Enter Zune; Bye-Bye MSN Music

With the launch of Zune on Nov. 14, MSN Music will begin redirecting its visitors to either Zune Marketplace Web site or to RealNetworks' Rhapsody site reports C|Net News.

MSN Music had started to compete against Apple's online store. The plus point that MSN Music had was that the music downloaded from there was in WMA format hence making it possible to play with a variety of players.

With the arrival of Zune, Microsoft is keen to capture a share of the online music market.

MSN Music says that its existing users can continue to use the songs that they bought through the music store. Being protected, if this support is removed, it would mean the inability to play music which you legally bought.

Will Microsoft succeed with Zune? Or will this move to shut down MSN Music backfire and cause its few loyal users to shift over to the iPod?

Via Digg