Microsoft released their “lame excuse for a music store”:http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7BD5657B75-0B35-461F-9526-AEFAC1924F61%7D yesterday, dubbed the “MSN Music Store”:http://music.msn.com/.
bq. “ITunes has done a great job of helping to elevate the [digital music] market,” said Christine Andrews, lead product manager of MSN. “We’re different because Apple is a closed system. If you want Apple, you have to use the iPod. A lot of people want choice and we offer that.”
That quote there is a classic. Apple is closed and some how MSN isn’t? I attempted to buy a song using my Mac and Firefox as the browser. Sorry, you can’t do that. You must “use Windows and Internet Explorer”:http://music.msn.com/help/requirements.aspx. We’ll call this exhibit closed door number 1.
Even if I could download music from MSN on my computing platform of choice I still wouldn’t be able to play the music on my MP3 player of choice, an iPod. So, some how this is an open system music store that doesn’t support the leading MP3 player on the market? Exhibit closed door number 2.
All the music from the MSN Music Store comes in Windows Media format. WMA is a closed, proprietary format developed by Microsoft. Hmm. Exhibit closed door number 3.
I’m not saying that the iTunes Music Store is this big open ocean, it’s as closed as MSN is. What am I saying is that Microsoft is a liar. MSN lied when they stated they’re an “open” system. They are not.
Now, go download your tunes from “iTMS”:http://www.apple.com/itunes/ into your iPod or even just a simple CD and be happy.
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The reason you can’t listen to music from other music services on your iPod is because 1) Apple disables the built-in WMA support on the firmware they get from PortalPlayer (the company that actually makes the iPod for them), and 2) they refuse to license Fairplay DRM to anyone else, so even if another service wanted to support iPod, they can’t.
Instead, WMA is available to anyone who wants to license it, and supported by 500 devices. Whether you want to call it open or not, as a consumer you have more choice with WMA.
Rob — You and I both know that WMA is not open; sure, you guys let people license it but it’s not open by any stretch. The MSN music store is not open. Why can’t I use my Firefox browser on XP? Or Mac? Or Linux?
Yes, Apple disables it and they do not hide that fact nor do they hide the fact that you can’t license Fairplay DRM. Why should they let you or anyone else? They have a great thing going; just announced over $100 million dollars in revenue this last quarter.
I do not attempt to say that Apple is open, they’re closed just like MSN is closed.
“WMA is available to anyone who wants to license it.” Classic Microsoft babble. 500 players? Haha; 99% of them are total crap. I make a choice NOT to use them.
BTW – PortalPlayer makes only the firmware not the iPod itself cause if they did it’d be a WMA device like all their other ones. But you already knew that
Pot meet kettle.