Haven’t we seen this movie before? Companies drool over the success of Apple’s iTunes. Companies announce iTunes alternatives. Alternatives gather dust, eventually vanishing from the consumer consciousness. Now come PlayBook tablet maker Research in Motion and Microsoft both hoping to launch new services that rewrite the way most of these tech stories end.
For its part, RIM wants to include the UK-based 7digital music store on its as-yet-to-be-released PlayBook tablet, while the software giant reportedly plans a music and video service codenamed “Ventura” to replace its beleaguered Zune.
RIM reportedly will unveil the new PlayBook and 7digital service later this week at the South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Tex. The service offers some 13 million 320kps digital tracks. Although RIM bypassed such a tie-up with its BlackBerry, the company now calls the digital music sales service “a perfect complement to the high-performance BlackBerry PlayBook.”
As for Microsoft, the company is developing its “Ventura” service within the firm’s Entertainment and Devices division. Although publicly mum on “Ventura,” Microsoft is reportedly “committed to providing a great music and video experience.”
Before anyone sees hope in these two reports, remember, Apple has its thumb on 66 percent of the digital music sales and a near equal amount of control is expected for the tablet market. Earlier today, a JP Morgan analyst predicted the iPad 2, to be released Friday, could cut tablet rivals off at the knees. A breath-taking 50 percent of rival tablets may never reach consumer hands.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
15 responses to “Microsoft, RIM Planning iTunes Rivals: Are They Dreaming?”
Never hurts to have competing services, but if they have thoughts of beating Apple….well good luck.
I agree more competiton is always a good thing.
I’ve said it many times before, if there’s one company that can give Apple great competition in delivering a quality end-to-end “ecosystem as a platform” type of solution, it’s Microsoft. No doubt they’re getting their butt kicked in the “post-pc” device space but they are far from out.
Windows 8, I believe, will be their last ditch effort to keep them in the game so we’ll have to wait & see how well they execute on that.
Yes, having competition is great, but I cannot picture Microsoft’s music store become good rival of iTunes… MS has been always stingy on licensing policy. Zune was horrible portable music player (does not even play DRM free AAC format, ACC is not Apple’s proprietary format, by the way)
Heh? How many music/video stores does Microsoft already have? Zune, Zune Pass, XBox, half a dozen media center plugins, probably even more than that.
How will adding yet one more be a good thing, again?
What surprises me is the fact none of the big players have approached Amazon and tried to cut a deal with its online media services. If Microcrap was to integrate digital downloads from Amazon directly into their media ecosystem I would think they could give iTunes some real competition. As it is I’m not holding my breath, unless Microcrap comes out with a never seen before innovative media delivery ecosystem Microcrap will end up banging their hard heads against the iTunes wall….again. Nowadays the words Microsoft and innovation don’t mesh together very well in the consumers mind.
As for RIM the fact rumors have been floating around that they may be allowing Android apps on their QNX platform it could feasibly be a step in the right direction. If the rumors prove true the Playbook would be launched with an already established Google app store. Only time will tell I guess, the old adage may ring true as far as RIM is concerned, if you can’t beat them then join them. Poor RIM a decade ago who would have thought they would be playing catch up to the rest of the industry. Pretty sad statement considering at one time they were the top dog in the mobile arena.
Microsoft is replacing the Zune store? Maybe they should call it “PlaysForSure”.
Actual competition would greatly benefit those of us who love our iTunes. All these companies have some extraordinary people working for them. It’s not for a lack of good ideas. Success has boiled down to the corporate environment responsible for cultivating compelling products and marketing them appropriately.
I really want to believe in RIM and Microsoft but the leopard has to change its spots first! The required cosmetic surgery would be painful and neither have shown any signs of actually wanting to go through it… they’re still all talk. Not that they’re not successful doing what they do… they are… at the moment. But where will they be 5 or 10 years from now? One only has to look at Nokia to see how a slow decline in creative competition can quickly turn life changing. I wish them both luck but until then…. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Chance of failure 100%. Microsoft’s core business is milking corporate customers for license fees. Its ’90-ties business model is just not fit for the fast moving consumers market. Microsoft is too slow, too awkward and too arrogant. We will see this movie again by the introduction of the Microsoft tablet.