Bill Gates: iPod Just a Passing Fad

Poor Bill just can't accept the fact that Apple finally kicked his ass at something in the global marketplace.

In an article published Thursday by the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Gates is quoted as saying "I don't think the success of the iPod can continue in the long term, however good Apple may be. I think you can draw parallels here with the computer — here, too, Apple was once extremely strong with its Macintosh and graphic user interface, like with the iPod today, and then lost its position ." The article cites mobile phones with an ever-growing list of multimedia capabilities as being one of the biggest threats to Apple's portable music player domination.

I'm still not buying it. I am not convinced that 70% of the portable-music-player-buying population wants to use their phone as an MP3 player all the time. Would it be convenient to have that option some of the time? Sure, but I don't think the phone is going to become the center of anyone's digital lifestyle anytime soon. You are, of course, free to disagree.