Tags: Apple, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Microsoft.com, Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Rob Lord, Scott MacGregor, Songbird

Pioneers of the Inevitable working on iTunes replacement Songbird

Rob Lord is a veteran in the digital music market who has just setup his latest venture called Pioneers of the Inevitable. This group is developing an open source application called Songbird and is being aimed to become an alternative for Apple iTunes application which is locked to iTunes music store and iPod range of MP3 players.

Rob Lord in fact compared the Apple iTunes application to Microsoft Internet Explorer, which has been locked to visit Microsoft.com only. He expects Songbird to do to iTunes what Mozilla Firefox is doing to Internet Explorer. Offer the consumer an alternative that is more feature packed, less limiting and built on open source technology.

The first technical preview of Songbird is expected to be out sometime early next year. Lord claims that his developers want to work on creating a music-playing software that will work naturally with the growing number of music sites and services on the Web, instead of being focused on songs on a computer’s hard drive. Therefore, it would be like perhaps Winamp for streaming audio we guess.

Apple has declined to comment on this upcoming application. However, the company is expected to take appropriate actions if the group breaks any of its copyrights and patents. The project seems to get support from the Mozilla group as Scott MacGregor, technical lead for the Thunderbird project said in a statement: “We’re excited to see an ecosystem of companies building technology around Mozilla. It’s a healthy sign for Mozilla and open source in general.”