Apple, Microsoft struggle for Macca's soul

IN ANOTHER another desperate bid to appear cool and groovy, and to get one over on those pesky varmints at RealNetworks, Microsoft has signed up a teen idol to promote its home-grown Windows Media Format.

Who could this hep cat be? Step forward please, young hopeful Sir Paul McCartney. Starting tomorrow, the wrinkly rocker is to make songs, film clips and interviews from his Paul McCartney & Wings days available on Microsoft's MSN Music site, WindowsMedia.com and PaulMcCartney.com, all lovingly encoded in WMF format.

"We are excited to be able to share this new and classic footage with McCartney fans throughout the world via the Internet on WindowsMedia.com and MSN Music," Robin Bechtel of Capitol Records gushed to CNET.

The excitement would perhaps be even greater were all the content not already available on Macca's website in, erm, Apple's QuickTime format.

No doubt the pixies are working hard to convert all the clips to WMF in time for tomorrow's launch.

Inq factoid Microsoft isn't the first company to have been embarrassed by those little monkeys at Apple. The indescribably awful Blue Man Group, hired by La Intella to promote Pentium 4, make extensive use of computers in their live shows - all of them Apple Macs. µ