Amazon step ahead with music service

Amazon.com joined the ranks of music-streaming services yesterday by unveiling Cloud Player, letting users buy tracks, store them on company servers and play them on computers and Android smartphones.

Music libraries can be uploaded to Amazon's new Cloud Drive, with 5GB of memory available free, the company said. Users who purchase an album from Amazon.com will be upgraded to 20GB of Cloud Drive space, which can be used to store music, photos, videos and other digital files.

"Our customers have told us they don't want to download music to their work computer or phones because they find it hard to move music around to different devices," Bill Carr, vice-president of movies and music, said.

The move places Amazon a step ahead of rivals including Google and Apple, both of which are aiming to start similar services.

The Cloud Player may prompt users of Apple's iTunes who mainly use Amazon for music downloads to make a more significant move to the online retailer's music services, said Eric Garland, chief executive officer of BigChampagne Media Measurement, a Beverly Hills, California-based music-tracking company.

"They designed everything they do in that category to work pretty much seamlessly with iTunes," he said. "They're answering what I'm sure are their customers' requests to make backup access to media and use of multiple devices a simpler and more transparent process."

The online retailer may have trouble diverting loyal Apple users from music-playing software they've used for years, even in the face of extra benefits, said Russ Crupnick, an analyst at NPD Group.

"It's unlikely they'd desert Apple for Amazon Cloud services, especially since you have to assume Apple won't be far behind," Crupnick said.

- Bloomberg