Tesco have launched a music download site to try and compete with iTMS. The issue with all of the competitors to iTMS seems to be that they can’t support the Apple encoding format (AAC) so are left with the Microsoft WMA format which the iPod doesn’t support.
It means that they are all left fighting over the scraps of the portable digital music market until there is a realistic competitor to the iPod and for that reason they are not going to work.
It will be interesting over the next year or so to see who caves in first – will Apple support WMA, will Apple open up the AAC format for other manufacturers to use it or will there be some compromise third way? Until there is some clarity about the way forward I think there are going to be some fairly massive casualties in the online music market place.
