Microsoft may resume buying music startups

Music service Rdio can become the property of Microsoft. According to unconfirmed reports, the giant decided to go back to the practice of buying music projects, and is in talks with the company.

The head of Rdio Drew Larner refused to comment on the rumors about the purchase, but the blog The Next Web, citing its sources, said that Microsoft wants to connect Rdio to its music service Xbox Music which is being created. Rumors about Xbox Music began in the beginning of the year, when they said that the software giant is in talks with major record labels.

This is not the first attempt of Microsoft to enter the market of online music, and the previous steps have not been very successful. Six years ago, the company launched a service called URGE in collaboration with MTV, which failed, and in 2011 it had to stop the production of portable media players Zune.




Music service Rdio allows people to subscribe, giving them the opportunity to listen to music with no limitations. The American start-up was founded by two people from Skype: Zennstrom Niklas and Janus Friis. They launched online radio in August, 2010. By the way, Skype is already the property of Microsoft - the service was purchased for over $8.5B in the spring of 2011.

The main competitor of Rdio on the world market is Swedish Spotify, which became the partner of Facebook in September, 2011.