HP dumps iTunes
p2p news / p2pnet: Hewlett-Packard is abandoning Apple’s iTunes for RealNetworks’ Rhapsody downloan rentals.
Not that it’ll make any difference to the tiny handful of punters who buy from the corporate services. They all get the same high-priced, low quality digital music tracks from the Big Four, Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and Emi, no matter which ’service’ they go to.
It’s like a farmer peddling the same moldy, extortionately priced potatoes to the same grocers who are all trying to re-sell the same spuds to the same customers from identical stores sited immediately next to each other in the same mall.
Not that the move is any great surprise. HP dropped the HP iPod in July, 2005.
"The deal marks a new direction for HP, which had seen its entertainment products overshadowed by the power of Apple’s own brand," says CNET News. "Rhapsody will now be the default music-playing software on HP’s new PCs and laptops, and beginning in spring 2006, HP customers will get a free 30-day trial subscription to RealNetworks’ music subscription service."
Wowee.
Also See:
HP iPod – HP abandons iPod, July 29, 2005
CNET News – HP drops iTunes, taps RealNetworks for music, January 4, 2006
January 7th, 2006 at 5:58 am
“HP customers will get a free 30-day trial subscription to RealNetworks’ music subscription service.”
Boy, don’t that sound great? I mean who could resist a free, whole month worth of tunes? I see they failed to mention that at the end of the 30 trial period you pay up or lose it all.
I put HP on the do not buy list quite some time ago. Up to that point, I was a faithful HP pc purchaser. Their BIOS just seemed compatible with everything and nearly anything you bought worked on it. Then came the day I bought a new pc from them. They also failed to mention on the box that the pc no longer came with install discs. Instead, they eat up part of your harddrive to put a non-customer usuable install for the OS. Now one would think that great, eh? No longer have to have install discs because they are right on the drive. Works great till you get malware. When malware passwords stuff, you can’t undo it with the on the disc install. It is there forever till you send it back to the factory for reimaging of the hd. I found this out from personal experince. 2 weeks later the same malware was back on the hd. Later they decided they would offer install discs at customer expense to buy them. I paid for that OS and install when I bought the computer. By not having them on hand cost me a week and then the dealing with the malware yet again. Their cost saving idea has cost them the price of 3 home computers I have purchased since that day. None of them will ever have HP on them ever again. I really wonder now, just how much they saved with that little deal?
January 11th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
I notice whoever runs this site erased my notes. I guess I made too many valid points about the total lack of “high-quality” files on p2p networks. I guess they considered that offensive to this site. Pointing out that the level of service for a legal download and p2p is the same despite their claims to the contrary. Oh well.