MP3 stores download new tune
Microsoft enters the digital music field
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The Plays for Sure program, which tied together a number of music stores and portable players with compatible software, was Microsoft's answer to the iTunes/iPod combo.
It has, by and large, been a flop. That's why Microsoft is launching its own music service and player, Zune, this fall.
While the tech giant isn't (yet) abandoning its Plays for Sure partners, many are taking aggressive steps to survive in the face of a new, deep pocketed competitor and a very uncertain future with their software sugar daddy.
Napster, the formerly illegal peer-to-peer service that launched as a legit music store three years ago, has lost tens of millions of dollars and actually lost subscribers in the most recent quarter.
While it recently launched an innovative Web site that streams songs for free, supported by ads, it's far from profitable and recently hired investment bank UBS to find it a strategic partner or acquirer.
Mega-portal Yahoo has a very healthy online radio and musicvideo service, but its music store hasn't gained much traction.
That's why the company is pressuring diskeries to admit that copy-protection software hasn't made a dent in piracy and let it sell songs in the MP3 format, without any antipiracy restrictions that prevent illegal filesharing.
Yahoo recently started selling its first album as an MP3 -- Jesse McCartney's "Right Where You Want Me" -- and it's pushing other labels to embrace the format that works on Apple's iPod, Microsoft's Zune and every other digital music player on the market.
RealNetworks' Rhapsody may be in the strongest position, since it has a healthy 1.5 million-plus music subscribers, twice Napster's count.
But that position is threatened by Zune as well, which is why Real can be glad it's debuting its own series of music players from partner Sandisk.
Company started work on the project more than a year ago, partially in anticipation that Microsoft would launch its own service and player and end up abandoning its partners.
"Microsoft has said a lot of different things (about the future of Plays for Sure)," says Real's senior VP of music and video, Dan Sheeran. "We're not going to hold our breath while that's going on."
