Nikhil Dev

This news is something that really is a good move by some company to put an end to the iTunes Music Store domination. I was reading this news article today that Universal is teaming up with Google to release a service called gBox which is a music store just like iTMS but will sell DRM-free music for much lesser price. iTMS charges about $1.29 for a single track and these are DRM protected. DRM protected means that you cannot play them on any other music player other than iPod. Not even using another software on your computer. Now that is what sucks. When the DRM protection is removed, the track can be played on any other music player or using a media playing software. gBox will make this more easy by offering the tracks at only $0.99 which almost 30 cents cheaper to iTMS.

Google’s involvement with gBox and UMG’s DRM-free experiment looks sinister enough many observers believe gBox will pose a direct threat to the iTMS. But when you get down to it, Google’s participation may simply be what it does best: search and making oodles of money from AdSense.

Now how does gBox fit into the Google model? Simple search and make money out of text ads. Its as simple as that. Its not that we are pissing off Steve Jobs, just that we are grabbing a portion of the market which is still a virgin.