Plays for (almost) sure

Michael Gartenberg | July 06, 2005, 10:31 AM

I've been a little skeptical of the whole Plays for Sure logo program that Microsoft started in order to make sure consumers understood which services could work with which music stores and services. Overall, the idea is pretty good in theory, in practice less so. For example, I've been working with a bunch of different players and different services. During one test I started using the rather excellent Sandisk Sansa e100. The problem was that even though it had the Plays for Sure logo, it wouldn't work with subscription content. It only took me a few minutes to figure out why. A closer look at the Plays for Sure logo indicated this device would work with downloaded content but not subscription content. Oops. No biggie. Problem was with me or as we used to say in technical support PEBKAC (problem exists between keyboard and chair). I'm actually in good company, last summer when I was at MSFT, one of the Sr. Execs made the same mistake in front of a whole room of snickering analysts and reporters.

Problem is this is likely to happen to consumers as well who might not be as careful as parsing language between subscription and download content. After all, didn't I just download that file? And now it doesn't work with the device I just bought. Especially when the logo for both looks exactly the same. This is something that could be fixed pretty easily. Make two logos or three. Color code the darn things and use different shapes for WMA unprotected files, WMA purchased downloads and WMA subscription downloads. Like Garanimals for DRM so it's easy for consumers to know what works with what. Over time, as more vendors simply support the Subscription standard you can phase out the other two. In the meantime, Microsoft and her partners are likely to miss out one big way they can distinguish between that other music player and what they are offering.