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The Napster icon will appear on the desktop, providing one month's free access to the online music service's four million songs. After that, a monthly fee of £9.95 will maintain access to the tracks; £14.95 allows them to be played on portable players supporting PlaysForSure DRM - just for as long as the subscription is paid. Subscribers

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also get access to more than 80 radio stations.

"HP is one of the biggest brands in personal computing and to be selected as a pre-load partner in the UK and Germany underlines the value proposition of Napster's subscription service to consumers and the power of the Napster brand globally," said Chris Gorog, Napster's Chairman and CEO. "By pre-loading Napster on the latest HP PCs, we're making the world of digital music just a click away and introducing Napster to people who share our passion for music."

This is the second such deal that Napster has struck recently, following an agreement to load its software on Toshiba laptops in the US.

And both the Toshiba and HP tie-ins come as Napster continues to approach profitability. It reported record sales for the last quarter, despite a seasonal decline in subscriber numbers, as its partnerships with mobile operators began to bear fruit.