Daring Fireball: Closed Is Open

Daring Fireball: Closed Is Open -- John Gruber parses the comments of Microsoft's GM of Windows Digitial Media Division...

MSGMWDMD: iTunes captured some early media interest with their store on the Mac, but I think the Windows platform will be a significant challenge for them. Unless Apple decides to make radical changes to their service model, a Windows-based version of iTunes will still remain a closed system, where iPod owners cannot access content from other services.

Gruber: We're bad-mouthing Apple because they're not using WMA, and our goal is to establish a monopoly on digital media formats and rights management. You might think that the iPod and iTunes are in fact open, given that they work swimmingly well with MP3 files, but you would be wrong, because what we mean by "open" is "based on Microsoft's propriety formats". (In fact, we don't even mention "MP3" in this entire "Q&A".)

MSGMWDMD: Additionally, users of iTunes are limited to music from Apple's Music Store.

Gruber: Except for MP3s, which don't count.

MSGMWDMD: As I mentioned earlier, this is a drawback for Windows users [...]

Gruber: Where by "Windows users", we mean "Microsoft".

heh, heh. (via Channelling Cupertino)

(For an alternate view, there's the take from Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal.)