When CNET’s Greg Sandoval attended the lavish launch of Google Music, he couldn’t help recalling a similarly lovely bash when Microsoft launched Zune–by some odd irony, almost exactly five years ago. And there were plenty of similarities to point to. Both events took place in Hollywood and both featured blue lights. In each case, a tech giant was trying to catch up to iTunes, the undisputed leader in digital music sales. In each case, it was doing so with a music catalog that wasn’t quite as big. Google has signed up three of the four biggest record companies but is missing Warner. Apple’s got all four.
There’s one all-important difference though: devices. Microsoft failed because it couldn’t get enough people to actually purchase Zune MP3 players. Google doesn’t have to get anyone to purchase anything–there are already 200 million Android devices out there in use, just waiting to have music loaded on them. Thanks to this difference, Sandoval says, Google likely will make a meaningful dent in iTunes’ supremacy. And both Apple and Google may benefit from a recent study showing that customers who use services like Napster and Spotify are less likely to buy music through other venues. As a result, 200 more record labels have withdrawn from these services.
Read more at CNET.
