Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Garageband for Windows?

It appears Windows Vista (the next paid upgrade for WindowsXP) may include an application named “Monaco” designed to compete with Apple’s popular Garageband software program. Garageband is part of the iLife suite and can be used by even novice musicians to create original music scores. According to a post on Microsoft-Watch:

Monaco will be aimed at the same audience, sources said, and will be positioned in the same way – except that it will work on Windows only. Microsoft also is expected to play up Monaco’s use of Microsoft-devised search algorithms for finding particular music clips.

Of course, now that Apple has released free “Boot Camp” software permitting dual booting on intel-based Mac hardware, there may be less reason for people to buy Windows-based hardware at all. Time will tell.

Personally, I am very glad to hear Microsoft is trying to create a music-authoring software program similar to Garageband. As usual, Redmond is playing catch-up to Cupertino, but that is the way of the world it seems. I have been pleased to find Microsoft’s free PhotoStory digital storytelling program (for WindowsXP only) permits users to “create” music as well as import it for use as background audio in digital stories. There are basically a lot of clips in the program which users can tweak to suit their taste. A good way to address intellectual property issues with copyrighted music for certain, especially if students want to publish their digital stories online. My main beef with PhotoStory is that it exports in a Windows-only version of Windows Media format, which does not play well with others…

This “news” about Monaco apparently is coming from the single source at Microsoft Watch linked above. PC Magazine and other sources are all linking back to it. If you are aware of another source (not based on the Microsoft Watch article) discussing Monaco for Windows Vista, please link it here.

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One response to “Garageband for Windows?”

  1. Tom Avatar

    When is this Monaco thing coming out.. .and how much will it cost