Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Q&A: Choosing a Digital Music Service for Windows Users
Q&A: Choosing a Digital Music Service for Windows Users: "What I think is great about most of the new services available on Windows is that being built on Windows Media enables such amazing choice. For example, consumers can download music from a wide variety of music services, bring it into their media library in Windows Media Player, create playlists, and burn CDs with music aggregated from many different services. You can even transfer any or all of the music to a wide variety of portable devices. That is what Windows users love -- being able to shop around and pick and choose the products and services that work best for them."
This is straight from Microsoft's own web site. I hadn't realized that ANY of the online music services was built on Windows Media (WMA) or that doing so gave users any more choice than, say, downloading an MP3.
The least Uncle Fester could do is try to keep things factual, but this "article" is clearly marketing hype. Or are they trying to convince themselves?
"The combination of high quality compression with digital rights management technology is making efficient and secure delivery of music possible. Under the hood, the leading music services today for Windows build their music services on the state-of-the-art media platform, Windows Media 9 Series."
And I was even more unaware that any of the services were built on Windows Media 9. Hey! Doesn't that mean that users have less choices? Oops! Never mind. We're not supposed to mention that as a possibility. As for DRM, I challenge Microsoft to show me ONE typical online music service user who LIKES DRM and WANTS it in place in all his software.
"PressPass: We've heard that Apple will be launching a Windows-based version of iTunes. Do you see that as impacting Napster or other Windows-based services?
Fester: iTunes captured some early media interest with their store on the Mac, but I think the Windows platform will be a significant challenge for them."
Hmm. iTunes sold a million tracks by the end of day two of operation on the Windows platform. If that's a "significant challenge", then Microsofthad better find a few significant chalenges of its own!
"Additionally, users of iTunes are limited to music from Apple's Music Store"
And what has this to do with the price of taffy in Tasmania? Go ask users of Rhapsody (one of his vaunted Windows music services) what choice THEY have in online music stores! Well, this is just one instance I use because I have personal experience of it. The answer being NONE. The truth is that iTunes allows users a much greater freedom than Rhapsody ever will, but Uncle Fester probably doesn't want to hear that.
The rest of the article is more of the same, but what else can we expect from Microsoft's own site?
This is straight from Microsoft's own web site. I hadn't realized that ANY of the online music services was built on Windows Media (WMA) or that doing so gave users any more choice than, say, downloading an MP3.
The least Uncle Fester could do is try to keep things factual, but this "article" is clearly marketing hype. Or are they trying to convince themselves?
"The combination of high quality compression with digital rights management technology is making efficient and secure delivery of music possible. Under the hood, the leading music services today for Windows build their music services on the state-of-the-art media platform, Windows Media 9 Series."
And I was even more unaware that any of the services were built on Windows Media 9. Hey! Doesn't that mean that users have less choices? Oops! Never mind. We're not supposed to mention that as a possibility. As for DRM, I challenge Microsoft to show me ONE typical online music service user who LIKES DRM and WANTS it in place in all his software.
"PressPass: We've heard that Apple will be launching a Windows-based version of iTunes. Do you see that as impacting Napster or other Windows-based services?
Fester: iTunes captured some early media interest with their store on the Mac, but I think the Windows platform will be a significant challenge for them."
Hmm. iTunes sold a million tracks by the end of day two of operation on the Windows platform. If that's a "significant challenge", then Microsofthad better find a few significant chalenges of its own!
"Additionally, users of iTunes are limited to music from Apple's Music Store"
And what has this to do with the price of taffy in Tasmania? Go ask users of Rhapsody (one of his vaunted Windows music services) what choice THEY have in online music stores! Well, this is just one instance I use because I have personal experience of it. The answer being NONE. The truth is that iTunes allows users a much greater freedom than Rhapsody ever will, but Uncle Fester probably doesn't want to hear that.
The rest of the article is more of the same, but what else can we expect from Microsoft's own site?
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