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Microsoft to Launch Online Music Store
yonnage writes "Microsoft is expected to enter the online song store market this week, which should put the software giant head-to-head with Apple Computer in the music business at last.
The launch of Microsoft's iTunes rival will be timed along with the beta release of Microsoft's new Windows Media Player 10, expected on Thursday, sources say. The store will also be in beta mode, lacking some of the features that will be added later, sources said."
None of these hurdles is trivial, particularly in a business such as selling downloadable music, where actual margins remain only a few pennies per song sold. The real core of Microsoft's goal has little to do with e-commerce and everything to do with selling Windows, analysts said.
No it has nothing to do with selling Windows. It has to do with furthering the MSFT domination in every single technological market that they can slide their way into. The XBox hardware doesn't make them money but they are still getting their name out there and making money via some other channel (additional hardware, monthly Live subscriptions, royalties, whatever).
This is going to be no different. Get the people used to the MSN Music Store. Get them buying songs. Get them buying hardware. Get them used to seeing it in Windows. Make it an integral part of Windows. DRM the BIOS, DRM the OS, and DRM the Music, DRM the hardware/player, RIAA is happy, people get their Music, people are happy, money comes in, Bill is happy.
When the market is comfortable with seeing WMP and MSN media everywhere they are going to LOVE seeing it in their favorite theatre, on their favorite DVD, etc. Then the MPAA is happy and they will happily embrace the format which they are currently rejecting.
What I want to know is when WMP is going to just NOT work when you won't let it phone in what you have been watching/listening to. I've been waiting for that day to come. I wouldn't be surprised if it happened in WMP10-1 or WMP11. It's not like 99% of the people don't know that it is doing it and it's not like they care if it is. Most of these people don't have firewalls and even if they do they happily click to allow it to connect out permanently. Anything to make that annoying little box stop popping up.
Tin foil alert level is currently Orange but may raise when the MSN music store gains a foothold.
Obviously they're a little late for this... but really, if all of the others haven't really made a dent in the iTMS market share, how does MS intend to?
Microsoft will immediately become number two, and perhaps number one, if not almost straight away, with a shoddier product, and years earlier than they'd otherwise have been able to had it not been for Apple once again pioneering this market.
Here they are, richest company on the planet, monopoly in their marketplace, and they aren't satisfied.
It's not about "choice" -- it's about Microsoft.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Microsoft has to find a way to be better than iTunes, rather than just selling music in the .wma format. Otherwise, I don't think they'll be beating out iTunes any time soon. Challenging it, yes. Ending up the most popular, no. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I would think by now that those who were going to purchase music online would have started with iTunes or one of its competitors.
Isn't it surprising that Microsoft is entering this business late and big? Now that it's proven profitable, all that 'built in advertising' stuff the windows group can do kinda leverages things pretty well... Your windows supplier can now know:
what you read online
what you listen to
what you buy
and what you watch
so it can 'market' to you better... I know this is nothing new but maybe these 'free market' guys should have been closer behind Msoft's breakup... If Microsoft goes into commercial sales as their main product, like Apple is doing right now, how much will they be selling?
My little site.
I quit using Napster because I didn't really like the Windows Media Player, or the Microsoft DRM technology. Why would I switch back just because MS has their own music store? The music store marketplace is becoming too saturated now and the only way for anyone to distinguish themselves is with a great hardware accessory - like Apple's iPod.
Apple is well in the lead and I don't see them losing the lead unless MS comes up with something better than just another "hey, me too!" store.
Five Dolla Moddy-Moddy?
All he seems to be able to do is copy other peoples' ideas, then act like he had the idea first.
Windows was copied from Apple Macintosh, but now nobody can use the name "Windows" except Microsoft.
Oracle and PostgreSQL are SQL servers, so Bill grabs the name "SQL Server" and acts like the market for databases is supposed to belong to him.
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
I thought the RIAA would make Microsoft look good.
There's no way that Microsoft's music store will anything like the cachet that the iTunes Music Store has. Microsoft, as a hip brand name, trails far behind Jenny Craig Mac & Cheese. But then again, if they make their songs playable on every non-iPod device out there, they'll pick up the lion's share of the market in no time. Good luck getting it all to work right, though.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
like I'm going to switch from iTunes to Microsoft service. But for now, I'll reserve judgement, until it gets axed.
