HP launches MusicStation in Europe Today

Hewlett-Packard, the world's biggest maker of PCs, launches a digital music service across key European markets today. HP hopes to benefit from consumers' rising appetite for new types of music download services.

Named MusicStation, the service will be preloaded on 16 of HP's personal computer models in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium and Austria.

MusicStation has been developed and is managed by British digital music firm Omnifone (A similar HP service in United States is developed and managed by RealNetworks' Rhapsody.

MusicStations will be competigng with services like Apple's iTunes. iTunes -- with a pay-per-download business model -- is the leading digital music distributor.

Pricing:
A Consumer will have to pay about 10 euros ($14.13) a month for access to all music in HP's service and, keep 10 tracks each month.
Although they can try the service for free for 14 days.
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