IP Democracy: Amazon A-Pod on the Horizon?

The Wall Street Journal broke the story yesterday that Amazon is working on an online music service to rival Apple’s unshakeable iTunes, a subscription option that is seemingly embraced by the record industry. The New York Times today has this piece by Saul Hansell that discusses Amazon’s proposed subscription model and delves deeper into the purported plans that Amazon has for developing a portable music player in conjunction with an electronics maker.

The Mercury News has this piece on the A-Pod in which analyst Richard Doherty speculates that Amazon might join forces with Microsoft, which has its own plans to mount an online music service.

Microsoft is a likely candidate to join hands with Amazon, given its recently ramped-up efforts to partner with service providers in the mobile device and music arena. Andy Reinhardt of Business Week has this analysis of Microsoft’s push to gain space for its software on new mini-platforms, and it sure sounds like the Redmond giant might be willing to work with Amazon despite its own efforts to become an online music provider.

A curious evolution has happened along the way, though. Sure, Microsoft (MSFT ) is still urging handset makers to adopt mini-Windows — known today, after innumerable rebrandings, as Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 — as the core operating system for their phones. But now it’s chasing an even juicier prize: central position in a whole spectrum of mobile applications, from portable music, to wireless e-mail and messaging, to mobile TV.

The real question is: with so many online music vendors, and given Apple’s superb grip of the market, is it worth it to spend gobs of capital on yet another music venture? Many of the reports on this rumor speculate that the record companies are ginning up the prospect of an Amazon music service to put pressure on Apple to relent on its $1.99/download stance.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on February 17, 2006 12:42 PM to IP Democracy