Wireless sharing poised to change the way people experience digital music.

Celebrating the U.S. launch of the new Zune™ digital media player and music service, Microsoft Corp. has worked with a number of cutting-edge artists to stage free concerts in public parks and plazas in urban centers across the country. Today at Westlake Park in downtown Seattle at the first of these Zune concerts, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates took the stage to share his excitement for this next step Microsoft is taking in music and entertainment.

Gates outlined the Zune vision to create new ways for people to connect, discover and share music and entertainment experiences. He was joined onstage by John Richards, morning show host of popular community radio station KEXP, to showcase the new Zune-to-Zune wireless sharing feature. Richards wirelessly sent the inaugural song to Gates, who then surprised the crowd by giving away his Zune device to a member of the audience. Building on the “Hello from Seattle” greeting printed on the back of every Zune device, Richards created a playlist to celebrate Seattle music in honor of the Zune launch. The complete KEXP “Hello from Seattle” playlist will be available on Zune Marketplace for consumers to download.

“We wanted to bring Zune to life with a celebration of live music, shared between artists and fans across the country, and really make today all about embracing the social aspect of music,” said Bryan Lee, corporate vice president of the Entertainment Busines at Microsoft. “Zune is all about changing the game to make music more social, and at launch we are just scratching the surface of how wireless technology is going to enable social interaction in the future.”

The Shows

The Seattle launch concert, which featured New York-based, three-piece rock band The Secret Machines, drew crowds to the heart of downtown Seattle and kicked off the first of six shows to take place across the country. Celebrating the style and energy of local music scenes in Atlanta, Chicago and Miami, T.I., Lupe Fiasco and Richie Spice with Morgan Heritage will also play free public concerts throughout the afternoon and evening. Today’s celebration culminates with performances in New York and Los Angeles where hundreds of lucky fans will get to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Queens of the Stone Age at intimate venues. Post-show musings, images and video will be available at http://www.zune.net beginning this evening.

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