Still not cringing with nervous anxiety over the havoc that the imminent launch of Microsoft's downloadable music store will no doubt wreak on the digital tunes landscape? You have cooler heads than we do, then, because we're practically wrecks over what the next week or two may bring. We've already mentioned how Microsoft has a ready-made captive audience for its store, with an instant 130 million potential customers about to be shunted right to Microsoft's music outlet as soon as Windows users are automatically "prompted to update their media player software"-- and don't forget the over-a-third-of-a-billion shmoes who'll no doubt be "informed" of the new service when they use MSN or Hotmail.

Well, further details about Microsoft's store have come to light in a Rolling Stone article, and they're doing nothing to calm our nerves. Sources claim that the store will launch on September 2nd with "between 600,000 and 700,000 tracks for sale at ninety-nine cents apiece," leaving Apple with no price advantage and only a slightly larger catalog-- and "within a couple of months, it will match Apple's 1 million offerings." So Windows users probably won't be switching from Microsoft's default store to iTunes because of price... and Redmond may have a trump card up its sleeve when it comes to selection.

See, there are unconfirmed murmurings (continuing from our first mention in June) that "Microsoft will use its financial clout to become the first site to offer the Beatles catalog" online, which is the closest thing to a Holy Grail that the download business has. Reportedly the band "demands tens of millions of dollars for a long-term exclusive arrangement." Only tens of millions? We bet Apple would have broken off a teensy piece of its $5 billion war chest and forked it over in a Liverpool second-- but, of course, we doubt the Beatles would have licensed their catalog to Apple at any price, what with that ongoing litigation and all. So if the rumors are true, digital music newbies looking to download Abbey Road are going to be doing it at Microsoft's store.

Of course, Apple's trump card probably carries even more clout than the Beatles: the iTunes Music Store is the only download store that sells music that's officially supported for playback on the iPod, which is the market leader among portable digital music players by a furlong or four. Indeed, according to the article, "Microsoft has made several overtures to Apple to make its store compatible with the industry-leading iPod but has been rebuffed." But is iPod compatibility enough of an advantage to overcome Microsoft's marketing budget? Because faithful viewer John O. tipped us off to a CNET article which reports that the company is about to launch a branding campaign that will align all Windows Media services and hardware in a unified attack to "show that the Apple universe is a little one, and Microsoft is a big one."

Apparently the plan is for all WMA-supporting devices and stores to display a little "Plays for sure" logo, which will indicate to customers that the product or service has been certified compatible with all the other products and services bearing the mark. So when consumers go shopping for gadgets, they'll see that every player on the shelf works with Microsoft's music-- except for the iPod (well, and those crazy Sony thingies, but no one particularly cares about those). Now, while we wouldn't necessarily expect someone to choose a player based on which music store they want to use with it, consider the typical Windows user who buys a few albums through Microsoft's store (since it's preinstalled and everything) and then decides to buy an iPod. Either the guy's going to notice the iPod's lack of compatibility with his purchased music and buy something else, or he'll unknowingly buy the iPod and get ticked off later when he gets home. Either way, it's not a happy situation.

There's presumably nothing stopping Apple from licensing WMA and supporting it on the iPod in order to qualify for the "Plays for sure" logo (on iPods, if not the iTMS) to keep its hardware sales from bottoming out, but a move like that might well prove the death knell for the superior AAC format. All we can say for sure is that there's a shakeup coming, and six months from now things are probably going to look different. A lot different.