Sony throws in the towell...

Sony’s three-year effort to beat Apple’s iTunes Music Store is over.

The company, which is one of the largest movie, music and consumer electronics companies in the world, said Thursday that it will be closing down its Connect Music Store in Europe and the U.S.

In its place, Sony is adding Microsoft’s Windows Media technology to its music players and allowing consumers to download copy-protected content from numerous Windows Media-compatible music stores on the Internet, including those from Napster, Audible.com and Wal-Mart.

Sony will also distribute Windows Media Player 11 software with its devices.

The news, which was announced at the IFA trade show in Berlin and via a statement in the U.S., represents a big change in the direction of Sony’s portable audio business.

Sony created the portable audio sector in 1979 when it debuted the TPS-L2 Walkman, a cassette tape-based audio player that cost the equivalent of a week’s wages for an office worker. The company led the market for years, but that all changed when Apple introduced its iPod in 2001...

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PS. I didn't even know they claimed a service similar to iTunes... If they'd spent some time studying the Apple business model instead of fighting against it in all their arrogance, they might have learnt somethin'.