PlaysForSure officially dead
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 in mid-2006, a lot of onlookers (including me) suggested it spelled doom for the company's PlaysForSure partners--the Zune team made no guarantee that the devices would be able to play PlaysForSure content, and material from the Zune Marketplace definitely does not play on PlaysForSure devices. Most of the company's former partners found alternatives--Samsung building its own music store, MTV teaming up with longtime Microsoft rival RealNetworks--even as Microsoft publicly insisted that the initiative was not dead, just pining for the fjords.
Today, one of my colleagues pointed out that Microsoft's no longer maintaining the facade: PlaysForSure has officially been rolled into another logo program, Certified for Windows Vista. The old compatibility guidelines and tests for device partners are still in place, but the brand will quietly disappear into the annals of market failures.
Matt Rosoff is an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, where he covers Microsoft's consumer products and corporate news. He's written about the technology industry since 1995, and reviewed the first Rio MP3 player for CNET.com in 1998. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network. Disclosure.
I'm a happy subscription music user. It's a great option if you like to explore lots of new music (if you don't, it's not). However, Microsoft hasn't been successful promoting it, and this is another bad move. Although I've spent hundreds of dollars happily renting music for years, I've never purchased DRMed music and never will.
Forking PlaysforSure into incompatible Zune was a bad and disturbing move, but it didn't affect me directly. Changing it to "Certified for Windows Vista" is so idiotic--it's hard to see it surviving much longer. I guess I should start looking for alternatives.
Microsoft's Reality-Distortion Field apparently allows them to convince themselves that Vista will soon be ubiquitous. And, they should prepare for and encourage this by giving Vista more visibility; Vista-branding all the Zunes and music they expect to sell, even forcing music partners to use Vista branding ('till they're extinguished by Zune). Its crazy; and Microsoft don't appear to be coming up for air anytime soon.