PlaysForSure

One of the first things Microsoft did when launching the new Zune was kill the 2-year-old MSN Music download service.

The business reasons were plain: MSN Music was a PlaysForSure service, but the Zune wasn't PlaysForSure-compatible, and it came with its own music download service, integrated into the Zune software.

Sure, there's still something with the brand name MSN Music, but it's basically a shell--a few music videos, some promotional tie-ins with Zune (through a program called Ignition), and a radio station powered by Pandora.

So what might that mean for Yahoo Music, if Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Yahoo … Read more

Microsoft has reached a turning point in its music strategy: admitting it has a problem.

When it first announced its Zune plans last year, the company denied that it would mark an end to its PlaysForSure program, an effort that aimed to unite various compatible devices and services using Microsoft's Windows Media technology.

Others, though, saw the writing clearly on the wall.

Microsoft was in a precarious place, though. It had lined up MTV Networks as a partner for its Urge service, which was to be part of Windows Vista. That service had not even formally launched yet, so … Read more

PlaysForSure was a Microsoft logo program, launched in 2004, that identified devices (portable and networked) that were compatible with online music and video stores.

Essentially, the logo identified a store as using the latest version of Microsoft's Windows Media DRM scheme and ensured that a device could play content with that same DRM scheme. While the program was an improvement over the previous situation of no system at all, it wasn't as simple as Microsoft implied. For instance, there was one logo for subscription content, another for per-download content, and cross-compatibility wasn't guaranteed.

When Microsoft announced Zune … Read more

Yesterday, Nokia announced a new initiative, Comes With Music, that will offer "free" music to purchasers of certain cellphones. It's the first outgrowth of Nokia's Ovi brand, which the company announced earlier this year. It also seems to be the first implementation of Universal's Total Music plan, in which device makers bundle a music subscription on new devices and add the cost to the price of the device, rather than forcing consumers to pay the monthly fee.

As with all such services, the devil's in the details. According to Ars Technica, there's an … Read more

Among last week's digital music news was the item that seminal hard rock band AC/DC has taken a tentative step on the information highway (as opposed to that other highway). AC/DC's deal with Verizon was notable because the band chose to bypass industry leader iTunes, and because the band is selling only complete albums (for $12 apiece--higher than the current price of their CDs on Amazon!) rather than individual singles. Another oddity: most of AC/DC's catalog will be not be downloadable over-the-air to Verizon phones; instead, users will have to download the albums to … Read more

When Microsoft released its Zune player-store-software combination, it effectively drove a stake into the heart of PlaysForSure, the company's logo program that identifies Windows Media-based online stores and the players that work with those stores. Sure, Microsoft still claims that it's equally committed to both initiatives, but PlaysForSure partners have a right to be concerned that their technology partner is competing directly against them.

Samsung was one of Microsoft's most steadfast digital media partners: it released one of the earliest Portable Media Centers (portable audio-video devices based on Windows Mobile software, which beat the video iPod to … Read more