MusicMatch today launched its own online music store. MusicMatch offers “200,000 songs” priced at 99-cents each, a similar amount to Apple’s iTunes Music Store catalog at the time of Apple’s launch. MusicMatch is currently available to the U.S. The company promises to make 500,000 tracks available by the end of the year, according to Macworld UK.
Downloads are available as 160Kbs Windows Media 9 files. Reportedly, Dell will use a re-branded version of the MusicMatch online music store along with the Dell Digital Jukebox (DJ) music player in an attempt to approximate Apple’s integrated iTMS/iPod approach.
“MusicMatch CEO Dennis Mudd calls his 99-cents-a-song service a ‘breakthrough,’ because he acquired liberal usage rules similar to those in Apple’s acclaimed iTunes Music Store: Buyers can burn songs and transfer them to portable devices as often as they want. Apple’s service, introduced in April, has sold more than 10 million tracks to date. But it’s available only to Macintosh users
Apple has earned thei status as leader: whenever a competitor appears, Apple gets mentioned. Right in the headline. That’s a good position to be in!
I’m glad broad rights (at least, better than BuyMusic) have been established on Windows–that seems like the second biggest hurdle to the future of music (Steve Jobs already took care of the biggest). Now, hopefully Apple’s Windows store will appear soon and be a success.
But all I REALLY care about is that iTunes Music Store remain on Mac, for me to use. Apple doesn’t need the revenue of iTunes on Windows–a success there would be great PR, but not vital.
Nagromme: I care about long term viabilty, innovation and software for my Mac. In order for this to continue, Apple needs hold ground and gain market share or otherwise risk being completely marginalised by development houses. Whether we like to fool ourselves collectively or not, over the last decade it’s only been going one way.
When Apple innovates significantly, as it has done with the iPod and iTMS, it needs these moments in history to help influence and alter marketshare. Opportunities like this only appear once a decade. Therefore, to watch this advantage erode before our eyes whilst vultures circle above, is important for our own platform. Apple are not in danger yet by no means, but that 4 billion in the bank will count for nothing if no-one ends up developing software for the platform when actually does go below 2% marketshare.
I care that Apple won’t get a real chance to show Windows drones that the grass is actually greener on the other side. iTMS on Windows was and is the ticket. But it needed 6 months of exclusive time. I can imagine most of today’s kids won’t give a toss in 18 months what Apple did to create the ability to walk the streets with 10000 songs in their pocket. They’ll end up thinking it was Dell that gave them the opportunity.
F�@k Dell. F!@k MS. They’re only interested in stealing ideas and passing it as their own. This is a black day for Apple. Unless they bring out Windows iTMS within the next 2-3 weeks with a chic TVC campaign that make Volkwagen Ads look like stale bread, a genuine opportunity has been lost.
So I do care Apple makes an impact in the Windows world because unfortunately it needs to. We live in a Darwinistic environment where only the strong survive. You can be sure that MS and Dell want Apple, Sony, Sun and HP dead. Innovation costs money and with no competition inventing, they have no risk of extinction whilst they hold critical monopolies. Talk to people behind Beta or Amiga users and they’ll tell you that the being the best don’t always equal survival.
IMHO, Apple should have insisted on exclusive DRM arrangement from the Big 5 for say a limited period of time. That is easy to say, though, in hindsight. What happens now is the companies realize that they can make money from music downloads and agreed on the terms just as in Apple’s contract. That is not a fair from Apple’s PoV. Using another cliche, a pioneer should be able to profit from its efforts and not get arrows on its back.