Microsoft kills Groove Music in Spotify deal and issues bewildering FAQ
MICROSOFT HAS announced the closure of its Groove Music streaming service, as it enters a partnership to bring Spotify directly to Windows.
It will see the end of the company’s downloadable MP3 offerings as the company becomes the latest to acknowledge that streaming is, like, totally where it’s at, man.
Users of the service ( Kevin?) received an email on Monday instructing them on how to rescue their downloads before they become an ethereal hot mess.
It quoth: „Groove Music is excited to announce that we’re partnering with Spotify to bring you the world’s largest music streaming service. On December 31,2017, the option to stream*, purchase, and download music from Groove Music will be discontinued. After December 31,2017, you’ll still be able to listen to your purchased music if it has been downloaded.“
Microsoft is essentially waving a little white flag on this one.
With a previous record in the music space that basically consists of (smirk) Zune, it appears that the company knows when it is licked.
The Groove app will continue as the default music player in Windows for local content, but streaming will now be taken care of by Spotify. Microsoft is also planning a migration tool that will convert music held locally into a collection on Spotify.
It will not, however, be migrating playlists, so you’ll probably be wanting to think about how you’re going to recreate those.
Groove Music subscribers will be entitled to 60 days of Spotify Premium for free under the move under certain conditions, and credit to the value of 120 per cent of their unused Groove Pass credit to spend in the Microsoft Store in other cases.
However, the „FAQ“ on the topic read likes the rules to Numberwang, so we gave up. Basically, download your music (if you have any) is the message to 99 per cent of people, as the whole point is that hardly anyone used Groove Music anyway.
The fact that the FAQ includes the question „What is Groove Music Pass content?“ tells you all you could ever need to know. Providing you don’t actually need to know it.
Now let’s rotate the board…. µ
