Plaintiff Stacie Somers, represented by Mehri & Skalet PLLC, has filed suit against Apple alleging that Apple dominates the online video, online music, and digital music players market. It is alleged that Apple has “crippled” the iPod products so that they cannot play WMA files — which is true, but it is because Apple has not licensed WMA from Microsoft.

I find the suit ridiculous. In reality, the iPod product line doesn’t offer anything that other digital music players don’t with the exception of the ability to use the iTunes Music Store. Comparison: sue Microsoft because the Xbox 360 doesn’t play Playstation 3 games. Another comparison: sue Dodge because their diesel engines can’t run on gasoline.

If you buy and iPod and don’t understand its technical limitation, then you deserve exactly what you get. A commenter on the Information Week story points out, “Time for a reality check here. If I buy an iPod, I can use it with my Macintosh or a Windows PC using the FREE and included iTunes software from Apple. I have the OPTION to either “rip” music from CD’s that I own or buy, or I have the CHOICE to purchase music through the iTunes store. I can also download music in the industry standard MP3 format. In my view, I have plenty of options for acquiring and loading content into an iPod. If I were to choose a competing product, like a Microsoft Zune, for instance, I would be limited to use Microsoft’s software on a Microsoft Windows computer, because they don’t provide ANY support for ANY other platforms. Apple’s decision to not pay to license technology from a competing vendor seems like a reasonable business decision to me”.

I don’t see Apple’s business model with the iPod as being monopolistic. Why should they be required to support other companies’ formats? Why should their device need to be that open? You can get a very similar product to the iPod for less money, yet according to the suit Apple holds 90% of the hard drive based player and 70% of the flash based player market.