Microsoft reaches deal with Real, end run for iTMS?

An interesting development in Microsoft's digital music sales ambitions: they have settled a long-standing dispute with streaming media company, Real Networks. This after last week's news that Microsoft broke talks with the music industry over royalties rates for launching their own subscription service.

This is interesting since Real already has a license for their own subscription service, Rhapsody. While many companies are making a play at digital music services, only Apple's iTunes Music Store has seen widespread success. iTMS has cornered the downloads market so companies like Real have bet that they can find success by using a different sales model: subscriptions. If these subscription services gain traction, it could prove a viable competitor to Apple and Microsoft obviously has been making moves in that space.

Now it looks like perhaps Microsoft is looking to jump into subscriptions by proxy, using Real as a partner. Could we be seeing the beginnings of an end run to take down iTMS? It will be interesting to see how this plays out considering the acrimonious talks Apple and the music industry have also been having...