Wuh-oh, looks like dark forces are conspiring to end our Napster-bashing once and for all. Yes, the company might have taken twice as long as Apple to sell its first 5 million songs, despite selling to a market ten times the size; sure, the company lost $15 million in its first quarter and is selling "about a quarter" as many songs as the iTunes Music Store; okay, a ton of top executives have already flown the coop and a bunch of employees were pink-slipped last week-- but Napster can still crush the iTMS underfoot and turn Apple back into, of all things, a computer company. All it needs is a little help from Redmond... and apparently it's going to get it.

That's right, people; now that the market has determined that Napster sucks the least among the iTMS's various competitors, Microsoft wants to make sure it sticks around for a good long while-- at least until the iTMS is beaten into submission. Faithful viewer Robert Fernando tipped us off to a New York Post article which claims that, in order to fight the iPod and the AAC audio format, Microsoft is "quietly shifting some of its marketing muscle" to give Napster a little boost. So far evidence of Microsoft's help is a little on the skimpy side: a Napster-branded version of Windows Media Player and "prominent placement" for Napster on Media Center PCs. But the Post seems to think that might just be the beginning, and with Microsoft's weight behind it, Napster could emerge as the dark champion in the battle between the iTMS and Everyone Else.

Microsoft's motive, of course, is to get as many people as possible buying music in its Windows Media format, instead of the AAC format which Apple uses, which is-- horror of horrors-- not owned or controlled by Microsoft! (You didn't know such things still existed, did you?) The idea is apparently that if more people buy WMA music, then fewer people will buy iPods, which, at least for now, won't play WMA songs. And if people buy WMA players instead of iPods, then more WMA music gets sold and the iTMS loses its momentum. At some point, Apple either loses enough money to get out of the digital music business altogether, or it gives in and licenses WMA; either way, at that point it's WMA all the way, Microsoft finally owns the entire planet, Bill Gates ascends to outright godhood, and we can all line up to get our mandatory Passport ID codes tattooed on our foreheads. Simple, huh?

So other than Apple licensing its Digital Rights Management system so that other stores and players could use its protected AAC format (a move which would likely kill the company's iPod sales, and the iTMS already only breaks even), mankind's only hope for survival is for Apple to maintain its massive technological and sales lead with both the iPod and the iTMS long enough for other download services, including Napster, to wither and die from slow sales and terrible profit margins. It's certainly possible, since Apple has a huge lead and doesn't seem willing to let it go. But Microsoft's wallet is a lot fatter than Apple's, and the forces of evil have nothing but time...