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Microsoft to Launch Online Music Store

Posted by samzenpus on from the everyone-else-has-got-one dept.

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."

21 of 416 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting... by StevenHenderson · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No mention of the DRM restrictions on the songs...

    1. Re:Interesting... by SilentChris · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe because MS doesn't want to be the one who makes the decision on that. A while back Wired had an article about a "future" home MS created that was demonstrated in 2 versions: one that recognized who you were when you walked through your door, started playing music you liked and pumped it to rooms of the house as you walked around. The other version was DRM-encrusted and limited. MS didn't say which version it condones: it just wanted to show visions of the future.

  2. It could be the Windows domination all over agian by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If Microsoft could get enough MP3-player vendors to sign up for compatiblity, it can once again screw Apple out of the market.

  3. But it doesn't sync with my iPod by JasonUCF · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And I own the most popular portable music player, so um, how do they expect to entice me to switch? Like Real did with their half priced songs? ****a please.

    I haven't even up(down)graded to WMP 9 yet, it's so sticky with DRM issues.

  4. Security AND music all for $150. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "The big business goal here is Microsoft wants to promote the Windows format to sell more PCs and to get people to upgrade," Directions of Microsoft analyst Matt Rosoff said.

    Thankfully, iTunes doesn't make me pay for a $150 OS upgrade. In fact, all I need to buy is the damn best portable MP3 player, the iPod. And in fact I don't even have to buy an iPod... I can just burn my purchased music to CD... no other purchases required.

    Then again, maybe an upgrade will help in terms of computer security... and maybe I should pay the $150 to address the security bugs in older versions of Windows...

  5. I was thinking that they....... by Blacklantern · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ..first need a device to be an "IPod killer" until I RTA
    A second leg of that campaign is bearing fruit this year, as a wave of Windows-based entertainment hardware comes to market. Some of these will be portable devices, dubbed Portable Media Centers, running a slimmed-down version of Windows that includes Microsoft's new Janus copy-protection tools. This technology is expected to give a boost to subscription services by allowing the music to be put on portable devices for the first time.
    emphasis mine

    Why on earth would you need a Windows GUI on a device the with the same comparible size and power of an Ipod?

    I wonder if in the future they'll bundle Media player 10 and the MS music store with Longhorn.

    --


    "There is only a one in six billion chance that you actually exist"
    1. Re:I was thinking that they....... by MustardMan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've seen windows CE (later called Pocket PC, later called Windows Mobile) described as a "slimmed down version of windows" on many occasions. Could it be possible that their attempt at an ipod killer will be a "lookie maw it's a music player that also does all this cool PDA stuff too" type of device. As somewhat of a PDA nerd, I can tell you that lots of PDA people have been jonesing for a PDA with a massive built-in hard drive, ala ipod. My ipaq 2210 plays MP3s and even some movie files quite well, and if flash storage wasn't so damn expensive, I would most certainly use it as an ipod replacement, and it's not even designed for it. Make a PDA with controls specifically intended for media playback, a slick looking form factor, and a massive hard drive, and I bet you could take a significant chunk out of the ipod sales.

  6. Screw MS by nurb432 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Cant they leave anything alone, do they have to absorb EVERTHING, then reduce its quality.

    I know i know, yes they have to ruin the world.. but i can still be annoyed at it..

    grr. note to self: need to take action.. stop evil empire..

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  7. Partner Driven by erick99 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I do like the idea of a Windows Media Player based music store that is driven primarily by Microsoft partners. That leaves a lot of room for innovation and maybe the competition won't hurt anyone either. I don't really view this as Apple versus Microsoft, but, rather as a pie that is plenty big enough to be cut up more than a few times.

    Cheers,

    Erick

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
  8. Re:timing? by dasmegabyte · · Score: 5, Interesting

    IE was given away free and was (still is) a very bare bones browser. Netscape could have survived by one-upping IE on a feature by feature level and selling a low cost, high value Netscape Gold package that enabled surfers to do something interesting.

