Joining the legions of iPod fans

After a lot of vacillating and ambivalency on our part, we joined the already huge legion of iPod owners and we instantly became its fans. I bought not one, but two iPods. One with video and other iPod Nano as a gift for my parents. Here's my wife and son advertising iPod video with 60Gb capacity. Microsoft is coming out with its own MP3 player in competition to iPod and it is not too far away. So was my decision to buy iPod now good? I think yes it was. The coolness factor associated with an iPod cannot be rivalled. In fact I already have a MP3 player from SanDisk which I bought last year and am quite happy with the performance it gave me. To top it all, it also has a AM/FM tuner in built. But again it falls way too short in the coolness factor.

The click wheel (which I understand is patented technology), the look and feel, the capability to laser engrave message to personalise the iPod all contribute to the coolness and the price of the iPod. One of my close friends works for a company that supplies Apple with the processor chips and he says that the hardware is very cheap. So the cost can be contributed to coolness and the R&D effort that went into developing the player.

Will Microsoft unseat Apple from its dominant position? Only time will tell. Given Microsoft's track record of aggressive marketing some may argue that it is possible, but I would not bet my money on anyone just yet.