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Microsoft Prepares Alternative To Apple iTunes
bmarklein writes "According to CNET, Microsoft is working on a version of its DRM software that supports expiration of files on portable devices. Combined with a subscription service like Pressplay (soon to become Napster) that allows unlimited "tethered" downloads, you'll be able to fill up your high-capacity player with new music for a flat monthly fee. Of course it will expire once you stop paying the sub fee, but which do you think is the better deal: $7500 to fill a 30GB player (7500 songs at $1 each) with iTunes Music Store, or $120 a year with the ability to swap in new music whenever you want? How much is it worth to you to "own" the bits?"
Crap, no! :-)
I encode Ogg Vorbis files averaging 6 MB/Song, I can easily tell the difference with everything lower than that.
Jokes apart, this whole matter of "owning" is tricky....
Will I be able to do whatever I want with the songs, before they expire? Can I use them on my portable player, laptop, office PC and home PC without paying 4 subscriptions?
Will quality be crippled?
Will it work on Linux (that would be interesting from Microsoft) ? I have a Linux In-car mp3 player in the works, and my home theater is connected to my Linux Ogg server.
Vacuum cleaners suck. Kings rule.
but that is just me.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Isn't the question really, "Wouldn't it be great to own every song ever created for $10?"
/. utility to bust the DRM protection. ;-) I give it about 4 days after the service starts until someone figures this out. ;-)
How is this possible?
1) Sign up for one month.
2) Download every song in the database.
3) Use the new
4) Discontinue the service.
Whats to keep someone from downloading all the music they want, recording it via the headphone jack to MP3 or ogg, swapping in new music and starting all over? Oh, thats right.. Paladin. I honestly can't say I'm looking forward to the next 7 or 8 years of M$ dominated computing. :(
A small point: Apple's service sells albums for $10 so 15 or 20 songs can cost $10. I have spent a total of $11 on the Apple Music Store, and I can say that the user experiance is very good, and with the "1-Click" feature I could easily spend $100 without even noticing.
Yawn.
...I'd go with Apple. Give money to a company that innovates, rather than copies.
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
Subscription services have already been done. They don't work. Period. iTunes works because you 'own the bits'. That, my friend is why they have sold more music to more customers than any other online pay service COMBINED, and it only took them two weeks.
At the risk of coming off as a low-down music pirate (aren't we all...), why on earth would anyone do this? If you have access to a computer and you're looking to load files on portable media, I see no incentive when you can get any songs you want, as many as you want, FOR FREE on Kazaa or one of the dozens of P2P programs now available.
There are, as I see it, some advantages to buying the CD (directly support artists, etc.), but what's the incentive to buy this unless the customer is so clueless that they do not even know about P2P?
ad infernis is et flammas invenis
Why is it that all of these companies try to change the buyer's habbits? Much akin to groceries on the web, and the original DIVX discs, these schemes too will fail.
None of these services gaurantee that I will be able to burn a disc, when I want, where I want. None of these services gaurantee that I will be able to re-rip a CD when my PC takes a chunk.
All the schemes in the world won't have a chance in hell if they keep trying to shift public habbit.
"Thoughts are more powerful than any weapon, and I don't even let my people own guns." --Joseph Stalin
Just wonder what MS thinks of Kazaa, Gnutella & others. Perhaps they should also provide some service which selects the music according to user profile or offer even some sort of "added value" to the basic idea of downloaded music. Files with expiration date won't do it - what if the internal clock of my PC gets confused etc. Experience tells me MS can't anticipate every possible consumer error behavior.
Frankly, there are some songs I love and want to listen to all the time; these are ones I'd want to "own" so I can have them available whenever/whereever, and be able to demonstrate to others and stuff like that.
And then there's others that I have a sort of periodic interest in, and usually stop caring about after a few weeks. These are ones I'd prefer to "rent", because there's no point in paying more so as to keep them later.
Plus, I'd like to be able to control the difference between these two states easily.
Does *anybody* offer something like that? Not that I can see...
--
viqsi - See "vixen"
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Gee, renting DRM crippled songs, or buying DRM crippled songs.
I'll take buying. Still the better deal of the two, and I'm not helping to support a monopoly.
AC comments get piped to
As soon as they introduce this it'll only be a matter of days (maybe even hours) before there's a program made which will just convert your downloaded payed for time-limited music into a codec of your choice.
