For years, several renowned companies have tried to compete with Apple iTunes Store without much success, and the close down of SONY Connect and Virgin Digital are there to prove that having a well established name is not synonym of success. Amazon will enter the market as a new online music store, with the advantage of being able to offer a DRM-free catalog thanks to Apple pressure on music majors. But does it mean Amazon collect the fruits from the trees seeded by Apple? Nothing is sure.
Amazon will offer music tracks at similar price than the iTunes Store US$0.99, but also lower at US$0.89. Albums will be available with price ranging from US$5.99 to US$9.99. Beside the price, the main strength of Amazon will be to offer DRM-free MP3 music files encoded at 256Kbits/s, and it will include part of Vivendi Universal Music catalog, whereas the company was recently complaining that receiving over 75% of US$0.99/track was not
