TOPIC: BestBuy, RealNetworks and SanDisk Come Together to Sell Music Online
With Apple dominating the rest of the field with its iTunes Music Store (88% marketshare) and its iPod music players (between 75% - 80% marketshare), everyone else is left to fight over the table scraps.
Microsoft has already announced its Zune Marketplace music store which will be tightly integrated with its Zune music player. Today we hear that Best Buy is teaming up with RealNetworks and SanDisk to launch the Best Buy Digital Music Store.
The digital music player that Best Buy will be promoting with its new store is the SanDisk Sansa e200R Rhapsody. The music store will be based around the current Rhapsody 4.0 service and will incorporate Rhapsody DNA. Songs will be downloadable for 99 cents apiece and a music subscription plan will be available for $14.99 per month.
Other SanDisk Sansa players are available at good prices -- including the E250 2GB MP3 Player, the E260 4GB MP3 Player, the Sansa E270 6GB MP3 Player and the SANDISK Sansa e280 8GB MP3 Player [also shown below].
Best Buy is a giant in its own right in the retail sector and it offloads its fair share of music players to the buying public. It remains to be seen whether its clout in selling players will translate into booming business in selling music.

Source: DailyTech

TOPIC: Microsoft Unveils the Zune
Rex Crum from MarketWatch.com reports, "Microsoft Corp. [has] unveiled Zune, a 30-gigabyte music and video player that marks the software giant's entry into a digital-media player market dominated by Apple Computer Inc. with its 80Gb iPod.
Microsoft said Zune will come with a three-inch screen, which is larger than the iPod's two-inch video screen, as well as built-in wireless and FM-radio tuning technology -- features that also aren't available on the iPod.

Additionally, Microsoft launched what it calls the Zune Marketplace, an online music site where customers can purchase individual songs or buy a subscription that allows the purchase of unlimited songs for a flat fee.

Microsoft said the Zune would be available in time for the holiday shopping season, but didn't immediately disclose prices for the product, or for songs bought through the Zune Marketplace. Katy Gentes, a Microsoft spokeswoman, said the Zune price would be "very competitive."

The company touted the features of Zune and Zune Marketplace, saying consumers will be able to use Zune's wireless capabilities to share sample tracks of certain songs, music playlists and pictures between Zune devices.

Microsoft's debut of Zune comes two days after Apple revamped its line of iPod media players to include an 80-gigabyte device that can play movies in addition to songs, TV shows and videos and digital pictures. Apple also showed off a new 8GB flash memory version of its iPod Nano device and a 1Gb iPod Shuffle that is about the size of a matchbook.

Microsoft is seen as having its work cut out for it in the media-player market. Apple has a five-year headstart with the iPod, and the latest figures from NPD Group say the iPod has 75% of the U.S. market for digital media players."

Check out ZuneTalk.com for up to date information and discussions on Zune and Zune Marketplace.

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