Filed under: Products and services, Competitive strategy, Apple Inc (AAPL)

After getting overloaded with economic bailout reading over the weekend, something techie floated to the top of the pile that caught my attention. It seems that Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is rejecting quite a few submissions to its App Store, where aspiring iPhone application developers send their programs so that iPhone customers can buy them.

The only problem is that Apple is not telling rejected (and dejected) application developers why their programs are not being approved. Also, the non-disclosure agreement the company is sending out prevents these developers from talking about their rejected iPhone app situations. Is this Apple being its usual self: controlling, closed and mum? The company really (really) knows how to design something the consumer wants and markets its sleek goods in a way other companies just can’t figure out. But in addition to that, it retains a tight control on the entire ecosystem in which its products exist.

Perhaps it’s the ideal form of quality control — but it’s not freedom. And developers want freedom, or, at the least, communication. Apple seems to be extremely tight-lipped, which is odd but not surprising.

On another Apple-control-freak note, Apple is now restricting reviews of iPhone Apps to people who have paid for them. It seems that the Wisdom of Crowds argument, which states that putting people in control leads to wisdom, isn’t working here. Of course, there’s also the vocal minority which can’t be pleased by anything and trashes everything that doesn’t fit a preconceived notion. Apple is turning on the quiet switch in this situation as well. So here’s my proposal for a new motto: Apple: Think Different (but don’t communicate it).

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Filed under: Rumors, Products and services, Competitive strategy, Wal-Mart (WMT), Marketing and advertising, Viacom (VIA), Ideal Purchase (BBY)

Billboard announced last week that Best Buy Stores, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) is rumored to be the exclusive retailer for the continuously pending Guns n’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy, by the end of 2008. For anyone who does not know about this album, it is prone to be one of the longest produced and most expensive in the history of the music business; it went into production in the mid-1990s.

Helping to fuel this rumor is the band’s new management, Irving Azoff’s Front Line Management, which has a history of releasing new albums exclusively through single retailers. Front Line released the Eagles return album Long Road Out of Eden through Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) a year ago with massive success. The “new” Guns n’ Roses album would predictably see similar success when and if it is ever released, and Ideal Purchase is smart to be grasping at the exclusivity if it is more than a rumor.

But will the album’s release recoup the amount of money spent producing it? This is one of the major reasons the album is continuously unreleased, despite rumors of release dates and its appearances on release schedules. A March 2005 article by the New York Times said that production costs had reached $13 million, a figure that could only have increased in the following three and a half years. These high figures raise the question of whether the album will truly be worth release financially, even if it is critically or popularly successful.

Continue reading Good news for Ideal Buy (BBY): Exclusive deal for Guns n’ Roses album

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