And also it's always going to be difficult to actually sell the music to the consumer when the consumer can just download the music he/she wants from KaZaA or whatever file sharing program takes their fancy.
So people are either going to need to be either self-concious enough that they want to pay for their music.... or? Or companies are going to need to make a service that is vastly supieror to the free alternatives, or maybe perhaps you get a certain amount of months of subscription to the service every time you buy a portable player or something?
This seems to me like taking a step up a ladder which leads to a large, half eaten fish. It might be something to do, but what's the point?
Part of the "advantage" of Microsoft's DRM is that the files will expire if you don't pay your bills. So you don't really own the songs. You're subscribing to a service, like cable.
Finding God in a Dog
owning the song 'forever' is worth it ...
...
being locked in a subscribtion service 'forever' is not
To me, it's not a matter of owning. It's a matter of feeling a sense of freedom. Any time I'm forced to make a long term monetary commitment (a loan, gym membership, etc.) I'm reluctant to do so. This is because there's always that shred of doubt regarding the future. What if something happens and I'm unable to pay this monthly fee?
With a gym membership it's easy: stop going to the gym. With a car loan it's different. You're going to get your car repossessed. Obviously this is not ideal, because you've invested time and energy into this automobile and you'd be losing this.
Getting your music repossessed is the same concept. I've put time and money into this collection, and I'll be damned if some company takes it back if I fail to make a payment. Because the future is unpredictable (especially for me, a poor college student), I'm going to stick with owning my music.
Also, I just want to point out, only singles on the iTMS are 99 cents. Albums are usually 10 dollars, and often contain WAY more than 10 songs.
Apple has shown the industry the way to do it, and (judging by the response) the way consumers want it to be done-- or at least, the way consumers will tolerate it being done.
Since Windows market saturation is complete, from now on Microsoft will always be trying to throw a "you must keep paying" aspect into their products and services-- because they're a bunch of greedy fucks, and because when there's no new people to sell Windows to, it's the only way to keep revenues up.
It looks to me, though, like the buying public has spoken in favor of the ITMS model-- so I'd say that for once, Microsoft's half-assed, "me too" copy of Apple's offering will NOT prevail.
And what happens when MS releases the next version of Windows and stops supporting the old software. Upgrade or else lose your collection?
Renting music is sort of like having cable TV. You can enjoy whatever the operator happens to make available at that time. But when you own the music (or DVD or book or whatever), you don't have to be concerned about whether the things you want to hear will one day be unavailable because of lack of demand or other reasons.
How much music does a normal person acquire in a year (legally or otherwise)? I have every CD that I own on my 10GB iPod -- plus various MP3s from other sources -- and it's still only half full. The issue as it was framed in this question ($7,500 for ownership vs. $120 a year for rental) is absurb, because people don't buy thousands of dollars of music at once. The real question is whether you want to be committed to listening to whatever a subscription service wants you to listen to OR be able to spend a tiny amount of money on a song or album when you happen to feel like it. The subscription model does at least three bad things: 1) It takes away your ability to legally own music for as long as you want it, 2) It takes away your freedom to time your purchases to your own whims or budget, and 3) It takes away your ability to "vote with your money" to give the market feedback about what you want to buy.
I understand the theoretical allure of a subscription model, but I believe it's one of those things that looks best when it's in theory. In practice, people want to buy what they want when they want AND they want to be able to own it. (You can argue about whether Apple's mild restrictions are too strict concerning what you can do with the file, but that's another argument. For me, Apple's approach basically means that I can do virtually anything that a normal music consumer wants to do with his music.)
Seriously, at an average of 5 songs I like per album, that's 1500 albums! For comparison's sake, I know a guy who's been buying CDs since the 80's and has a very large collection - 600+ CDs. Hell, 7500 songs takes about 30,000 minutes to play - that's 20 days of continuous music! I gues the point is this: filling up a large amount of space with 128Kbps mp3s isn't a reasonable benchmark. Reasonable usage is.
Microsoft's service is akin to buying 12 songs per month on Apple's service, except that, should you stop paying, you have nothing.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Or you buy the entire album for $9.99 instead of just the song and you would get both albums for the same price -- even if one has 20 2 minute songs and the other has 10 4 minute songs.
