Mission Creek

from the seattletimes.nwsource.com

Some additional insight into Microsoft’s Ipod killer. As an interesting note, I heve heard a great deal of speculation that MS may provide a means to automatically transfer songs purchased on Itunes into their players format, at their cost. I have heard rumors ranging from just 20 songs to all songs a user may have purchased on Itunes. Though there is some question as to how they could do this, if they would simply have to scan the hard drive, or if the user would have to provide their Itunes login.

icrosoft is indeed developing a digital-media player to compete with Apple’s iPod, and there’s much more to the story.

A few details trickled out last week from music companies that Microsoft is lining up to support the device. Microsoft isn’t commenting, but I was able to piece together a broader picture with some research, reporting and information from a source close to the project. What’s being developed is actually a complete line of Xbox-branded digital-media products, including a device that plays media, a software media player and an online media service.

The project, or at least part of it, is referred to internally at Microsoft by the code name Argo — a reference to the huge warship used by the hero Jason in Greek mythology.

Argo is being developed within the Xbox group under the leadership of Xbox co-founder J Allard. His team includes people who previously worked on MSN Music, an online music service that had a promising debut in 2004 but fell victim to Microsoft’s dithering over its music strategy…

full story here