View this article at: http://dev.macnn.com/articles/05/07/25/mp3.economic.ecosystem Monday, Jul 25, 2005 11:05am Apple lacks \"economic ecos... Apple will inevitably lose its hold on the digital music player market, as competitors slowly bring their features up to par with the iPod, and leverage their "economic ecosystem," says FastCompany. While the iPod, like most Apple products, is a "closed" platform, Apple's competitors are "a set of companies, cooperating and competing at once, that together deliver a product or service by providing different components that share some critical capabilities." The iPod "has not changed much since its debut four years ago," and "no one can improve on an iPod except Apple." A so-called ecosystem is better than a single product "because its collective of competitors can explore and invest in many more ideas than any single company can muster," the article explains.