Software giant Microsoft might not be a music powerhouse, but it has ventured into that category earlier. Before 2010, the Zune was considered as a well-recognized music player and was accompanied by the Zune Music Marketplace which has more than 11 million tracks.
Poor sales forced the company to reinvent the brand and they have decided to merge the struggling music division with the new Xbox platform. This resulted in Xbox Music – an ad-supported streaming service which competes with Google Play, Apple’s iTunes, Amazon MP3 and Spotify. The Verge says that the web-based version of the Xbox Music will be launched next week.
This will also effectively extend its coverage to iOS and Android devices, as users can just open their browser to receive full functionality. Earlier, the music streaming service was available on Microsoft’s own products, which included the Xbox 360 console, Windows 8 PCs and tablets and Windows Phone 8 smartphones.
It can be predicted that the next step will be to design specialized apps for iOS and Android and Microsoft says that it is currently under development. Apart from the new browser version, Microsoft will also be updating the Xbox Music app so it is compatible with Windows 8.1.
