Microsoft is throwing its hat into the post-Napster online music ring, targeting the same audience rival RealNetworks seeks with its ambitious MusicNet service. .
The software company is unveiling a new MSN Music site, the first time it has directly offered music as a part of its online content portfolio.
As technology goes, the new service is far from groundbreaking -visitors can listen to thousands of online radio stations much like those at AOL Time Warner's Spinner.com and other Webcasters' sites.
The service adds a recommendation engine using technology bought from start-up MongoMusic last year, allowing listeners to select stations that sound like artists they like, or which fit a particular mood.
Microsoft, with a sweeping consumer reach and a strong copy-protection technology of its own, now becomes a serious contender in the match.
"It's too early to tell how big this gorilla is going to be in this marketplace," said analyst Steve Vonder Haar. "But this is more than Microsoft dipping its toes in the water. This is the company up to its ankles, or maybe even its knees."
Striking the right chord
Microsoft adds its name to the list of would-be music titans as uncertainty runs high in the chaotic online music world.
Technology companies have complained for months that online music businesses simply weren't viable unless the major record labels began licensing their catalogues for Internet distribution.
The first major announcement in that regard came Monday, as AOL Time Warner, EMI Music Group and BMG Music to give distribution rights to a new RealNetworks-backed entity dubbed MusicNet.
The announcement of that service, which will go well beyond any label-authorised project yet seen, sent ripples of concern - and hope -throughout the industry. Label representatives argued in front of the US Congress on Tuesday that the deal proved that market forces were working. Napster CEO Hank Barry disagreed, saying that Congress still needed to step in to prevent the labels from abusing their market power.
The new MSN Music service is modeled largely after services launched in the late 1990s, with a little of last year's recommendation services thrown in. Like Spinner or NetRadio, it offers music stations by genre, subdivided into such categories such as "Space-Age Pop/Exotica" or "Lounge Vibe."
Like those other Webcasting services, it is legally barred from offering songs on demand. Thus, listeners can search by artists, but can play only stations that are populated by songs resembling that artist.
Microsoft does plan to expand the service to a subscription model, with downloads of music available, however. Those plans will depend on negotiations with the music labels.
Microsoft has another advantage: It also produces Windows Media audio technology and its associated copy-protection technology, which many of the labels have already licensed for their own download services. This will likely help assure the recording industry that Microsoft can create as secure a download offering as anybody in the business.
"Microsoft's vision has been that the PC is the digital centre of the home, but that the PC extends to these other devices," Visse said. "This (service) is an extension of that."
