{"id":549457,"date":"2006-07-07T18:50:34","date_gmt":"2006-07-07T18:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/549457-microsoft-mum-on-ipod-rumours.html"},"modified":"2006-07-07T18:50:34","modified_gmt":"2006-07-07T18:50:34","slug":"microsoft-mum-on-ipod-rumours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/549457-microsoft-mum-on-ipod-rumours.html","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft mum on iPod rumours"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unofficial word that the Redmond, Washington, company was gearing up to market a hand-held digital music and movie player in time for the Christmas shopping season set the internet abuzz with talk of an "iPod killer". <\/font><\/p>\n

"The stories you are seeing are based on speculation and rumours and, as such, we didn’t participate," Microsoft said in a two-sentence release. "We don’t have anything to announce at this time." <\/font><\/p>\n

News reports cited unnamed entertainment industry executives that contended they were briefed this week on a Microsoft plan to go head-to-head with Apple’s market leading iPod player and iTunes online music store duo. <\/font><\/p>\n

The Microsoft device would do what the iPod can’t: allow users to wirelessly download music, according to executives quoted. <\/font><\/p>\n

Microsoft has negotiated with record companies and television studios for permission to sell their music and video offerings through an online store similar to iTunes, the news reports contended. <\/font><\/p>\n

"It makes perfect sense and it seems quite plausible," said Rob Helm, director of research at Directions on Microsoft, a Washington firm specializing in tracking the company. <\/font><\/p>\n

"The Achilles’ heel of Microsoft’s music strategy has always been how difficult it is to make Windows-based players work with Windows PCs. An obvious solution is for Microsoft to make its own player." <\/font><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Microsoft and Bouygues Telecom announced Thursday will collaborate to launch a new mobile music service in France in 2007. <\/font><\/p>\n

Windows Media software would be incorporated in a "next-generation music offering" to be launched in France in the first half of next year, according to the companies. <\/font><\/p>\n

Bouygues cellphones would be tailored for the service.<\/font> <\/p>\n

Discuss this article<\/font><\/a> <\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Software colossus Microsoft remained tight-lipped on Thursday regarding media reports that it intended to unleash its own version of Apple Computer’s popular iPod MP3 player. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549457"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}