:)
I don't look at size as a serious quantitative method of determining value. I know I know -- you are just going off of the line of reasoning your ex dumped you for, but not everything a woman tells you is the truth. Personally, it would be in my best interest to say that it did, but us guys have to support one another
Pay $300 for your operating system on CD, so you can reinstall at any time if necessary, or pay $120 a year for a subscription to an operating system that will expire in a year, then HAVE to pay $150 the next year to keep it for another year. Because that's the same model. And who would buy 7500 songs in a *volatile* format anyway? That is about double the size of my CD collection, which cost me $3200 or so (over 18 years). iTunes works precisely because buying a song is an impulse thing, and is particularly useful for stuff that you like but not enough to by the CD: buying 1 song for $1 is a lot better than buying 1 song and 14 bits of static for $15.
I think Microsoft business people are missing one key point: owning things is an intrinsic part of being human.
This does not mean that rental or subscription-based services will fail, it just means that owning media SHOULD be part of the deal. This also means that Apple should (besides selling songs) also contemplate renting songs for a specified amount of time (say, 25 or 50 cents for 1 year?).
In other words, we need BOTH options, since people WILL want to own certain songs, but just rent others. Just look at the DVD market. People buy the movies they love (Matrix, Star Wars), but rent the ones they just want to have a good night with (i.e.: Van Damme and Steve Segal movies come to mind).
When I can pay $1 for an Ogg file (or even MP3), I'll be happy to do so (even from Microsoft). It's simple, and it's amazing nobody gets it: cut the DRM crap, and people will pay for the convenience and legitimacy.
It's impossible to stop P2P, but P2P is very inconvenient, and people would rather not infringe copyrights. But DRM is much, much more inconvenient, and it shows the company's greed and mistrust of its customers. DRM does nothing to stop copyright infringement, and everything to curtail fair use. Fair use and convenience are one and the same, and and convenience sells.
iTunes is closest to this, but it still has DRM crap, won't work on Linux, etc. Whatever Microsoft does is bound to be a step backwards, because they are talking about expiration, the format will probably be WMA, you won't be able to switch services, your music will die when you unsubscribe, you won't be able to use it on anything but Windows and Microsoft-blessed hardware, etc.
Hopefully something even more open will come along, and do even better than iTunes, and things will become sane.
Litigious bastards
Didn't I predict this about 5 days ago. Yeah, I thought I did. ;)
;) It would seem that it would have SOME Of the music you wanted, but not all of it.
... it's one of the key features that got Sprint PCS going in the early days. Look at pay-as-you-go cellphones, too. People pay *extra* to use these in order to avoid a contract.
;)
Specifically, regarding your questions, if the sub didn't have the music you wanted, then where did this existing collection come from?
You could supplement it with iTunes of course, which requires no contract committment. No contract commitment is a key thing
I don't know that this will fly... it might... it all depends on marketing. And no one in the industry does marketing quite as well as M$.
My journal has hot
"How much is it worth to you to "own" the bits?""
It isn't about owning, it's about control.
Remember, intellectual property was never meant as a means for ownership, but a means for control.
Question everything.
By saying I want to rip, mix, and burn, all I'm asking for is the right to phase shift media which I've paid for. It's the companies problem if that right, which has been mine with every other media thus far, puts them in a pinch as to how to make a profit. I'm not asking to be able to sell copies of the music; I'm asking to be able to exercise my right of fair-use.
To use your car example, buying a car gives me the right to break it down to parts and sell (or reassemble in a different form) the pieces, it also gives me the right to resell the car itself as a whole. Those are all examples of rights that RIAA are trying to technologically and bureaucratically take from us.
-kd
I hope Apple gets its Windows version of iTunes quickly. Microsoft has a habit of making mediocre software available quickly, taking advantage of its large installed base, eliminating competition, then ceasing improvement.
People will pay for music, as they've demonstrated. Provide them a good interface and give them a reasonable deal and they'll pay. I think a lot of people find $1 per song to be a reasonable price, and iTunes is far easier to use than Kazaa/Gnutella. Most people don't want to hack, they don't want to circumvent DRM, they don't want to wait forever to download music, and they sure don't want spyware. They're happy to pay a fair price for the service.
My worry may be misplaced, because unlike other Microsoft placements, this won't be free. Even if it comes on your computer for free (and people are upgrading much more slowly than they used to, so just providing it with the OS doesn't provide the channel that it used to), you still have to sign up and pay. Microsoft is pretty good at tricking people into doing so; the service will assuredly use Passport and they can be very...insistent about signing up for a Passport account.
