While putting together their online music and video sales system, MTV have decided to sidestep Apple, who are undoubtedly the market leaders in online music downloads, at least the ones that are paid for, choosing instead to go for Microsoft. MTV’s new URGE service is planned for roll-out next year, and with it’s powerful and established brand in the world of Music and Video, the partnership with Microsoft looks set to make a legitimate assault on Apples huge 70% market share. MTV chose Bill and the boys because of the capabilities of the Media Player – presumably the built-in DRM (Digital Rights Management) made it an attractive prospect, although unfortunately, DRM does not work on the current version of Windows Media Player for the Mac, nor does the iPod play Media Player media files – ho hum. MTV aim to offer both subscription services and single sales and with access to over 2 million songs, videos and music television shows, that’s quite a lot of product to launch on the market. Obviously, Microsoft are coming at this from a few rungs down the ladder - not that this has stopped them in the past from meeting and surpassing previous competitors – anyone remember Netscape? Presumably, alongside the features that the WM Player offers of course, there’s been one heck of a carrot dangled to make MTV take this bold move.

• www.mtv.com

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