Nobody should have any reason to wish the fledgeling HMVDigital music store, launching today, anything but the best of luck (unless you're an Apple shareholder). A bad business is in nobody's interests and a competitor to an obvious leader is a good thing.
On the surface many of the omens are good. HMV has a solid track record as a music company, which Apple certainly lacked. The download market is growing healthily but the continuing dominance of the CD format suggests there's a lot of organic growth to come before competitors have to start poaching each other's market shares.
A few things concern me, though. First, the competition has stepped up lately. Sky, Spotify and others offer not only a music download service but a streaming try-before-you-buy system (from which songs can disappear at a whim, but that's another gripe).
Second, if people like Amazon have only made small dents with all the marketing spend they have available, is a more traditional style retailer really going to cut it?
All of which leads me to the question in the title of this entry. Is there room for another competitor in this space? (I haven't even mentioned Napster) - and by extension, do we actually need one?