Amazon To Offer Music Service

According to FutureMusic.com Amazon "will launch a digital music service in the near future featuring individual songs for download, as well as a subscription service. Amazon has had licensing discussions with all the major labels and is currently evaluating several digital distributors including MusicNet. "

"…The long term strategy for Amazon.com definitely includes offering a large quantity and variety of digital content. However, like the rest of the online music stores save Napster, the short term strategy is not sales."

Some speculate that Amazon just does want to be the last person in this field and  others think  their using it as a loss leader to build traffic and sell other things.  But when there is no inventory and most of the promotion will be to existing customers; why can’t the small margin download business still be profitable?  And if Amazon wants to be a one-stop shop doesn’t it almost have to offer a music service?  In fact we wonder why their moving so slowly…