• by August 30, 2004

Microsoft this week joins Apple, and a slew of other companies, in the online music game. The software giant has been planning to launch an online music store for some time now. On Thursday, its store will open for business on the MSN Internet network. The music store is part of a bigger launch of Microsoft's latest generation of Windows Media Player.

Apple's iTunes music store has been in business for more than a year now. Apple is viewed as the leader in the digital music arena with nearly 70 percent of the market, according to Forrester Research. And there are plenty of other service providers in the online music arena including RealNetworks, Napster, and Sony.

The question is: Can any of these providers make money? Is there any point of differentiation between them-price, quality, depth, and diversity of content? Their business models need to be about more than just one--off, a la carte downloads. Getting consumers to buy content subscription packages or "all-you-can-eat" plans require training people to be in that kind of habit when it comes to online content. What are people willing to pay for? How quick and easy is the download process? Can I even get what I want on MusicMatch or should I head to Napster?

It's not just online music downloads that companies want to deliver-it's movies and other content. The opportunity for movie delivery is going to open the flood gates for all sorts of content, and that is going to make things really interesting.

One of Microsoft's biggest selling points that it's perpetuating, is that its online music service has the ability to download tracks to any portable device, something that it says Apple can't do. But what Microsoft isn't touting, is that iTunes files can be ripped to a CD and transferred into MP3 format, which takes about a minute per album, in order to play them on other devices.

Though Microsoft's range and technology hasn't been released in regards to what files it will support, it will probably be a larger number than iTunes' singular. Let's see if Microsoft's store can deliver the goods.