Microsoft Corp. is teaming up with MTV Networks to introduce a music service this week that will challenge the popular iTunes music service.


Microsoft plans to release on Wednesday a test version of Windows Media Player 11 and MTV's Urge music store. Like iTunes, the Windows Media Player lets users rip music from their CD collection and store it in a library. Without leaving the media player, users can also find and download new songs from the Urge music store.


The release is the latest and perhaps the most formidable attempt so far to chip away at the dominance of Apple Computer Inc.'s ubiquitous and iconic iPod digital music player.
For the first time, Microsoft has led a coordinated effort so that the Windows Media Player, the Urge music store and the latest MP3 players by iRiver, Samsung and Creative Zen were largely designed together.


In effect, Microsoft and team are trying to mimic iPod and iTunes so that all the pieces fit together better and make it easier to use.

"Apple's model of a complete ecosystem -- the content and devices all working together harmoniously -- is the key to their success," said Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies. "What Microsoft is trying to do is create something similar."

Up to now, no one has been able to knock Apple off its throne. Despite competition from a slew of MP3 devices and new cell phones that play digital music, the iPod's share of the market has steadily grown, from 26 percent of the MP3 player market in 2003 to 56 percent in 2004 to 73 percent in 2005, according to the NPD Group. For the first three months of the year, it held nearly 80 percent of the MP3 player market.

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