Wired has a good article up about the various digital music vendors: Urge, Napster, Rhapsody, eMusic and iTunes. They compare and rate the services. In the end, they chose iTunes as their editor's pick, pointing out that although iTunes has no subscription plan at this time, its combination of easy-to-use shopping plus the huge catalog of music, TV and video makes iTunes the most compelling digital vendor. At the bottom of the pack was Napster with its three-device playback restrictions and limited device compatibility. eMusic won on pricing (about $0.25 apiece, if you buy all the tracks you're allowed) and their DRM-free tunes.

Michael Dell, amidst lackluster growth reports and a dismal earnings warning, has fired a couple more potshots across Apple's bow. During a recent Q&A, Dell's CEO cited MTV's new URGE music service as one reason why he is skeptical of the iTMS market dominance over the next ten to twenty years. I guess we'll have to see how well Microsoft irons out their Plays for Sure, er URGE, er Zune project (indecisive, anyone?), and how upset users get when the Zune crashes with a BSOD right in the middle of a wireless purchase, accidentally charging their credit cards for 5 additional albums that weren't even in their shopping cart.

Going further, Mr. Dell also bragged about Dell's market share statistics, stating that Apple isn't a threat because they haven't broken into the list of top five market share holders. All debates as to whether Apple is trying to, or even should, dominate the world with their shiny computers aside, Michael is only half right: Apple's market share in the U.S. has actually jumped high enough to rank them 4th in PC manufacturers (again, in the U.S.).

How many times do we have to tell you this, Mr. Dell? Insulting Apple won't make them open up OS X for you.

[via MacNN]

Yesterday, Engadget posted some less-than-clear images with rumors of an iPod killer coming soon from the Microsoft camp. Today, PC Magazine has confirmation from a Microsoft rep that these rumors were nothing more than hot air. In fact, they were simply the result of a mis-translated Japanese press release about Microsoft's new Windows Media Player 11 software; they had nothing to do with hardware.

So for those of you who might have developed a chronic nail-biting habit, worried that Microsoft's new '#1 with a bullet', MTV-infused music service and killer new hardware were going to usurp Apple's iPod and iTunes overnight (ironically, the only time MTV has anything to do with music these days), I think it's safe to say you can give your nerves a rest.

[UPDATE: Microsoft was setting other rumors about an iPod killer straight; their announcement wasn't tied to these images that Engadget posted yesterday. Those could be shots of a Gigabeat-S portable media player from Toshiba, for all anyone knows.]