00:01 09Jul2004 RTRS-Amazon to take pre-orders for Portable Media Center
SEATTLE, July 8 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. <MSFT.O> said on Thursday that online Web shopping site Amazon.com Inc. <AMZN.O> will begin taking orders for Portable Media Centers, a new line of portable devices for listening to music and viewing video content.
The world's largest software maker, which developed software for the new handheld multimedia devices, also said that Major League Baseball games and footage would be available for download to the devices, which are scheduled to be shipped later this summer.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft has been working since early 2003 to get device manufacturers to put the Portable Media Centers on the market in order to compete against Apple Computer Inc.'s <AAPL.O> popular iPod portable digital music player.
Two Portable Media Center models will be available for pre-order from the Web's biggest retailer at www.amazon.com/portablemediacenters.
Creative's Zen Portable Media Center and Samsung's YH-999 can be pre-ordered for about $500, which each come with 20 gigabytes of storage for music, photos and video. Microsoft said the Zen Portable would be delivered in late August while the Samsung model would ship in September.
Microsoft said that new Portable Media Center users will be able to download content from MLB.com, the official league Web site, in addition to transferring their own video and audio content onto the devices from personal computers.
((Reporting by Reed Stevenson; Reuters Messaging: reed.stevenson.reuters.com@reuters.net; email reed.stevenson@reuters.com; Tel: +1 206-652-2326; editing by Carol Bishopric))
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