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MusicMatch Copies Apple; Dell Horns In On The Action |
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 Yet another new music service has joined the fray. According to USA Today, MusicMatch today launched their new "a la carte" music download service. The songs cost 99¢ each, and albums start out at $9.99. It's like the iTunes Music Store in other ways as well, in that the music you buy can be used on up to three computers, and transferred to as many "audio devices" you want - with the caveat that it can play Windows Media files, because, as you probably guessed, all the songs you download are in Microsoft's proprietary Windows Media format. The service will initially offer some 200,000 tracks from all five major record labels and more than 30 independents.
So it doesn't sound like it sucks quite as bad as previous tries at this type of thing, and heck, at least you can use the same software to download the music as you do to listen to it: MusicMatch Jukebox. If that sounds familiar, it's probably because MusicMatch Jukebox is what's used on the Windows side to hook up to iPods (albeit probably a slightly different build, but I don't know as I'd prefer not to delve into Windows to install it - for I may never resurface).
What's funny though, is that the aforementioned US Today article states that MusicMatch's head honcho, Dennis Mudd, "calls his 99-cents-a-song service a 'breakthrough,' [sic] because he acquired liberal usage rules similar to those in Apple's acclaimed iTunes Music Store: Buyers can burn songs and transfer them to portable devices as often as they want." Er!? What's that? Tell me again, just how can doing what someone else already did be defined as a breakthrough?
Well, extremely liberal usage of definitions notwithstanding, it turns out that everyone's favorite copycat company, Dell, is involved in this too! Last week they announced an MP3/WMA player and outlined their strategy to use the MusicMatch service. Exactly how Dell is going to make money on the service isn't clear, as MusicMatch seems to be holding all the cards. Perhaps Dell will help finance the marketing and install MusicMatch on all their computers - maybe even throw in some free downloads if you (* shudder *) buy a Dell.
Another funny news byte is that Dell's new music player <cough> - iPod ripoff - </cough> isn't even made by them, but it's actually a re-branded device from Creative. Plus, MacObserver points out a San Jose Mercury News where Apple made this statment regarding Dell's new device: "'It appears that Dell is re-branding one of the second-tier music services that will be announced soon, just like they are re-branding Creative's MP3 player. There is little original here." And Hewlett Packard's VP of sales and marketing, Chris Morgan, also fired a shot by saying, "There's a big difference between putting your name on something and actually innovating...More and more of what consumers want solved won't be solved by a single product". Morgan also went on to point out that "HP spends $4 billion a year cooking up new technologies and ideas, to Dell's $500 million".
So there you have it; Apple pisses off MusicMatch by snubbing it's software in favor of making it's own (iTunes for Windows), so MusicMatch retaliates by copying the iTMS and putting out a not-quite-totally-sucky Windows version, and Dell smells someone copying Apple so they just have to get in on it.
I usually have something witty to say at this point - to sort of wrap things up and leave everyone with a smile, but it's a Monday and I seem to be totally tapped out. Please form your own clever ending!
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September 29 2003, 5:14 PM EDT, by
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Comments:
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| ZackMac |
9/29/03, 8:13 PM EDT |
I really wish Apple had released iTMS for Windows long before now. Long before BuyMusic.com soured the industry, and long before MusicMatch has a chance to snag a huge piece of the pie before Apple.
Why is Apple late to the Window's music party? As much of an innovator that they are, something as universal as music should be available to everyone. All computer users, not just American Mac users.
Why would they create an innovative service and then only delay and stagnate so that someone else can copy the idea and make money off it instead of them. What is the logic in that?
How is that good business sense?
-ZackMac
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| Jonahan |
9/30/03, 9:28 AM EDT |
I TOTALLY agree with you - but I don't think that Apple has meant to stagnate or be late to market with iTMS for Windows. It's a pretty big move into the world of making Windows software, especially if you want to do a good job with it.
But I dunno, hell, maybe they are dragging their feet. Let's just hope it comes out soon and that it's at least half as good as the Mac version. If it is, people will use it! :)
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| bambi |
9/30/03, 12:20 PM EDT |
I still don't understand how they can get away with it.
Maybe I'm missing something here.
:(
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| rlhamon |
9/30/03, 4:25 PM EDT |
i feel dirty after visting music match's music store. i need a shower
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| Carsten Schmidt |
9/30/03, 11:00 PM EDT |
btw, I don't know if people have recognized it but the iTunes store has also added a ton of albums from indipendent labels now. I realized it when I saw an album by the Thievery Corporation who have their own indy label. And since then I have seen a lot of other indy labels. I wonder how many songs the iTunes store has by now.
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| rlhamon |
10/2/03, 8:40 PM EDT |
After i read alot of reviews of MM online store two thinga was killing it. One it wasn't compadiable with the number one MP3 music player ipod and second that the quality was poor due to the songs being in WMA format instead of MP3 or even AAC. Because of this many editors feel that music match will go by the wast side just like buy music. Also what many of the editors written about is that kazaa file sharing my be coming to an end before december or that the file sharing my start it's own music store ( ala napster).
So fellow people let's not panic about itunes for the windows platform apple knows as long as ipod is still the number 1 mp3 player (and the sells are still rising as well as ipod lead in the mp3 market) people will wait until itunes will be released for the pc.
besides itunes music store already have a larger follwing without being on the pc yet
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| Matt |
10/19/03, 3:00 PM EDT |
I'm sorry but Apple didn't invent the music store....
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