    Instead, they failed to compete even with the meager feature set offered by IE, pumped their money into one of a million useless portals, and they fell apart.

    Is this Microsoft's fault, for exploiting their monopoly to crush Netscape? Maybe. But the prevalence of IE hasn't crushed Opera. It hasn't killed off the much smaller OmniWeb either. In fact, Netscape's sorta-funded Mozilla arm is doing fantastic against IE, almost everybody who tries Firefox sticks with it.

    Moral of the story: if you're gonna survive competetion from Microsoft, you'd better get on your fucking toes. Make sure you're always one step ahead (not hard, Microsoft maneuvers with the speed and grace of a Cadillac Brougham) and don't ride your success.

    I don't think we have anything to worry about from Apple in these respects. Unfortunately, the key to doing more than simply surviving Microsoft is keen marketing in the face of price cutting and a good-enough mentality. Microsoft is, after all, the Walmart of software companies when it comes to price cutting. If they can shave $.11 off the cost and sell at a loss for two years, they have a chance of burying Apple and everybody else.

    --
    Hey freaks: now you're ju
  9. Re:Microsoft has to own everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Microsoft is not the richest.
    Get your facts right.
    IBM, Dell, GE, Walmart etc. there are about 120 other companies which have more money than Microsoft.

  10. iTunes will win out by The_Terminalator · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Something to keep in mind:

    1. The Law of Leadership: It is better to be first in the market than better. Charles Lindbergh was the first person to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo, who was the second? Bert Hinkler. He was a better pilot, he flew faster, consumed less fuel but no one remembers him. The leading brand in any category is almost always the first brand into the prospects mind. Hertz in rent-a-cars, IBM in computers, Coca-Cola in cola.

    2. The Law of the Category: If you can't be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in. Who was the third person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean? If you didn't know the second, you figure you don't know the third, right? But you do, its Amelia Earhart. Now, is Earhart the third person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean or the first woman to do so?

    3. The Law of the Mind: Its better to be first in the mind than to be first in the market. Is something wrong with the law of leadership? No, but the law of the mind modifies it. Its better to be first in the prospects mind than first in the marketplace. Which if anything, understates the importance of first in the mind. Being first in the marketplace is important only to the extent that it allows you to get into the mind first.

    from:

    The 22 Immutable laws of Marketing

    Violate them at your own risk!

    By: Al Ries and Jack Trout
  11. Re:I Think Not by hipster_doofus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't care if they have the best software design in the world for their music store: if they don't have better hardware than the iPod, it isn't going to matter.

    I totally agree with you on your point (IE absolutely stomped Netscape's butt back in the day - now look at what a pile it has become compared to recent Netscape/Mozilla versions), but that was a simple software-on-software comparison. This is a little more complex because it involves cash transactions and hardware - not just a software technology competition.

    --
    Five Dolla Moddy-Moddy? ;->
  12. More low quality? by internewt · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Probably.

    I think its terrible that this will be another lower-than-CD-quality-for-more-$$$-than-a-CD online shop. Distribution costs? Negligable compared to distribution of 5" circles of plastic. Profit? Yes please

    They (*AA et al.) bitch about P2P killing their business. Since joining a closed p2p network, I have bought more CDs in the last 6 months than I have in about the last 5 years. http://www.ubernet.org/ Music ripped with Exact audio copy and encoded with LAME using the --alt-preset's. Also some OGG and FLAC.

    --
    Car analogies break down.
  13. allofmp3.com by IamLarryboy · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Apple and Microsoft are second rate services.

    After using allofmp3.com I would never use anything else.

    Pay per MB.

    No DRM

    Very large (but admitidly incomplete) collection.

    Songs encoded as you order them. Choose from MP3, OGG, AAC, FLAC, and more.

    I spent more in 2 hours at the site than I have in my entire life previously. When you are paying $.001 a megabyte that is saying something.

