Looks like Apple will finally announce it's iTunes for Windows software on the 16th. I'm mostly excited because MusicMatch doesn't fully take advantage of the iPod's capabilities, nor does it hide it bugs as well as the Mac iTunes does. MusicMatch does have a many great features lacking in iTunes (e.g. super-tagging for IDv3 tags, which the iPod greatly depends on), but it has a preposterously slow interface.
As for the music store, I personally am not all that excited by buying DRM'd 128kbps music as I prefer live music, which sounds terrible at 128kbps, AAC or no. However, it's nice to have Apple move into the Windows online music space to raise the bar a bit, especially over sites like BuyMusic. BuyMusic is absurd enough to have non-uniform rights for the songs that you download, so each song you download may have drastically different burn/transfer rights (yes it's probably a matter of the record companies causing this situation, but tough for BuyMusic). I have 2400+ songs on my iPod. Imagine having to keep track of 2400 different "content usage rules." Given BuyMusic propensity to copy everything Apple does (right down to the font), lets hope this is one more thing they learn to copy.
AppleInsider | Apple to Host Music Media Event Next Week