But a lot of people won't pay, because it's too much trouble for them. Many of those who will pay will go the extra step to get Apple's software. That is, of course, assuming that Apple gets the software out. It's claimed it for the fall, but Microsoft can probably get its software out at least that quickly and into a "service pack" for Windows.
That also assumes Microsoft intends to actually develop the software at all. Microsoft doesn't even need to develop software at this point. Many users will read the announcement and forget about Apple's take on it, because they'll assume it'll come free with their next computer.
It won't make them happy, but my basic assumption in marketing is that users are lazy. Look at the number of people whose home page is still MSN because they never bothered to get a different browser or even to change the home page to something they care about. Users will put up with a lot of crap if it means no effort. It takes a very smart company to work around that laziness.
I hope Apple can be that company, because it's the best shot I've seen at getting music to people and money to musicians I've seen yet. It's not perfect for a host of reasons (mainly due to the record studios and Clear Channel), but I think it's the right compromise today.
This seems typical of Redmond.
Rent rent rent. This is the current plan, when the customer stops paying - *ZIP!* they're screwed.
It's exactly what is on the cards with Palladium (NGSCB), no longer do you own your copy of MS Office, but you rent it, leaving yourself liable to increases in the rental cost that started out oh-so-reasonable (XBox Live anyone?).
Should you fail to keep up with payments then all of your work for the last couple of years (documents, letters, spreadsheets, project plans etc. etc.) is down the drain... gone. It is all part of a very obvious strategy to lock people tighter and tighter into the godawful overrated buggy mess that is MS software...
And the worst thing is that *the average Joe does not see this*!
Now, Microsoft see's another company (Apple) which has worked incredibly hard, battling against the stubborness of the 5 big labels, encoding hundreds of thousands of songs, doing all the groundwork, figuring out the streaming system to get high-quality streams to anyone anywhere in the world instantly for the previews etc. etc. Microsoft see's this company (GASP!) actually reap some monetary reward for this hard hard work and surprise, the fat and greedy "software" company wants it... all of it.
Why, Microsoft, if you wanted to get into the online music business, was it not YOU that took the risk of being first, why was it not YOUR money on the line opening a new market to users, why was it not YOUR reputation in the balance of a high profile gamble???
I know this is Slashdot, and I know this is repeated many times a day, but believe me, never with more spirit and emotion than I feel now - when will the consumer teach Microsoft a lesson?
Has the semi-failure of the XBox been the first high-profile dent to MS made by the consumer at large? Perhaps... it is sure to say that the consumer is resisting these monopolistic practises... but how long will this last... MS has the cash to pay out for an XBox 2 and an Xbox 3 until Sony and Nintendo are gradually put out of the game for the sheer fact that MSoft's bottom line can go deeper than theirs?
It remains to be seen... perhaps this will be one of those half-hearted assault on a competitior like iMovie versus Windows Movie Maker (hehehe). We DO know that Apple's traditional strengths (design, quality, usability, friendliness, media-related software) are the things that Microsoft has the most difficulty in achieving.
-Nex
This sig has been deprecated.
But Microsoft's spiffy new DRM doesn't exist yet. We're all debating the merits of something that they might not even be able to bring to market. This reminds me of all the discussion prior to iTunes. Even though the broad strokes of the Apple Music Store were fairly well known, the devil is in the details. It wasn't until the product launched that anyone could really tell how useful it would be.
Microsoft's number one goal here is to thwart Apple's Windows version of the Music Store before it even launches. The best way for them to do that is to float various alternatives, watch the responses, and adjust accordingly.
While this is in keeping with their corporate character, it's also not the sort of approach that leads to a well-integrated user experience. The Apple Music Store was obviously built around making consumers happy, and it shows in all the little details. Microsoft is racing to catch up to Apple in this arena, and at this point the only way they can gain some momentum is by comparing vaporware to the Apple Music Store.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
All you have to do is look at the history. MS's idea has already been attempted 50 times over by many companies. People want to be able to copy it whereever/whenever. This is the sole reason Apple is winning right now. Remember the music companies said they would have been happy with a million in a month though so even a "failure" may constitute a solid business plan to the RIAA.
