EXCLUSIVE: New Microsoft Sanity Music Site Set To Go Live

EXCLUSIVE: Microsoft and online content partner Sanity Music are only weeks away from rolling out a brand new music and video content site that was suppose to go live 12 months ago.

Introduced in January 2007 at the role out of Windows Vista the site which was scheduled for April 2007 has become an engineering nightmare according to Sanity insiders. Now the site is being tested in Melbourne following the dumping of a UK development team.

Instead the two partners have turned to a Melbourne based team to deliver the site that will take on the likes of Apple, Telstra BigPond, Nokia and a planned Sony content site.

A Sanity source who has recently briefed industry partners on the site said “We are weeks away. It has been difficult for us because of early development and coding issues which were being undertaken in the UK. We dumped the UK developers and started from scratch here in Australia”. They said.

 Jeff Putt the Director of the Client Business Group at Microsoft and the man who initially announced the site “I cannot comment. This is commercially sensitive and I do not want to flag anything to our competitors”.

With many global sites like Napster and Real Media shunning Australia consumers have been driven to the Apple iTunes site however this could change with Microsoft partners like Samsung, digital music system vendor Sonos and many PC and notebook brands promoting the site as a means to access content via the Windows Media player the site could “well take off” said one informed source.

Microsoft are also set to roll out a means by which Windows Media Centre owners can easily access the site from with the Media Centre software.

During the past few months Sanity has had discussions with several content providers including TV stations to access TV programs and movies as well as documentaries for the site. 

With the site scheduled to be released in late May or early June 2008 it is believed that testing is currently underway in Melbourne.