Microsoft copied iTunes features in building its music store

September 17, 2004

While pretty much every music store that started up tried competing with iTunes using various methods such as different restrictions, audio formats, sampling, unlimited temporary downloads and so on, Microsoft has decided to try a different method of competing with iTunes. Rather than reinvent the wheel, Microsoft decided to copy as many features of iTunes as it possibly could. The features in common between Microsoft's music store and Apple's iTunes are 99c track pricing, $ 10 albums, transfer capability up to 5 PCs, recording a playlist up to 7 times to CD, 30-second free preview of any track, auto-synching from PC to portable music player and matching Genre menu based browsing.

There are a few major differences however. For example, Microsoft's store uses its proprietary WMA codec unlike iTunes which uses FairPlay encapsulated AAC, supports around 75 compatible players unlike iPod with iPod-only support and has only half the music library of iTunes. Another small difference is iTunes applies the same restriction on every track in its library, where as Microsoft's service does not allow individual track downloading from certain albums.

Microsoft is considering adding extra features to its service not present in iTunes, for example their service offers free radio-stations that are free of ads, speakers and other talk.

On Sept. 2, Microsoft unveiled its iTunes Music Store. That sentence may sound a little strange, but that is, in fact, what happened. The Microsoft music store (in beta at music.msn.com) couldn't look more like Apple's iTunes music store (itunes.com) if you ran it through a copying machine."Apple set the bar very high," a Microsoft manger admitted. "We're trying to match that. We told our developers, 'Look at how Apple does it.'"

The music is priced the same (99 cents a song, $ 10 an album) and comes with the same rights '“ the user can copy to 5 computers, burn up to seven copies of the same playlist onto CD's, and download to unlimited pocket players. You get the same 30-second previews for free, you use the same Genre pop-up menu for browsing, and you use the same sort of jukebox software to manage your music collection (Windows Media Player 10, which serves the function of Apple's iTunes program). And you get the same one-way auto-synching feature to a pocket music player.

The biggest difference is that these songs come in Microsoft's own copy-protected sound format, so they don't work with the Apple iPod. (Microsoft's format also plays only on Windows, whereas Apple's works on both PC's and Macs.) Microsoft's songs sync with 75 other players, but not the iPod.

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This reminds me of when Microsoft first built Windows on
much of the style and functionality of the Macintosh. It will be interesting to see how well Microsoft's service does by copying Apple's style or even if they get into any trouble again for this. Then again, Microsoft's service does lack two other features that iTunes supports '“ No Macintosh support and no iPod support. No surprises here since Microsoft is trying to promote the use of its Windows Media codec and compatible equipment.

Source: The New York Times (Subscription)