Samsung announced on Friday that it is developing its own branded music download service to work with a new line of MP3 players to be released later this year. The company is teaming with MusicNet for the download service, which will initially be available in the United Kingdom, Germany and France. The service will launch with about 2 million songs available through monthly subscriptions and as individual downloads.

The description of Samsung's service sounds strikingly similar to the iPod+iTunes model. The service works with Samsung media players, and includes an easy way to organize music, transfer songs to the Samsung players, and burn CDs.

Samsung's announcement comes as Microsoft is preparing to enter the digital music market with its own Zune players and download service. Microsoft's move has left its PlaysForSure partners wondering what type of support to expect now that their partner is also a competitor.

American Technology Research analyst, Shaw Wu, commented "We view Microsoft's entrance into portable media hardware akin to a civil war, much like if it entered the PC hardware market to compete with partners DELL, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo."

The new music player plus music service from Samsung, along with Nokia's recent announcement that it is purchasing digital music distributor Loudeye may very well be the first shots in that civil war. Unfortunately for Microsoft, Apple will be safely out of range while the other music player companies battle it out.