Rumor Mill: Microsoft's iPod-killer, MVNO

While The New York Times and other news agencies are running more toned down rumors about Microsoft's WiFi-enabled iPod-killer, Engadget's report is far more entertaining: Microsoft is set to launch a new portable audio and video player in November that will have a screen that's bigger than the video iPod, built-in WiFi so you can download directly to the player and actually participate in Xbox Live-like social networks and an automatic scanning feature that will determine a user's already purchased tracks from iTunes and port them over to the Microsoft device--at no cost to the user. And because the story isn't over-the-top enough already, Engadget's source concludes that Microsoft is going to launch an MVNO next year using all Windows Mobile-powered HTC handsets, which will sync up the previously discussed social networks as the WiFi-enabled media player.

The report reads like a compendium of all Apple iPhone rumors to date, but that doesn't mean it's not true. The digital music market is a high stakes game--one that Microsoft has obviously lost so far. It will take quixotic moves like those detailed above to wrench marketshare from the iPod, but someday someone will do just that and an iTunes scanning feature at no cost to the end user sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

For more on Microsoft's rumored iPod-killer plans:
- see this blog entry