Microsoft exec, displeased with Creative and Dell, proposed iPod partnership

Frustrated by offerings from hardware partners Creative Technology and Dell, a Microsoft executive considered a partnership with Apple to bring Windows Media support to the iPod. In a 2003 internal email entiled “sucking on media players,” Windows chief Jim Allchin suggested he talk to Apple CEO Steve Jobs to get the iPod to work with Microsoft’s software for fear the iPod would “drive people away from Windows Media Player.” The email is part of evidence in a civil antitrust trial against Microsoft in Iowa. “My goodness it’s terrible,” Allchin wrote about one of Creative’s devices. “What I don’t understand though is I was told the new Creative Labs device would be comparable to Apple. That is so not the case.”