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Engineering wise, Sony has the potential to steal market share from Apple. realizing the potential is something else again. Sony can build *really nice* products (i have a NE500 ATTRAC/MP3 disk player that costs $40 that is astonishingly well made and has fabulous sound quality)

but whoever does Sony marketing must be the same idiot that stuck with betamax after it was clear that format was going nowhere.

the ATTRAC format is a very bad joke, and "sonic soundscape" software that must be used with Sony's iPOD competition is difficult to use and extremely repressive, whereas iTunes is only somewhat repressive. makes you wonder if the sheep will rebel against DRM as envisioned by all the major players, from Intel to Apple to Microsoft to Sony to the RIAA...

but it looks like losing money is making Sony wake up a little. they have *FINALLY* ditched the ATTRAC format and have totally embraced MP3 since nobody likes ATTRAC or uses it, and the next generation of mp3 players from Sony should be much better.

as for iPOD and iTunes being joined at the hip, probably so.

the CD as we know it is a dodo, predictably as the CD is showing its age, and iPod/NET/iTunes is a reasonable paradigm to take its place. the question is whether Apple can sustain iPOD/iTunes sales in the face of both market saturation and competition from other vendors as the economy begins to sour for various reasons... and at the same time the content of the songs offered by iTunes becomes more and more mediocre...

as for Apple following Sony's footsteps, a good cautionary tale given how stagnant Sony marketing innovation has become after their originally brilliant walkman design...