Microsoft Challenges Apple's iTunes Store, But It Isn't There Yet
In the battle to dominate the emerging business of online music sales, the 800-pound gorilla finally is taking the field. Today, Microsoft rolls out its MSN Music store, directly challenging its nemesis, Apple Computer, which so far has ruled that business.
I've been testing Microsoft's new store in advance of today's launch and comparing it with Apple's much-praised iTunes music store. While the Microsoft entry has a few nice touches, it is typical of many brand-new Microsoft products -- fairly basic and bland, but marred by some rookie mistakes and accompanied by promises to get much better over time.
Microsoft's offering is actually comprised of two products. One is the MSN Music service itself. The second is a music jukebox program, Windows Media Player 10, in which the store is housed. The software handles such tasks as organizing your music library; burning songs onto CDs; and synchronizing your music with portable music players.
One big advantage Microsoft has out of the box is that the songs it sells can be played on dozens of portable players. Songs bought at the iTunes store, by contrast, can be played only on Apple's own iPod player. Of course, the iPod happens to be the best and most popular player on the market, but Microsoft's approach does offer more choice in players.
This initial version of the MSN store is dubbed a "preview" release, with version 1.0 due Oct. 12.
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Walt Mossberg says that the elephant in the room for MSN Music Store is the iPod's overwhelming popularity.
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In my tests, the MSN Music store fired up quickly and presented a relatively clean, simple front page. There's a search box, a drop-down list of genres, groupings of popular downloads, and lists of featured albums and tracks.
As in iTunes, you can listen to a 30-second preview of any song, and buy a song by clicking on a "Buy" button. Songs you purchase are downloaded and added to the music library maintained by Windows Media Player. Signing up for an account was quick and simple.
Searching worked well. As on iTunes, you can just type in a term and search without first specifying whether you are looking for a track, artist, album or genre. And Microsoft does something Apple doesn't: On the search results page, it gives you a concise summary, at the top, of which albums and artists it found.
The best feature of MSN Music is that you can access the store without first downloading or switching to the Windows Media Player software. That's because, unlike iTunes, Microsoft's new store is available in a Web version, accessible from a standard Web browser. The Web version isn't as slick as the jukebox software, but it's a quick and easy way to shop for music. MSN Music also has a few community features Apple's store lacks. You can see how others rated songs and read user-submitted album reviews, for instance.
But, in many other respects, this first edition of MSN Music falls short of matching iTunes. For instance, so far, it has only about half as many songs -- about 500,000 to Apple's one million. Microsoft promises to catch up as soon as possible, but for now that's a disadvantage.
The Microsoft store also lacks a host of features iTunes has, like audio books, gift certificates, spending limits for kids and a sophisticated browsing mechanism. Some of these are promised for later updates.
Unlike Apple, Microsoft runs ads on its search pages -- mostly irrelevant ones. When I searched for the Eagles, I got ads for Philadelphia Eagles football tickets.
Microsoft's purchasing and downloading process is cumbersome and obtuse. Confusingly, when you click the "Buy" button, it changes to read "Purchased," but that doesn't mean you have the song. And you can't see the progress of your download without switching to another screen.
Whereas all songs at Apple's store are a flat 99 cents, several thousand of Microsoft's songs will cost more -- some nearly $4 each. Microsoft explains that these are mainly longer tracks or prerelease pop tunes whose prices are set higher by the labels.
The new Windows Media Player jukebox software is improved in many ways over its predecessors. For instance, you can now import CDs into the popular MP3 format without buying add-on software. And synchronization with portable players is much easier.
In my tests, synchronization worked well, as long as I was just trying to move over plain MP3 files. However, Windows Media Player choked when I tried to synchronize some songs I had purchased in Microsoft's own format from the Musicmatch, Wal-Mart and Napster online stores, saying it was "unable to obtain license." In fact, Windows Media Player, unlike iTunes, is full of reminders and options about music "licenses." It even offers to "back up" your licenses, whatever that means.
And even though the software is technically neutral and is able to house the music stores of Microsoft's competitors, the only major music store Microsoft supplies with an upgrade to the new version of the software is the MSN store. If you want to use Napster or MusicMatch from within the new Media Player, you'll need to download additional software.
Overall, MSN Music is no match for iTunes -- yet. But if you don't have an iPod and want or need to buy music in Microsoft's format, it may be a good choice over time.
