Apple whistles a happy iTunes

[Mac Reporter]

It's been 12 months since "hell froze over" at Apple Computer.

A year ago this week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the company's plans to sell tunes to Windows users. And while the company hasn't magically converted them all to the Mac view of the world, it has made a pretty nice business for itself.

In that time, Apple has sold tens of millions of songs and more than doubled the number of iPods it is selling. The Mac maker won't say how many of its songs or players are going to Windows users, but it's reasonable to think it's a pretty good chunk, given the relative prevalence of PCs (90-plus percent of the market, while Mac holds less than 5 percent).

Apple has clearly established the iTunes Music Store as the standard for legitimate music sales. According to new data from the NPD Group, iTunes retained a 70 percent market share for digital downloads between December 2003 and July 2004, the last month for which data is available.

Read more at CNET News.com.