Unofficial Vista Blog Tour, Day 6: What exactly is Microsoft’s mobile music strategy? at mTrends - mobile media lifestyle trends

Unofficial Vista Blog Tour, Day 6: What exactly is Microsoft’s mobile music strategy?

Published by Rudy De Waele December 2nd, 2006 in Announcements, Friends Tags: Announcements, blethers, Blog Tour, derek torres, Friends, ipod, media player, microsoft, mobile music, msn music, mtv, playforsure, strategy, stuart mudie, Unofficial Vista, urge, zune.

Derek Torres and Stuart Mudie are co-authors of The Unofficial Guide to Windows Vista, a book that takes an in-depth look at the highs and the lows of the latest version of the Microsoft operating system and is due to be published by Wiley in February. I’ve known Stuart online for a long time now, and we finally met back in February of this year when I helped him organize the Mobile Sunday gathering of mobile bloggers prior to the 3GSM World Congress. When Stuart asked me if he could visit m-trends as part of the “virtual blog tour” he and Derek are organizing to promote their book, I agreed on the condition that he would write about something of relevance to the readers of this blog. I thought that would be enough to put him off, but he’s done it! Well, nearly…

If you’re trying to get your head around Microsoft’s mobile music strategy, you could be forgiven for being a little confused.

Do they want you to use Windows Media Player 11 and sync your music library to one of their authorized PlaysForSure portable music players? Or do they now want you to buy a Zune and use the specific software that comes with the device?

And where do they expect you to purchase your digital music? From URGE, the digital music store owned by MTV Networks that was launched in close cooperation with Microsoft as recently as May of this year? Or should the Zune Marketplace now be your one-stop-shop for all your digital music needs? (One thing’s for sure, it’s not MSN Music.)

Om Malik has a good prediction about what the result of providing so many alternatives will be: “What happens to consumers when faced with the choice of Zune or Urge!!! Answer - iPod!“

* While researching this post, I discovered that there’s even talk of the Zune adding phone functionality at some unspecified time in the future. How would that work? Would Microsoft force you to change your carrier every six months? Or - even worse - would you be obliged to sign up with the Microsoft MVNO?