Microsoft Challenges
Apple's iTunes Store,
But It Isn't There Yet

By Walter S. Mossberg

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.

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.