Apple is known for not being interested in licensing its technology. For instance, it was one of the only major computer companies never to have licensed its hardware or software to “clone” computer makers who created compatible and competing Macs. That changed briefly in the 1990s, but as soon as Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he ended that practice.
Because of this, you might expect that Apple would not have been interested in licensing the iPod or allowing anyone else to sell a version of it. But that’s not true.
Perhaps because the company had learned from its failure to license the Mac OS (some observers think that Apple would have a much larger computer marketshare if it had done so) or perhaps because it wanted to expand possible sales, in 2004, Apple licensed the iPod to Hewlett-Packard.
On January 8, 2004, HP announced that it would begin selling its own version of the iPod – basically it was a standard iPod with the HP logo on it. It sold this iPod for a while, and even launched a TV advertising campaign for it. HP’s iPod accounted for 5% of total iPod sales at one time.
Not even 18 months later, though, HP announced it would no longer sell its HP-branded iPod, citing Apple’s difficult terms (something many telecoms complained about when Apple was shopping for a deal for the iPhone).
Since there, no other company has licensed the iPod and, with the runaway success the iPod has become, it seems unlikely that another will any time soon.
