Wednesday, March 1, 2006
Napster Points Finger at Microsoft for Business Failings
Posted by Jason Dunn in "NEWS" @ 01:53 PM
"Technical glitches by Microsoft and the digital music device makers have hampered Napster Inc.'s ability to close the gap with Apple's iTunes, the dominant online music service, Napster's chief executive said on Tuesday. "There is no question that their execution has been less than brilliant over the last 12 months," Napster Chairman and Chief Executive Chris Gorog said at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in New York. "Our business does rely on Microsoft's digital rights management software and our business model also relies on Microsoft's ecosystem of device manufacturers," he added."
It's hard to know where the truth lies in all this - certainly, Napster is dependant on the hardware manufacturers making a killer device, one that works with their service. The Napster/Samsung device was an utter failure (did anyone buy one of those?). My experience with Napster though was mostly negative, and it was all because of their WMP-integrated client. What I don't know, however, is whether the integrated Napster client sucked so bad because of WMP10 limitations, or because Napster executed poorly.
It's hard to know where the truth lies in all this - certainly, Napster is dependant on the hardware manufacturers making a killer device, one that works with their service. The Napster/Samsung device was an utter failure (did anyone buy one of those?). My experience with Napster though was mostly negative, and it was all because of their WMP-integrated client. What I don't know, however, is whether the integrated Napster client sucked so bad because of WMP10 limitations, or because Napster executed poorly.
