In view to give a tough competition to its immediate rivals Google, Microsoft MSN is reported to form an association with MySpace. MSN is expected to fire up its own music service along with music offering, for which the portal is in talks with MySpace.

Though, MSN and MySpace offer similar music downloads, playback of tunes, information about concert appearances, and commercial music videos, but MySpace Music is said to have more sophisticated forums. Moreover, MSN is also behind MySpace in terms of its Music applications.

MSN is planning to lure more users by concentrating on five areas --entertainment, news, sports, finance, and lifestyle -- while intertwining more data from its Bing search engine, said a source on the condition of anonymity.

To boost its sales, MSN is in “early talks” with MySpace, as Microsoft believes it can do as good a job as MySpace at promoting music on MySpace. Microsoft MSN consistently ranks substantially lower than other big online music properties in terms of traffic, while MySpace Music is always near the top.

Microsoft shares were down by nearly .2 per cent in early trade.