"The store will also be in beta mode, lacking some of the features that will be added later"
No to be a picky bastard or anyhing, but projects without full features was called alpha state to me, last time I checked, while full featured, still in-test is beta.
THis has nothing to with profit. They have a monopoly, they can (and do) subsidize most of their business units with their monopoloy profits from office and windows. This has to with "cutting off the air supply" of apple. The idea is to destroy the competition not to make a profit.
Having said that the profit will come in later. If MS is able to leverage their current monopoly to gain a monopoly in online music distribution they will be just like the RIAA. They will be able to charge everytime anybody buys music. They have been able to leverage one monopoly to gain another one in the past so it's certainsly doable.
The only question remaining is what will the governments do about it. My guess is "not much"
evil is as evil does
THink about it. IN the long run which are you going to spend more money on, the player or the music. The music. do really want to save 30 bucks buying a rio or a whatever to play your MS locked in music. Or do you want the best you can get. freedom is overated I think.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
\ MS will say that they are at the top of their game, until they are (which in some cases is never). They have the money to make mistakes like no one else. They can have no features, barest functionality, poor implementation, and still create hype and users - all through the marvel of $$$.
The Apple iTunes store doesn't have anything to worry about for a long while, but MS will beat their dead horse until its a threat. Not a big threat. Nobody cool is going to use MS's service.
At the end of the day - that's what it's all about.
It'll be called Microsoft Music. ..and soon, nobody will be able to call anything "music".
With all the brainpower here, it's surprising that nobody's asked "why is Microsoft doing this?"
When iTMS came out, MS said explicitly that it wasn't going to get into the music download business. It's partners (or, I suppose, potential victims) already had large investments in online storefronts, and its other partners already sold WMA-enabled devices.
So why did MS decide to get into music?
I think the HP/Apple deal had something to do with it. One of MS' biggest customers went with another vendor (Apple). That must have galled MS. The PC side has device vendors and music stores, but there was no single-vendor solution. The WMA hardware vendors were probably complaining to Mama that MS wasn't helping them on the software side.
And when you look at it, how stable is are the WMA-based music stores? Real? Napster? Wal-Mart? Any of them could flake out at any moment, deciding that the business wasn't good enough. None of them are stable enough for a real long-term partnership.
By providing an MS music store, MS removes one barrier to WMA-based music stores: vendor instability. It supports the WMA-licensees. It opens up licensing opportunities.
Note there's no consumer benefit here, really.
The question is will MS be able to run this afterthought storefront?
iTMS is about the iPod, not Apple. People use iTMS because it's easy and nice to use, and it works with their pod. MS Music is about...hardware vendor support?
It'll be interesting to see how long MS Music lasts, and more interesting to see who the first few licensees will be.
Everything is replacable if you are willing to break open the case and put a third party battery in (voiding the warranty in the process).
However it isn't exactly the same a changing the AA batteries in your remote control is it?
Finkployd
The store will also be in beta mode, lacking some of the features that will be added later, sources said.
Seems to me that lately, Beta no longer means a testing phase. It now means "Hurry and saturate the market with an incomplete product so we can make money now and take business away from competitors!"
The company is helping to create a "Plays for sure" logo that will be used by device makers and online music services to assure consumers that purchases from participating companies will be compatible with each other, sources familiar with the plans say.
I think its fair to say then that, somewhat ironically, Apple won't be one of their partners. I'm fairly sure that Jobs won't want a "Plays for sure" logo on iPods, or iTMS. Which makes me wonder:
Given the huge popularity of iTMS and the iPod so far, will we see the beginning of another "Betamax vs VHS"-style technology battle? Will this be the move that forces Apple to license FairPlay in order to keep sales of iPods up? After all, if this is likely to be bundled in future versions of Windows, or even - perhaps - in future interim releases, then that's some 9x% of the planet with a music player that's tied to services that aren't apple, and using a music format that is not compatible with the iPod.
Or (somewhat unlikely), is this going to be the service that people finally realise what it means to be locked into vendor platforms? After all, all I saw on zdnet was a mention that it used Janus for DRM encoding - what was not mentioned was what limited rights was it permitting you to exercise? Surely if something like this hits the mainstream music-buying public there will be some kind of backlash.
