Say what you like about Microsoft, they sure know how to shake up a product landscape. Their upcoming Zune initiative has former PlaysForSure partners (like Real) scrambling to redefine their approach.
Real has already partnered with the number two audio player maker, SanDisk, to come up with a special flash player, the Sansa e200R, that works in enhanced fashion with Real. The Sansa player can still work with PlaysForSure files, but will work seamlessly with Real's Rhapsody service.
Best Buy has announced its own service, due to launch October 15th, that will leverage the SanDisk player and the Rhapsody service. Whether this is just a rebranded version of the Rhapsody service or something with its own special sauce remains to be seen. In any case, the music chain may bring enough clout to turn this into a real live three greyhound race, with iTunes entrenched in the lead spot and Zune as the scrappy underdog with a very, very rich owner.
Rhapsody has just released version 4 of their software to enable all this magic to happen. Expect a write-up on Prefix in the coming weeks.
For more information:
Reuters article
Cnet coverage of Sansa E200R functionality