I have a 30GB iPod from HP, probably bought it in 2005. Formatted it on my HP PC with Windows, and used it with iTunes on the PC. Still works great ten years later (the iPod, not the HP PC) holding thousands of tunes and photos. The only thing I changed was doing a battery swap, bought off eBay for a few bucks. Great value, indestructible.
One of the other things in the article that doesn't ring true is the claim that "software companies were paying hundreds of millions of dollars to get their software included on PCs" and that Apple got persuaded Carly to include iTunes for free on HP as a way to keep Windows Media Player from being included. Say what? What software companies could afford to pay "hundreds of millions" to each PC manufacturer to include their crap ware on their PCs???? They do pay, but it ain't that much.