The ways of gods are mysteriously indistinguishable from chance.
Yes. Every time I hear "four more years".
much like IE, it'll just get integrated into windows. you won't even need to be in media player, you'll just think of a song and it'll download a JANUS version of whatever song you wanted or didn't want. It will also not work with your ipod or let you transfer it to another computer. If you try, it'll just charge you.
then an xbox will show up in the mail, and you'll hear bill and steve screaming like little girls off in the distance.
http://www.rustyrazorblade.com
Many people are concentrating on the threat to iTunes. However another important aspect of this is MS once again screwing over its partners, in this case, companies that licensed technology from MS to run wma based online stores. iTunes has enough name cachet and differentiation (and the most popular player iPod) so it might survive the MS monopoly abusing onslaught, but other wma based online stores are going to get slaughtered. It will be a similar situation to Telstra broadband competitors in Australia. Teltra used to be the government owned monopoly for decades. Hence they own the vast majority of the legacy backbone. They compete with Telstra but also rely on buying their backbone from Telstra. This means tactics like recently how Telstra lowered the price of their cheapest broadband *below* the wholesale price they were selling it to their competitors. And we know that MS is just as bad or even worse in terms of sleazy monopoly abusing tactics than Telstra. Also there is evidence to suggest that Telstra does things like telling people broadband is available in their suburb, but only if they are inquiring about their products. If it is a competitor's, Telstra's report comes back negative. (The guy who published this then had his broadband from Telstra revoked because it was a "mistake"). So wma online stores will be competiting with the company that provides the "backbone" AND the software vital to their survival. Not a good position and we know what MS is like.
Also none of the wma online stores have the features that iTunes at least has to differentiate it from the MS store. They don't use different software. Their software and any prominance to any particular online store is supplied by their biggest direct competitor! What store do they think Windows media player will give prominance to. And they know perfectly well MS' business practice history esp. with regards to bundling e.g. Netscape. Any popular hardware player that plays theres will play MS's. Even the name of the format "Windows Media Audio" suggests that it is a MS product and lots of people have the idea that MS products work best with other MS products.
Basically they are screwed. Their biggest competitor controls their fundamental technology and the way their customers use it AND has a reputation for ruthlessly abusing their monopoly powers. They might as well just close up shop now and be done with it. Only MS and iTunes will survive. But this is what you get for trusting MS I suppose...I wouldn't be surprised if MS only co-operated with the other stores long enough to get the required intelligence on how to run an online store as they've done it before and I can't see MS ever having any ideas about wanting to share a market with any competitors. Sharing is not part of the MS vision.
He said, "I was surprised, too, but guess what? They actually found 8 other guys like me, too. People who have been in the music side of the music biz for at least 10 years. People running folk radio shows, and jazz magazine editors and such. Real MUSIC people. And they told us to make the online music store of our dreams."
It's people like that who get people like you to sign deals. This really reminds me of that write up on how the big labels use ex-members of indie bands to get new bands to sign contracts. "How bad could they be, they are just like us?".
Just imagine a day when MS has a 100% control over online music and they want to "renegotiate" their contract to "better suit" the "consumer". Any label that hands MS the rights to distribute their music is putting themselves in a position where the network effect will force them to have a lower position when doing business with MS.
Burn Hollywood Burn
It boggles my mind that you consider this equivalent to sticking a new pair of AAAs in a handy slot in on the back of a device.
Never confuse volume with power.
Disclaimer: I don't have an iPod and don't plan to get one, but I don't see what you are complaining about.
Most small electronic gadgets use proprietary batteries now, e.g. digital cameras, mobile phones. This is because Li-Ion batteries can be made very flat, small and light.
You can buy an iPod new battery online and install it yourself if you want. This is hardish to do because the device is tiny but not beyond the skill of most people. If you don't feel like opening your iPod, Apple can do it for you for a fee.
It would be nice if the iPod simply used AAAs, however this would make the device larger and reduce its autonomy. It's a compromise. If you don't like it there are other devices on the market that have equivalent functionality to the iPod and use more standard batteries, but surprise, they are larger and heavier, to the point you maybe wouldn't put them in your pocket and carry them with you all the time, which is the *point* of the iPod.