As Dell and Napster team up to bring legal digital music services to college campuses across the country, students may soon have unlimited access to virus-free music. But the main question is will this alliance’s benefits outweigh its costs?

This new package includes Napster’s digital music service with Dell PowerEdge 1855 blade servers and uses Napster’s SuperPeer cache server to deliver music to campus networks. The service would allow students to download music without creating security problems and slowing down campuses’ systems. While the service provides students with a secure, legal option for downloading music, many students may be forced to shell out money for a service they don’t necessarily want.

Through this service, Napster songs can only be downloaded while on a network-connected PC. If students want to move the file from their computer to a CD or mp3 player they must pay 99 cents per song. Students who do not purchase the songs they’ve downloaded will lose them once they graduate. Because of its alliance with Dell, Napster’s music service is also only compatible with Microsoft Windows, making widely used Apple products such as iPods useless.


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