One area that several technology circles have criticized Microsoft in is that the technology titan has not been much of a pioneer in the past few years. Some may go even as far as saying that the company has never been, but that’s for another day.
Even if it arrives late to the party, Redmond has found momentous success in several fields, and right now is highly competitive in a number of markets including mobile and search engines.
But the technology titan is taking the fashionably late concept to a completely new level with its Xbox Music service — the company is finally moving the service beyond its own platforms with the recent launch of Android and iOS apps.
These new ventures, along with the web based free version, means that Microsoft is now knee deep in the lively on-demand music streaming market. How it fares remains to be seen, obviously.
But Microsoft’s offering is months and years behind other companies like Google and Amazon, both of which were behind pioneers in this field like Spotify and Deezer.
Then again, Xbox Music is not something that is entirely new — the initial service launched around a year back and it was actually built on the company’s discontinued Zune music service. However, now Microsoft is offering a complete package similar.
A complete package that is quite similar to Google Music’s All Access, Amazon’s Cloud Player, Pandora, and Spotify, in more ways than one. More importantly, it is already available in more markets than most of its competitors, and this is a good thing.
Still, music streaming is not exactly something that positively impacts the bottom line every quarter. Licensing the music comes with a high cost, but this is a necessary evil for Microsoft as it transitions into a devices and services company.
All Comments
Great to hear because I’m out of both Apple and Google’s ecosystem now. Google is too creepy these days, and Apple’s fiasco as of late with the eBook scandal. No doubt the same thing in other mediums if the Fed’s looked at all. So MS all the way, baby!
Well said. 😉 Worldwide availability is key here. Google may have 1 billion Android users, but it has not really translated to any notable success for its music subscription service. Let’s see how Microsoft fares in this market.
Having said that, the Xbox brand should definitely help!
This is another product/service that will continue to evolve. Other music services have some features that are missing from Xbox Music, but it will evolve.