Microsoft & Sony in Cahoots!

[Gabriel013]

Taken from MSN News::

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Microsoft looking at possible Sony deal

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft may try to strike a deal with Japan's Sony in an effort to compete with Apple in the digital music arena, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told the newspaper in an interview published on Thursday that the two companies could benefit from a broad partnership in digital entertainment, both having "a lot of incentive to work together" in digital-music "infrastructure," including online-music services and protection against improper music copying.

Since rolling out the iPod, which has sold nearly 6 million units and was a top Christmas gift this past holiday season, Apple has garnered 87 percent of the market for portable digital music players, market research firm NPD Group has reported.

Microsoft contends that Apple's iTunes online music store sells songs in a format that can be played only on iPods and not other portable music players based on Microsoft's software, so consumers need a choice, Gates told the Journal.

Even so, Gates said he had "nothing specific to say about a particular discussion" with Sony about pairing up, while Sony declined to comment on the possibility of a tie-up with Microsoft in the digital-entertainment business.

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Could this be the start of a not-so-beautiful friendship?

[svosen]

I would be quite surprised to see something like that happen...


I read an article in the paper the other day that claimed a few web companies (Napster, for one) will sell memberships to unlimited downloads of mp3s. The catch will be that the mp3s will somehow only be available on certain portable mp3 players. Not sure how they'll assure nobody burns them to CDs.

Anyhow, I guess there are only a couple of models of digital players that will actually support the format planned for this service (with more to come, likely).

Their schtick was that subscribers would have access to 700,000 songs, as many as they want, as often as they want, for a yearly fee. Compare that to the ipod, which holds 10,000 songs; it would cost $10,000 to fill it up with songs from the iPod store.

Makes sense, I suppose.

Personally, I think the $1/song price is reasonable. That way you can download the music you like, and avoid having to pay for the crappy songs which fill the bulk of most albums.

edit: But then, I'm not that much of an audiophile, so it's not like I need vast quantities of music all day every day.