Microsoft desired iPod love affair with Apple

SOFTWARE GIANT Microsoft and maker of entertainment gear Apple could have united over the iPod.

Computerworld has turned up an ancient email from Windows Vista development chief Jim Allchin and Amir Majidmehr, a Microsoft consumer media executive in charge of development for the Windows Media Player software.

The email, dated 2003, seems to suggest that Vole felt that Windows based digital music players made by Dell and Creative were pants.

Allchin said that Apple was so far ahead and wondered how it was possible to get an independent hardware vendors to create something that is competitive with the iPod.

Majidmehr said that His Voleness planned to offer incentives to partners to improve their products, including "cash, technical support, direct interface to developers" and more.

He said that if it didn't work then Vole would have to invent its own player.

Allchin thought that Microsoft should talk with Apple CEO Steve Jobs to see if there was a way Microsoft could support the iPod. He feared that the iPod would drive people away from Windows Media Player.

It looks like Apple never returned his calls. µ