The large retailer Best Buy has teamed up with RealNetworks and SanDisk to unveil an online music store and portable player aiming to compete with Apple's iTunes & iPod and Microsoft's upcoming Zune. Like Apple's strategy, the players and music store will be tightly integrated together.
This upcoming music service will be known as the Best Buy Digital Music Store and will be powered by RealNetworks' own music store and subscription service Rhapsody. However, even though Best Buy will be competing with the iPod, they will continue to sell the iPod series along with Microsoft's upcoming Zune, however its sales force will be taught how to recommend the best service to suit its customer's needs.
Best Buy's main interest is to grab a portion of the growing digital music market, particularly since while Apple has over 3/4 of the digital music market, only a small percentage of the population has actually used an online music download shop, meaning that they will aim to grab consumers who have never used a digital music download service before. RealNetworks, which has partnered with the portable player device maker SanDisk aims to grab what it can from Apple and Microsoft and is still aiming trying to find more partners among portable player manufacturers. The Best Buy Digital Music Store and SanDisk's upcoming E200R player will launch on October 15th.
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The announcement highlights the formation of three major camps within the emerging online digital music business. All three are focused on tight integration of player with digital music store, a strategy developed by Apple that has given the company a strong early lead. Apple's iPod, which is closely tied to the company's iTunes store, currently accounts for more than three quarters of the market for portable music players, analysts say. RealNetworks, which has developed its own digital music platform, is aggressively seeking partners among player manufacturers. The company also has its own music store and subscription service called Rhapsody, which will power the Best Buy Digital Music Store. SanDisk will provide a tightly integrated device called the Sansa E200R. The online store and player are scheduled to launch Oct. 15. |
While the source article makes it appear like one will need the SanDisk player in order to take music bought at Best Buy's digital music store with them, according to the Best Buy website, they sell various players compatible with their digital music store including models from Creative Labs, Insignia and Samsung. Assuming the store uses the same codec and DRM technology as Rhapsody, it should work with all 'PlaysForSure" WMA DRM compatible equipment. However, it is unclear if tracks can be purchased individually and whether these could be transferred to an iPod like Rhapsody's music service.
Source: InformationWeek
