Microsoft Opens MSN Music Store

pbranes writes "Microsoft has opened their online music store today with 1 million songs and it will be officially opened tomorrow when Windows Media Player 10 is released. Music costs $0.99 and $9.90 for albums ($0.09 less than iTunes). Also, music is at a higher quality - 160kbps VBR. You can browse the site with Mozilla, however, ActiveX is required for full functionality so IE is required to use the store. Also, Microsoft takes a hit at Apple for not licensing iPod functionality to third parties (kind of ironic when ActiveX is required to use the site).... If you are an iPod owner already and unhappy about this policy, you are welcome to send feedback to Apple requesting that they change their interoperability policy."

Comments

acitveX for moz

[linuxislandsucks]

there are activex plugins for Mozilla folks..

look in the moz project directory

Higher quality?

[Howzer]

Sure you're not falling for the old megahertz trap there?

Higher quality because, in independant double-blind tests, people could hear the difference? Or higher quality because this-here number is bigger'n that one?

C'mon people, this is /. not cnet. I thought after watching Intel & AMD play the numbers game for years we'd be wise to this stuff. Seems not. Seems all Microsoft has to do is publish a bigger number, and we're all ready to slap "higher quality" on it without even a cursory look at file sizes, compression standards, or those pesky things like some kind of semi-objective test.

But this one goes up to eleven....

Re:Monopoly?

[dago]

because what you can't do is leverage one monopoly to make another.

Apple didn't started with a monopoly to become #1 for music players and digital music stores, that's the difference.

(I'm not an apple fan)

Re:Monopoly?

[abb3w]

How can the monopolies commission come down like a ton of bricks on Microsoft for locking people into a technology, when the only way you can legally download music for the iPod is through iTunes?

Because iTunes is available for both Windows and Mac, which leaves only *nix zealots pissy. And, of course, if you legally purchase albums the old fashioned way (CD), you can put any songs you *do* manage to rip to MP3 from them onto an iPod as well.

(No, I'm not an Appleite. I use one at work; I dislike it about as much as I dislike the Windows PC and the Linux PC I use at home. If someone wants to give me a Solaris laptop, I'll be happy to add that to my equal-opportunity despite.)

cheaper higher quality music

[Moonlapse]

There's already cheaper higher quality music out there.....at emusic.com. Its 192kpbs VBR there and average at about .23 cents a song ( it's a subscription plan). IMO the selection there is better than you will find at any of the competitors.

Re:Feedback

[Socket Scientist]

I actually did send them feedback already. Taking great pains not to appear trollish, I asked them why they continually referred to Apple's DRMd files as proprietary, but never used that word to describe their own system. I also suggested that their campaign (and Real's) to "open the iPod" would resonate better with informed consumers if their own DRMd files were cross-platform compatible like Apple's. For those of us who run both platforms, Apple's is the only solution that works for all of our computers.

They can wave their arms and gripe all day about the iPod not supporting WMA, but the bottom line is that Apple's not doing anything to prevent Microsoft themselves from supporting DRMd WMA files in Windows Media Player for Mac. If their appeals for openness were genuine, as opposed to strictly self-serving, a good place to start would be to make their own DRM compatible with their own media player on OS X.