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Microsoft`s digital music player

Microsoft Corporation is preparing to compete with the Apple`s iPod and iTunes and to roll out a portable digital music player later this year. The player will play digital music and video files, as well as carry wireless technology. This way the users will be able to download music without linking to a computer.

Until now, Apple Computer Inc. has dominated the market with the line of iPods partly because of their seamless integration with the iTunes Music Store. IPods account for around 80 percent of the portable music players market, while iTunes has sold more than a billion tracks since it launched three years ago.

Phil Leigh, an analyst with Inside Digital Media says that "the combination of the independent manufacturers trying to use the Microsoft technology to integrate with independent vendors such as Napster, Yahoo Music and Rhapsody ... has resulted in an experience for the consumer that simply does not measure up to the experience of the iPod and iTunes." As it seems to be now, the video files on the internet are becoming more and more popular, and Apple is leading in this area as well. This is something Microsoft cannot allow to happen.