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Conference napalm::commusic_v1

Title:* * Computer Music, MIDI, and Related Topics * *
Notice:Conference has been write-locked. Use new version.
Moderator:DYPSS1::SCHAFER
Created:Thu Feb 20 1986
Last Modified:Mon Aug 29 1994
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:2852
Total number of notes:33157

1845.0. "Rhythm 'n' Views - Freff's Column in MACUSER Magazine" by DFLAT::DICKSON (Plan data flows first) Mon Jan 09 1989 13:19

Freff, author of a regular column in KEYBOARD, now also writes a column for
MACUSER magazine titled "Rhythm 'n' Views".  The column in the January 1989
issue is about what Apple will have to do to be succesful in the music
business.  It contains a few statements that I thought would be interesting to
discuss here.

	"Music swims in a sea of perceived time;  the music *business*,
	like all businesses, swims in a sea of perceived money."

	His ballpark size of world-wide music business is 50 billion dollars.

	Annual expenditures by Americans and American companies on
	instruments and recording gear is 6 billion dollars.

	Sam Ash is a full Apple dealership.

	According to Joel Chadabe, of Intelligent Music, music will ultimately
	be a bigger market than desktop publishing.  "There are a lot more
	people who sing in the shower than will ever need to publish a
	newsletter."

I thought of all the people within large corporations who use desktop
publishing these days, for internal newsletters, training materials, and
presentations.  Then I thought, "is the next big wave to do your own music for
these presentations?"  The mind boggles.  Along with a Photography and an Art
department, would Digital have a Music department wherein a staff of crack
jingle and new-age background composers would crank out audio tracks for your
next product-announcement slide-show? 

	Music is a single worldwide market.

He says that other businesses are not so homogeneous, having various national
ways of doing things.  Apparantly not so in music.

	Apple Europe positions the Mac entirely as a business machine.
	And the markup over USA prices is outlandish.  People make a profit
	by buying Macs *retail* in the USA, shipping them to Europe, paying
	import fees, replacing power supplies, and *still* selling them
	at less than the official Apple price.

Seems to me this used to be true for parts of DEC, no?

	The Mac has 17 percent of the computers-in-music pie.  IBM and its
	clones have 22 percent.  Various Atari machines have 30 percent.
	But in Europe, Atari leads Apple 40-to-1.
 
No doubt due to the price gouging noted above.

	To sell software in Europe, a developer *must* make it available
	for the Atari.  Having done that, they can also sell it to American
	Atari owners, which discourages Americans from buying Macs.  (If
	the same software runs both places, why buy the more expensive
	machine?)

I wonder if there is any parallel between this phenomenon and what goes
on with Unix.

	"[Apple's corporate arrogance] leaves them ill prepared to deal with
	their real competition in the music market, an economic force just
	now emerging from the wings.  It's big, it's been in the music
	business for 100 years, it's Japanese, and the Apple Music Marketing
	Group is definitely David to its Goliath (maybe even David without
	a sling).  In one word: Yamaha."
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
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1845.1talent is no prerequisiteSALSA::MOELLERFrom AZ to OZ...Mon Jan 09 1989 15:554
    re Freff.. that jerk got me off Keyboard Mag, now I'll stop reading
    MacUser..
    
    karl
1845.2MARVIN::SCOTTBArry A. ScottThu Jan 12 1989 12:0917