Microsoft's media moves: What about the open formats?

Russell Beattie: “It’s game over for a lot of Microsoft competitors.”

The point: Microsoft is controlling the content format (Windows Media), and are making alliances that range from content providers (MTV, TiVo et al.) to the device makers (Samsung, Creative et al.), that they provide content in and play Microsoft’s media format.

Something that’s missing from this story is that customers don’t want DRM, and all the devices play MP3 or (I would assume, haven’t owned one yet) MPEG format content.

Do the established players, like MTV, record companies, movie companies, etc., want to crush the open formats? Do they want to provide you content that you can do even less with than a CD/VHS, at lower cost (no distribution and inventory), and at higher margins, than what they do today? Sure they do. Do we want to buy it? I hope not. (Okay, maybe I shouldstop buying at the iTunes Music Store.)

UPDATE: Changed the title to help Scoble.