Partnering Apple

BusinessWeek Online: The lust of iPod owners for their lovable little digital-music players is well-documented. But another group may be even more smitten with Apple Computer these days: The makers of the 400-plus iPod accessories that have stormed to market, from $19 plastic cases to $350 speaker systems.
Take Tim Hickman, general manager of the three-employee company Speck Products in Palo Alto, Calif. A former dot-commer who worked at Netscape in the mid-1990s, Hickman was amazed to see sales of Speck’s iPod cases top $1 million in December alone — not bad, given that net profits on such products often exceed 20%. “We thank our lucky stars, for the time being,” he says.
But Hickman got something of a scare during Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s Jan. 11 keynote at the Macworld confab in San Francisco. After unveiling a new, low-price version of the iPod, the iPod shuffle, Jobs also announced that his outfit would sell its own Apple-branded, $29 waterproof sport case — the first time it had offered any such product. What’s more, Jobs made a quick note of a “Made for iPod” program, in which only authorized accessory makers would get the right to put Apple’s stamp of approval on their wares.
iPod Add-Ons: The Craze That Lasts [BusinessWeek Online]