Submitted by: kirkland on Thursday October 09th, 2003 at 02:08 PM EST

Apple Computer is expected next week to expand its online music service to Windows-based computers.

The Mac maker has scheduled an event for next Thursday at San Francisco's Moscone West convention hall. "The year's biggest music story is about to get even bigger," Apple said in an invitation to journalists.

The company is expected to launch the long-awaited Windows version of the iTunes Music Store at the event, according to Wall Street brokerage Needham. Apple earlier said it would release the Windows service sometime before the end of the year.

Although Apple popularized the pay-per-song store idea when it launched the Macintosh version of the service in April, the market is quickly becoming crowded. Musicmatch has launched a similar service and is expected to partner with direct PC giant Dell. Roxio announced its Napster 2.0 service on Thursday, with PC seller Gateway among its partners. Others, such as Yahoo and Amazon.com, are seen as likely players, while more PC makers, including Hewlett-Packard, are expected to partner with one service or another.

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