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The report argues that the combination of an easy-to-use interface which as well as giving you access to music, lets you organise it, burn CDs and copy songs to a portable player are all necessary elements if rival services are to compete with Apple's.

It also stresses the importance of having the right marketing strategy, and praises Apple's strategy of achieving as high a profile as possible, through advertising and setting up alliances with AOL and Pepsi that would not be reached simply by promoting the product through its website.

The problem for rival service, it says, will be getting potential users to try it. 'Successful services,' it says, ' will partner with portals [such as Yahoo and MSN], broadband suppliers, and high-traffic sites like Amazon and eBay to promote trial downloads.'

Of the other services, the report does not hold out much

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hope for BuyMusic, as it is just a store and doesn't provide music management.

Musicmatch has potentially a huge market based on the 37 million users of its Jukebox software, but needs 'to romance a high-traffic portal like Yahoo!.'

Napster is the closest to iTunes in terms of ease-of-use, CD burning and player compatibility (Samsung is to produce a Napster-based device), and it will add CD ripping in a future release. However, the report says, it needs better distribution to boost awareness. The author might also have added that the fact that it casual observers may not be aware that the new service is markedly different from its free file-sharing predecessor.

Finally, the subscription-based model, employed by Real Networks' Rhapsody and by MusicNet appears flawed, and these two service must 'branch out' and offer 'à la carte' downloads.

The report concludes that, 'Trying a music service is great, but repeated, frequent use is what creates ongoing sale opportunities. For consumers to grow to love a service, it must ease a variety of digital music activities like organising playlists, not just buying. This is what will make iTunes sticky and should build up sales at other music services that integrate jukeboxes, like Musicmatch and Napster.'

The early leader though, should be Apple: 'The strength here is in the integration - everything from iPod support to the store is part of one logically organised application.'