“Microsoft is readying a digital music player to take on the iPod, according to a Reuters report. It also has plans for an online music service that will overtake Apple’s iTunes Music Store,” Tim Gaden reports for APC Magazine.

“Details are sketchy, but the report quotes ‘sources familiar with the plans’ who say that the music player has already been demonstrated to the music industry in licencing talks,” Gaden reports. “The project is headed by Robbie Back, who spearheaded the successful development of the Xbox video game business.”

“Microsoft’s music service offers ‘an improvement over iTunes,’ says one person who has seen a demonstration. It will offer a pay-per-download model like iTMS rather than the ‘all you can eat’ subscription model used by many current iTMS rivals,” Gaden reports. “It is not known when the player and music store will be launched. Perhaps Microsoft fears that any timing announcement would conflict with another Vista launch delay.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: The ubiquitous “Microsoft preps iPod+iTunes killer” article is like fruitcake as described by Johnny Carson. There’s only one in the entire world and people keep regifting it; annually at Christmastime for the fruitcake and seemingly weekly for the “iPod+iTunes killer” article. Isn’t it painfully obvious by now that, just like that damned fruitcake, nobody wants Microsoft’s grotesque versions of iPod+iTunes?

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