News 

The WSJ reports that the online retailer is considering a subscription-based service supported by a cheap, Amazon-branded portable player. It states Amazon believes that deploying the subscription model will set it apart from Apple, despite the failure of Napster's, RealNetworks' and Yahoo!'s subscription services to make much of an impact on iTunes' market dominance.

Consumers have yet to be convinced by services that offer unlimited access to the entire music catalogue just as long as they keep paying their subscription, but do not allow them to keep the music if the subscription payments stop.

Samsung is being touted as a possible partner on the hardware side, touted as having the 'flair for stylish design' necessary to provide an alternative to the iPod. Whether Amazon would continue to sell iPods, which regularly feature among its top 10 electronics products both in the UK and the US, is not known.

Amazon, Apple and Samsung all declined to comment.