Xbox Music will not be available for Windows 7 or Windows Phone 7

Microsoft recently unveiled their Xbox Music service for Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Xbox 360. which will offer free music streaming on Windows 8 based PCs and tablets. Unfortunately this service will remain an exclusive to the above mentioned platforms and will not be available to users of Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 devices.

Microsoft has stated that Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 users can continue to use the Zune music service, which will provide the same catalog of songs as Xbox Music. Jerry Johnson, General Manager of Xbox Music had the following to say:

"Windows 7 will still have the old Zune client. That client will have access based on the subscriptions and the content that anyone purchased and that content can flow forward to Windows 8 but we're not touching that client just now," "It's a very different feature set but you'll have access to the same content," says Johnson. "We're not going to update the [Windows Phone 7 client]. There might be some iconography upgrade from what I've seen but it will continue to be a Zune product because it's not going to take on the Zune features we're going to walk through today."

Microsoft also plans to add a cloud storage service to Xbox Music next year, which will allow users to scan-and-match their own music and have them stored in the cloud. legacy Windows products will not have access to these features either, as Microsoft looks to adopt a more Apple like mentality with their upgrades moving forward. However what's strange is that Microsoft plans to offer their Xbox music client to Android and iOS, while they try an isolate themselves from their own Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7. It seams Microsoft wants to isolate their existing customers on legacy platforms to force them into upgrading to the newest versions of Windows and Windows Phone.


source – The Verge