"Jobs & Co. should take note and start looking for new distribution partners to prepare for battle with one of the few companies that can rival them on the hipness scale. It's time for Apple to start dancing a little faster if it wants to hang on to its crown as the king of digital music."
Virgin will be an interesting competitor in this space, though not as strong, I believe, as the author of this article seems to think. Apple's success with the iPod has to do with more than the fact that Apple has a "cool" brand. They also make the best product. And the iTunes application, which doesn't get mentioned -- not just the store -- is as big (or bigger, for my money) a part of it as anything else.
Note, "Unlike most other digital-music plays, Virgin has opted to build its own music-player software rather than buy from a third party. That decision could mean trouble -- building easy-to-use software is a pretty tough job." Mmm-hmm.