OVER ONE MILLION SERVED
Said Jobs, “iTunes users have purchased over one million songs in the first three and a half days since our launch last Thursday, which compares with one million songs in the first seven days when we introduced the original iTunes for Mac users last April. We're off to a great start, and our competition isn't even out of the starting gates yet. See how I got you to diss our competition in this canned quote that you’ll see everywhere?”
The Windows iTunes charges 99 cents per song, just like the Mac version, which means that those million songs translate to almost a million dollars of income in three and a half days. To get an idea of how much money that is, take a dollar out of your wallet. Now imagine a million of those. Not bad, huh? Of course, you’ll also be receiving a million pennies since songs are 99 cents.
While all this good news was happening for Apple on the music front, the dominant player in the computer world was facing heat for trying to operate in the music space from a position of power.
Attorney generals from 19 states formally complained to a federal judge that Microsoft’s “Shop for Music Online” link in Windows XP is precisely the kind of thing the Microsoft anti-trust settlement was designed to prevent. When users click the link to buy music, Windows opens Internet Explorer, even if users have specified that they want to use a different browser. Oh, the humanity! But that’s not all, the link takes the browser to online music store windowsmedia.com which is operated by, wait for it, Microsoft.
The attorney generals asked U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to intervene if the problems aren't resolved. Microsoft said it is willing to work with the government but does not believe the design is illegal.
