MSN Stops Selling Music

Two years after launch, MSN Music will cease selling song and album downloads, and Microsoft will instead guide users to Microsoft’s upcoming Zune Marketplace and RealNetworks’ Rhapsody service instead. The change reflects the company’s new digital media strategy, in which a relatively closed system-the Zune device, PC software, and Marketplace-is taking precedence over the Windows Media platform and its wide range of devices and stores.

Redundant with Zune

MSN Music was launched in fall 2004 as part of a broad effort to build support for Microsoft’s Windows Media technology in the face of Apple’s dominant iPod device and iTunes software and online store. Although many other companies had already built online stores on the Windows Media platform, Microsoft reasoned that it needed its own store to guarantee that there would be a large library of downloadable music in the Windows Media format.

This broad effort failed to check Apple’s dominance, however, and Microsoft has changed its digital media strategy in response. Instead of relying on partners to offer a wide range of Windows Media devices and stores, Microsoft is mimicking Apple’s approach and building its own Zune portable music player and associated PC software and online store. (For more details on this strategic shift, see “Windows Media Player 11 Released“.)