Gates: The Cell Phone is Mightier Than the iPod

Posted on May 13, 2005

Reuters reports that Bill Gates, the chairman and founder of Microsoft, thinks that cell phones will eventually over take MP3 players and iPods as the leading digital music player.

In a recent interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Gates said, "As good as Apple may be, I don't believe the success of the iPod is sustainable in the long run. You can make parallels with computers: Apple was very strong in this field before, with its Macintosh and its graphics user interface -- like the iPod today -- and then lost its position."

Gate also said, "If you were to ask me which mobile device will take top place for listening to music, I'd bet on the mobile phone for sure."

iPod has everyone gunning for it now after it surprised everyone and took over the digital music industry with its iPod device and iTunes player. Yahoo recently announced the launch of a cheap digital music service. Top Tech News reports that Yahoo's Music Unlimited service will be offering consumers permanent downloads at 79 to 99 cents a song.

Even if the iPod is threatened by cheaper offerings and competing players Apple still has the option to expand the iPod into video, games and communications. The iPod brand will be difficult to beat.



More from HowToWeb