The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Apple's iPod strategy is familiar tune

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Apple's iPod strategy is familiar tune "To longtime tech watchers, Apple Computer's dilemma over whether to "open up" its wildly successful iPod/iTunes strategy has an amusingly familiar ring.
Having devised the must-have gadget of the early 21st century, Apple now faces intense pressure to allow the iPod to work with multiple music services beyond iTunes.
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In 1989, I bought a DOS machine for under $3,000 — and a Macintosh IIci for $5,400 (yes, computers cost a lot more back then). The IIci was a better computer, but not (to most buyers) that much better. Apple's early fumbles stemmed as much from overpricing as from failing to license the Mac to outsiders.
If Apple wants to maintain the iPod's hegemony, all it may really have to do is keep lowering the price. Once the "mini" burns through early adopters, its price is sure to fall. And the "papa" iPod should cost less in the future, even as its capacity expands.
Either that, or Apple faces getting lowballed into oblivion once again."