Are you aware of spotify? It’s a
music
service, still in beta that lets you download their client and listen to your favorite
music. Microsoft is also coming up with a similar
service of their own, most probably at the end of this month. The
service will offer users the chance to stream
music for free and also download to own, according to Telegraph.

Peter Bale, executive producer of MSN, Microsoft’s news and entertainment portal, told The Telegraph exclusively: “Music is an important area for
Microsoft. We are looking at launching a
music streaming
service imminently.It will be a similar principle to Spotify but we are still examining how the business model will work.”

Spotify users can stream music for free in exchange for listening to around a minute of advertising every half hour but for £9.99 a month, the ads will be turned off. It is thought Microsoft’s offering will be ad-supported too as well as having a paid-for premium service.

The
service would be operated and owned by
Microsoft, while being promoted through MSN and other parts of the
Microsoft network.