...is that Apple makes its service available to all platforms. I'm waiting for it (Linux user) and I would definately buy music that way. I'm not an audiophile and I don't mind a bit less than CD quality. Especially if I can get an entire album for $10 instead of $25 (in The Netherlands).
Here's the secret to immortality:
Look at it this way, for $120 a year you would be buying 12 albums a year at $10 each at the iTunes Music Store (iTMS). You would then own these songs and pretty much be able to do whatever you want with them. Even if you go broke and can't pay $120 for the next year you will still have the songs if you buy them.
Many people buy less than 12 albums a year so those people will save money by using iTMS rather than renting the music. I seriously doubt that anyone will fork over $7500 all at once to fill their iPods. The reason most people get a 30 meg iPod is not to fill it with new music but to put in the songs bought over the years, along with some new stuff. Not only that but the iPod has many uses other than to store music - I use it all the time to move gigs of files from one machine to another in work, or even as a quick way to boot up a machine if I'm a pinch.
Lastly, I know for a fact that Apple's DRM can hardly be called a DRM. How many people would HONESTLY have a reason to use an audio file on more than 3 computers? Even if you did how hard is it to burn a CD with the songs and then use that CD on as many computers as you want? Judging from Microsoft's history I just don't see them offering DRM files with this degree of freedom. You know for sure that you won't be allowed to burn standard CDs with Microsoft's rental service, if you could then you would now own that song forever and the rental idea would be dead.
Sapere aude!
I can't believe what I am reading.... People are actually saying that it's ok for me to pay $10 month for me to listen to music.
I am sorry, I would rather "own the bits" so that I can listen to the same songs over and over and over again without having to pay a fee just to do so.
I will stick with the iTunes service. I can see it already, you can listen to your music as long as your paying for the service.
Knowing MS, any CD you burn will self destruct if you cease being a member (that is if you are allowed to burn CDs without paying some additional fee).
Unless the consumer has the right to rip, mix, and burn, you can't say they 'own' anything but the right to listen to it, and even then only if they pay a recurring charge.
Faulty logic. First of all, he was talking about Apple's scheme, in which you actually do have the right and ability to mix and burn the song without a recurring charge. But even if you got the facts right, you still own the song; you just don't have copying rights (i.e. copyright) to it. Don't misrepresent the facts.
Your logic applied to other consumer goods:
Restrictions of property usage are a part of our life, and they do not signify a lack of ownership. Bandying about with terms like this is exactly what leads the RIAA to erroneously equate copyright infringement with theft. Don't sink to their level, please.
I'll stick with my local library. They actualy have lots of CD's that I can borrow for free for 2 weeks. Plenty of time to rip into whatever format I want. No new releases, but thats OK I think most music is crap these days. Most CD's I check out I already have the tape stuffed in a box somewhere. I actualy buy new music CD's that I like after I have sampled enough of the disc dfrom kazaa etc.
It's great for audiobooks on CD. I can listen to them at my leisure without worrying about late fees. I don't look at it as theft, more as maximizing my libraries circulation capabilities. I could renew them for 4 weeks, but if I return them after they are ripped some other poor schmoe can borrow them. Buying an unabridged audio book on CD is WAY to expensive for me to only listen to them once. I;ve noticed lots of new audiobooks are being released as MP3's burned on CD now. I wish they'd fall in price though. I'd pay $10 for one in a heart beat, but not $49.95 (SK's Dreamcatcher on three MP3 cd's).
Like a toddler, Microsoft can't seem to ever let anyone succeed without having to try to steal the concept and thunder. Always playing, "Me too" get's kind of tiresome.
Anything Apple does, Microsoft always seems to HAVE to beat them at it. It's worse than sibling rivalry.
I suppose if Apple decided to sell hamburgers at their stores, Microsoft would ave to buy all of the cows in the world to prevent Apple from suceeding in that venture too.
sheesh...
Leveraging their 90% marketshare of the desktop this will become yet another monopoly for Microsoft. I say we wait until this thing gets going full scale and then file a class-action suit against them. Once this takes off -- there will be no alternatives on the Windows platform. Millions of lemmings will run right off the cliff and just start using this service because it is built right into the OS.
I share the same opinions as most of the /. crowd, in that if i feel a product is worth it, i will buy it. I've been screaming for years about how if the RIAA wants me to buy more CD's, they need to offer more for what is already an obviously bloated pricing situation, or offer me a cheaper medium that i can access directly from home. Generally, when it comes to music,
1) Download a few tracks from kazaa at home.
