Microsoft chooses Spotify to replace Groove Music service

Microsoft chooses Spotify to replace Groove Music service

Microsoft’s Groove Music Pass subscription streaming service is shutting down, although its Groove Music app lives on as a way for people to play their owned tracks.

Interestingly, Microsoft’s new plans include a partnership with Spotify, as explained by Groove general manager Jerry Johnson in a blog post:

We’re expanding our partnership with Spotify to bring the world’s largest music streaming service to our Groove Music Pass customers. Beginning this week, Groove Music Pass customers can easily move all their curated playlists and collections directly into Spotify.

The alliance builds on Spotify’s recently-launched application for Microsoft’s Xbox One console, as well as the debut of its desktop app in the company’s Windows Store. Spotify is currently the second most popular app in that store, with Pandora (in ninth place) the only other music app inside the top 20. The potential of this partnership isn’t about transferring over Groove Music users. In May this year, Microsoft announced that its Windows 10 operating system had 500 million active users, up from 400 million in September 2016 with ambitions to reach 1bn in the next couple of years.

If the alliance evolves into something promoting Spotify directly to buyers of new Windows computers – Spotify as a preloaded application with a free trial of its premium tier, for example – it could be meaningful for the service’s growth. Then again, those hundreds of millions of Windows users didn’t help Microsoft’s own service gain traction, so it’s perhaps best to set expectations low for now.

Source: Microsoft – http://tinyurl.com/yb2mnjyy