Talking of the ongoing battle to dominate digital music, interesting chatter regarding the long awaited official release of the Beatles catalogue online. As previously reported, the vast majority of the Beatles catalogue is still not available to buy via legit download platforms, with the Beatles owned Apple Corps still hanging on for "when the time is right" to go digital. As also previously reported, both Apple Corps boss Neil Aspinall and EMI vice-chairman David Munns have recently alluded to the fact that work is under way behind the scenes to digitise the Beatles catalogue ready for a pending download release, though neither have given any hints on timelines or possible online partners.
Some people (well, possibly just us, I can't remember) pontificated that Microsoft might be busy capitalising on the considerable tensions that exist between Apple Corps and Apple Computers over their long running trademark dispute in order to secure some kind of partnership between the new Zune marketplace and the fab four - an alliance which could provide Microsoft with the big coup it needs to seriously launch itself into the digital music market.
However, such pontificating, it seems, might have been off the mark. Latest rumours suggest that, despite past and relatively recent legal disputes, the two Apples may be talking regarding a Beatles download venture. Fortune magazine quotes a "music industry exec apprised of the talks" who says that the Beatles catalogue is quite likely to first appear online in iTunes, with the possibility of a Beatles branded iPod and Beatles based iTunes advertising campaign also being discussed. Nobody official has commented though. We'll let you know when we hear more.