With HP’s partnership with Apple at an end, HP has announced a new deal with rival RealNetworks’ Rhapsody music service. New consumer desktops and notebooks will come with Rhapsody as the default music-playing software and free 30-day trial subscriptions will be provided later this spring.
The deal could also extend to other HP offerings in the future. For example, a new remote-control function could be developed to use a version of Rhapsody on HP’s TV-connected Windows Media Center Edition PCs.