Apple's competitors in the digital music world continue to attempt to capture a bigger piece of the market pie, with a major concession from Microsoft and a new portable player from Yahoo.

Microsoft has responded to Apple and EMI's recent announcement of tracks being sold sans DRM (digital rights management). The PC giant said on Friday that it expects to sell songs without DRM as well, sometime in the near future. Microsoft Zune spokeswoman Katy Asher told the IDG News Service that, "The EMI announcement on Monday was not exclusive to Apple." Asher added that Microsoft has been in contact with the record labels "for some time now" about selling DRM-free tracks for the Zune. "Consumers have made it clear that unprotected music is something they want," she said. "We plan on offering it to them as soon as our label partners are comfortable with it."

Also, last Friday Yahoo and SanDisk released the Sansa Connect, a new portable MP3 device that downloads music wirelessly from Yahoo Music's digital subscription service. The Sansa Connect uses Wi-Fi connectivity to download songs directly into the device. The player also works in conjunction with Yahoo's Flickr online photo album service.