ITunes U and lockin

Jon Udell at Inforworld has a piece on the iTunes U. He complains that even though the service is free it in practice will fuel iPod sales. The podcasts available on any iTunes U store are available in AAC, Apple's proprietary format. While it is possible to convert this to MP3 or other formats, Udell argues that this should be unnecessary since podcasts should be universal. He sums up his argument by claiming that he is using a powerbook and could EASILY switch :) I guess he could switch about as easily as he could convert his AAC's into MP3's