June 16th, 2006
More Confirmation on Microsoft’s iPod Rival
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Early this month I wrote about Microsoft working with 8 Japanese companies, including Toshiba Corp., Victor Co. of Japan, and NTT DoCoMo Inc., on a iTunes / iPod “killer”. Today Reuters has a story on this, although there’s no mention of the Japanese companies. Possibly this is a different effort, though it’s likely the same.
Robbie Bach, a rising star at Microsoft who headed development of the Xbox video game business, is overseeing the project, one source said.
The Redmond, Washington-based company has held licensing discussions with the music industry and is already demonstrating the entertainment device, the sources told Reuters. One source, who has seen a demonstration of the service, said it was an improvement over iTunes. Source: Reuters
We Say: One of the good things in the earlier story was the common port between the devices, so they could share accessories. On the other hand, if Microsoft itself produces the devices that likely would not be an issue, either. Interesting that a source indicates the demo’ed service improves on iTunes (though of course there’s no detail).
jfb3 says:
My bet is the “source” is a record company executive and the improvement is that Microsoft won’t hold the price to 99 cents but will let the record companies charge whatever they want.
And I bet that given a chance the record companies would charge prices for music using some of the same algorithms that the airlines use for seats.
June 19th, 2006 at 1:38 am
troy says:
The problem iPod rivals face isn’t that they don’t make good devices. The problem is Jay Z, Pdiddy, and Garth Brooks have them. Their an iCon. Also, they done one thing very well, let you buy or rip music into them easily. They’re also easy to use. I believe in this arena, microsoft has an image problem to deal with and anything with the MS stamp on, however good, is going to seem boring and square. just my .02.
June 19th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Microsoft’s iPod Killer? Fantasy or Reality? | Etixet says:
[…] Of course, later in the week, Microsoft denied any such rumors. What do I think? Well, readers may know I wrote two stories for RealTechNews, here and here, before any of this week’s stories came out. I think this is real, and that they will have it by Christmas (or at least, that’s what they are shooting for) to make the big holiday rush. Time will tell. […]
January 7th, 2008 at 5:25 am