even thinking of going head-to-head against iPod, maybe she should worry about Creative's Zen first.

Oh..wait.. one more thing... two things actually, that iPod has but YEPP and other mp3 players in the market don't have. iTunes and iTunes Music Store.