In a masterstroke of technological and marketing acumen, Apple Computer appeared to have seized the digital music industry last month by boldly creating its own retail download service.
The Macintosh maker, diagnosed being near death in the 1990s, seemed to have pulled off another miracle: Its iTunes Music Store sold 2 million songs in its first 16 days, dwarfing rival download services and drawing raves from Silicon Valley to Hollywood. Yet even before the initial euphoria could subside, the company began hearing familiar rumblings from points north--namely, Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash.
"We've been working and have gotten a lot of traction in this space for a long while," said David Caulton, group manager for the Windows Media division, adding that Microsoft has no plans for a competing service. "We're still very comfortable with the strategy of enabling lots and lots of partners to build these things, rather than build a closed proprietary service on our own."
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