微软挑战网络音乐霸主
在争夺新兴的网上音乐销售业务的战争中，业界“巨无霸”终于按捺不住出手了。现在，微软公司(Microsoft)推出了MSN音乐商店，直接向对手苹果电脑(Apple Computer)发起挑战。迄今为止，苹果电脑一直是这项业务的霸主。
在微软发布新产品之前，我一直在测试这款产品，并与苹果电脑享有盛誉的iTunes音乐商店进行比较。微软的这款产品有些不错的新增功能，这是微软推出的新品牌的共同特点。尽管功能相当齐全，但它犯有一些低级错误，因此微软也承诺会进一步改善产品性能。
微软发布的新产品实际上包括两种。一款是MSN Music服务，另一款是名为Windows Media Player 10的音乐播放程序，该程序中包含了音乐商店服务。这款软件可以处理多种工作，包括整理你的音乐收藏、将歌曲刻录到CD上、将音乐下载到随身听上等。
微软这款产品的一大优点是：它所销售的歌曲能在几十种便携式音乐播放器上播出；而通过iTunes音乐商店购买的歌曲则只能用于苹果电脑自己的iPod上播放。当然，iPod恰好是市面上最好、也最流行的音乐播放器，但不管怎样，微软这款产品还是在播放器方面提供了更多选择。
MSN音乐商店的最初版本被称为“试用版”，1.0版本预计在10月12日推出。
在我的测试过程中，MSN音乐商店启动很快，主页面相对简洁、乾净，里面的内容包括搜索栏、歌曲种类的下拉式列表、热门音乐分类下载、特色专辑和曲目的列表等。
和使用iTunes一样，你可以先试听任何一首歌曲的30秒试听版，然后点击“购买”按钮买下这首歌。你所购买的歌曲将被下载和添加到Windows Media Player管理的音乐收藏馆中。申请这种帐户便捷而简单。
搜索功能很不错。和使用iTunes一样，你只需要键入一个词语，而无须首先指定你要搜索的是曲名、演唱者、专辑名还是歌曲种类。此外，微软这款产品还有苹果电脑的产品不具备的功能：在搜索结果的页面上，它会在页面顶部给你一个简洁的概述，说明它找到了哪些专辑和演唱者。
MSN Music最好的功能是：你无需首先下载或者切换到Windows Media Player软件，就能登陆其音乐商店。这是因为微软的新音乐商店与iTunes不同，在Web页面上也能使用，用标准的网页浏览器就能登陆。用网页模式并不像使用播放软件那样好用，但用这种方法购买音乐迅速、简便。MSN Music还具备一些苹果电脑的产品缺乏的交流功能。比如说，你可以看到别人是怎样评价那些歌曲的，以及阅读用户提交的专辑评论等。
但是，在其他许多方面，这个MSN Music的试用版本比不上竞争对手iTunes。比如说，迄今为止，它只收集了大约50万首歌曲，仅达到iTunes的一百万首歌曲的半数。微软公司承诺说将尽快赶超，但到目前为止，这是微软这款产品的劣势。
微软这款产品也缺乏一些iTunes具备的功能，例如音频书籍、音乐礼物的授权、儿童购买的限制以及一个成熟的浏览机制等。而其中有些功能，微软已经承诺以后会增加。
与苹果电脑的产品不同，微软在搜索页面上做广告。大部份都是不相干的广告。当我在搜索老鹰乐队(the Eagles)的时候，我看到了有关费城Eagles橄榄球队球票的广告。
用微软新产品进行歌曲购买和下载的过程麻烦、笨拙。当你点击“购买”按钮的时候，页面切换到“购买完成”，但这并不意味著你已经拥有了这首歌，非常令人费解。而且，如果你不切换到另外一个窗口，你根本看不到下载的进展情况。
苹果电脑的音乐商店每首歌都是99美分，但微软的几千首歌却更昂贵 -- 每首歌将近4美元。微软解释说，这些歌曲大部份都是较长的曲目，或者是未发行的流行音乐，根据规定价格要定得更高。
新的Windows Media Player播放软件在许多方面比以前的产品有所改进。比如说，你现在可以在无需购买附加软件的情况下，将CD上的内容转换成流行的MP3格式。另外，上传到便携式音乐播放器上也更加容易了。
在我进行的测试中，如果仅上传纯粹的MP3文件，兼容性非常好。但当我试图将我在Musicmatch、Wal-Mart和Napster音乐商店上购买的微软格式的一些歌曲综合到一处时，Windows Media Player就出现了故障，对话框显示“无法获得授权”。事实上，与iTunes不同，Windows Media Player满是关于音乐授权的提示和选项。它甚至提示要“备份”你的授权，天知道是什么意思。
尽管微软的这款软件从技术上来说是中立的，能够与微软竞争对手的音乐商店兼容，但是，由微软提供了软件新版本升级服务的唯一一家主要音乐商店就是MSN音乐商店。如果你想要用新版Media Player播放从Napster或MusicMatch上购买的歌曲，你还需要下载其他的软件。
总体来看，MSN Music至少目前还无法和iTunes媲美。但如果你没有iPod，并且需要或者想要购买微软格式的音乐，那么也许MSN Music算得上是一个很好的选择。