  14. Re:RIAA:Microsoft::plump:fat by iceT · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I beg to differ. Everyone ELSE that MS has 'teamed up with' has gotten stomped. If I was the RIAA, I'd watch my back...

    It'll be like a battle-royale between EULAs.

    --
    -- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
  15. Believe it or not they're doing it right! by linuxbaby · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You know my company, CD Baby, is one of the companies supplying a huge chunk of music to iTunes, Rhapsody, Emusic, Napster, etc.

    A few months ago I was at a music conference when I got into a deep discussion with this guy about our love of West African music. He's been doing an African music radio show for 20 years, and has met Fela Kuti, and been in this band doing Afropop, too.

    So after half an hour of talking about this, I said, "I'm sorry I don't know your name." - and I flipped around his badge. He was one of the heads of Microsoft MSN Music! I cringed a bit and said, "Oh. Uh. Microsoft? Whoa." I'm generally a MSFT-basher. But I said, "Well --- it's nice to know they have someone like you inside the big beast."

    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."

    They're going to be selling the entire CD Baby Digital Distribution catalog - and in fact they pursued us pretty strongly. Even on the tech-side of things, they're really doing everything right. (Yeah yeah of course they insist on DRM. You expected Ogg Vorbis?)

    But anyway I just felt you have to give credit where credit is due, and I can tell my fellow Slashdot nerds in advance that I think the MSN Music Store is really doing it right.

    1. Re:Believe it or not they're doing it right! by yagu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      yeah, I've had similar experiences really meeting the "nice guys" from within MS. One time I even had a 20 minute discussion w/MS' CFO (John Connors) about the exorbitant prices for their development tools (Visual Studio, among others). He nodded his head in agreement, at the end of the conversation said, "You really have a good point about this -- I'm going to have my people look into this..." Later that day before he left the conference, he got up to announce his departure and said, "Some of you asked me about why we charge so much for our products, and you know, MS is in the business of making money, too!". Watch out for the good guys at MS. There are some, but the culture/atmosphere is such that the place virtually reeks with hubris. (I worked there, I experienced it.)

      I have virtually no belief MS is in the music industry for the benefit of the customers, but instead is angling to try and insert themselves into the marketplace and if they can, get their piece of the pie. Even better, if they can do it without getting themselves in court, they'd be happy to "Netscape" Apple and iTunes.

  16. Re:Tin foil alert level at Orange. by fermion · · Score: 2, Interesting
    iTunes probably will be bundled, and may even be the default, on HP computers. A lot of people, like entire school districts, buy these machines.

    People will have to pay to use the MS service. The better analogy will be MSN, which, dispite great market advantage due to the desktop monopoly and advertising, only has a small part of the market. I mean even the free part, the search engine, does not have a majority of page hits, even though it is the default on IE.

    The market is becoming more fragmented. People with iPods will continue to use iTunes and it will take something significant to get them to switch. Everyone else will switch music providers as is needed as there seems to be no brand loyalty other than Apple. Subscription services are the exception.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  17. Re:Tin foil alert level at Orange. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Sorry about my memory being a long as it is, the marketteers don't like me for that .

    didn't the economy go thru a period where every business tried to expanded to fill every market niche, d-ver-siv-e-ca-tion, that's the word. And didn't that burst like the ".com" bubble? back-to-core-business model, con-trac-sion.

    Go get'm Billy, show us how it is done again.

  18. Next wave of security holes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    What scares me is that MS is opening another hole to the local PC and you can bet that security is not strong enough. You can bet that a new type of virus will be created that creeps through this MS Music Store/WMP10 and the communication chat feature. These folks can't secure a browser and now the the world will be off to trust/open themselves to more attacks.

    I can respect a company that takes an existing idea and improves it. MS is a company that takes an idea and cheapens it. I hope MS Music Store is successful and then the 95% of brainless users start crying about how their machine was attacked, deleted, invaded, blah blah blah!