2) Spend a few days listening to it.
3) Go purchase the album / Download the remaining tracks, or disregard the music as something not in my taste.
I currently have about 10 albums sitting in the corner of my bedroom that have not even been opened, with the music residing on my PC.
I also have no problems downloading albums that i have purchased (sometimes, 3-4 times) even though i dont currently posses a copy of the CD... due to theft, scratched cd's, whatever. The RIAA would have you believe that i am a thief in doing so. I believe the RIAA can lick my scrotum.
At any rate, I think MS's plan would end up being worthless. As i've stated before, i feel that if i pay for something, i *own* the rights to posses it, no matter what. I once made the mistake of encoding one of my albums in WMA. The CD melted in my car... and since this was a couple of formats ago (yes, i run windows :p) I've found the files to be useless, because windows feels i dont "own" those wma files. The absolute LAST THING I WANT is for MS to be in control of what it feels i "own" and dont own.
Expiration of files on portable devices can only happen, if the portable
device has either
- a real time clock (RTC), or
- a communication channel to a server, or
- non-volatile memory for counters.
Otherwise it would suffer from the "same state problem". That is, everytime
when you ask it to play a song, it would not know if you ask the first time,
or the 100th time.
The small matchbox/pen-sized MP3 players have no RTC. Their comm channel
is established only sporadically (when you're fed up with the songs and
push new ones). The only possible way is to use the non-volatile memory.
I don't consider this a particularily good solution. It's easily hackable,
and works only for those devices that integrate and virtualize their storage.
Otherwise you could just take out that CompactFlash card, connect it to the
PC and make a backup of all files (including the DRM counters). You could
restore the backup after 100 playbacks (effectively resetting the counters),
and then "give back" the files from the DRM MP3 player to your DRM PC
with 0 playbacks used.
Obviously M$ is targetting at players with more sophisticated hardware.
It appears to me that they will fail like with their Smartphone initiative.
All the extra constraints on hardware make those devices non-competitive.
They are heavier, bulkier, waste more battery energy and all for the
sole purpose of enforcing more restrictions to the user.
Marc
I don't mind the idea of 'renting' the music, but the price is too steep for the amount of music I would listen to. Seriously, how many people have 7500 songs they listen to on a regular basis? Is there a subscription service where I can pay to rent by the song by the month (to the tune of a few pennies per month per song)?
Of course it will expire once you stop paying the sub fee, but which do you think is the better deal: $7500 to fill a 30GB player (7500 songs at $1 each) with iTunes Music Store, or $120 a year with the ability to swap in new music whenever you want?
Where in the article does it say anything about $120/year?
Are we supposed to be so gullible as to believe that a subscription service would allow unlimited "rentals" for a flat fee of $10/month? What kind of an asinine business model would that be? Does anyone really think that the recording industry would ever make such an offering?
Mark
Alright, 7500 hundred songs, let's assume an average of 4 minutes per song, that's 30,000 minutes of music, or 500 hours. now, let's say the average person is awake for 14 hours a day, and for the sake of argument, he was a zealotlike fan of music, so he only spends 6 hours a day without music (on average). At 8 hours a day (and I think anyone's willing to admit that's way more than most people listen in an average day) he can listen to his 7500 songs for more than two months at that rate and that's if he NEVER listens to a song more than once, in that 50 day period!
I guess my point is, can you really fill 30 gigs with music that you actually want to listen to? (thinking music is 'good' and listening to it regularly are two totally different things)
Just my two cents I guess... I've been doing mp3s since probably 96, but the thing I never understand about my mp3 junkie friends, is that they'll burn 50 gigs of mp3's and maybe 10 of it ever makes their playlist and probably only half get's listened to on a regular basis.
My take on this is that it's pure vaporware. By some accounts Apple has taken two years to line up deals with the music industry. How on earth could MS do such a thing in such short notice? They can't.
So, one has to wonder about this. Hmm... could it be yet another attempt by Microsoft to scare potential customers away from what they perceive as a successful venture by announcing their own similar service COMING SOON! So whatever you do, don't get all tangled up with that other service because you know you want to stay on the winning MS team! Don't bother with that other stuff until our kick-ass music service is up and running, say in... um... late 2003 *cough cough* 2006 *cough* *cough* 2008 *cough* never.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."