Amazon is working on giving its digital consumers more. After offering on demand media service and an official app store, Amazon is now starting an online digital music storage service. According to “Amazon Steps Up Digital Music Rivalry” by Stu Woo and Ethan Smith,
“the new service, called the Cloud Drive, gives users five [gigs] of free storage on Amazon Web servers for any kind of digital file, including music. There are also paid plans; the cheapest offers 20 [gigs] of storage for $20 a year”
With the service, consumers will be able to play the music with any media device with Internet service, with the exception of the iPhone. The announcement of the service is a big move as Amazon is steadily placing themselves as fierce competition with others. This service competes with supposed planned similar services from Apple and Google, while their app store competes with Apple and their on-demand service competes with Netflix.
The only hurdle Amazon faces is if licensing negotiations with labels don’t go well. Lack of licensing could halt the service and could leave Amazon in the same position as Google. According to the article, Google previously announced a music service that never came to fruition because of failed negotiations with labels.
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