Amazon has entered the downloadable music foray and now provides music download similar to Apple’s iTunes.

This is a good thing for the industry and all of us.

They have a good selection of songs and artists and are promoting a download cost of $.89 versus iTunes’ $.99 This is a public Beta according to the site and they say they have over 2 million songs so far. They are promoting albums at as low as $4.99.

What’s not to like about this?! Their songs are in MP3 format at 256kbps rather than Apples proprietary format which is not playable on other devices. Their price is cheaper (for now) and Amazon’s downloaded music is playable on just about everything - including iPods. They now provide a competitive offering to iTunes, from a reputable establishment and, if the album is not available for download you still have the immediate option to purchase from their store.

Using the service requires installing an MP3 downloader which is only available for Windows or Mac, which doesn’t help me since I’m on Ubuntu Linux. However the downloader will add your music to iTunes or Windows Media.

What does this mean for the future of downloadable music? We’ll see.

How will Apple respond? Steve Jobs will do something - what’s your thoughts?