“Microsoft will launch its long-awaited internet music store on Thursday, seen as crucial to the software giant’s efforts to establish itself as a force in the nascent digital media market,” Scott Morrison and Richard Waters report for The Financial Times. “Microsoft’s store is modelled on Apple Computer’s popular iTunes music store, which has captured about 70 per cent of the legal music download market since its launch in April 2003.”
“Recent entrants into the online music market, such as Wal-Mart, the US retailer, and Sony, the Japanese electronics group, have failed to dent Apple’s music store business,’ Morrison and Waters report. “That could change once Microsoft makes its push. But while analysts agreed the software group’s music store was well designed and easy to use, they said Microsoft faced a key challenge: it had to ensure the store worked well with scores of third-party portable music players that will be on the market by the end of the year.”
“‘The hardware and the online media service has to work as well as the iPod does with iTunes,’ said Mike McGuire, analyst at Gartner.” Morrison and Richard Waters report, “Microsoft said it had worked with dozens of manufacturers to make sure their devices would synchronise with consumers’ personal computers. But sceptics doubt companies such as Rio and Creative Labs can compete with the iPod. ‘When the average consumer goes in to the store, he is not going to ask for the Rio Carbon,’ said Mr Leigh. ‘He’s going to want an iPod.'”
Full article here.