Song Wars

EDN has a great article on the looming ‘song war’ between Apple, and well, everyone else.

Their common enemy? Apple. That fact will be of no surprise to any of you who have noticed the plethora of white ear buds worn by so many passersby (see sidebar "By the numbers"). I counted them on one in five sidewalk strollers during a 30-minute time span one morning in San Francisco. A mid-March report from iSuppli predicts a robust 29.1% compound-annual-growth rate for digital-audio players through 2009. JupiterResearch Vice President and Senior Analyst David Card reiterates that prediction. He forecasts that digital-audio-player sales will increase 35% this year to 18.2 million units from 16.2 million units in 2004 and that by 2010 there will be an installed base of 56.1 million units

So digital audio players are huge, are going to be huge, will continue to be huge and there is a lot of money to be made. Lots of interesting insights on the various different players – well worth the read to see what the next generation of digital audio is going to be like.