This announcement is great news for the forces of awesome. I hope it's only the beginning.
Today I was checking out Real's Helix and a thought occurred to me; since Helix is open source (but I can't really tell if the DRM is or not) will Apple add Helix DRM support to the iPod? To me it's a much more interesting, and viable scenario than adding WMA support. It would work directly against the WMA cabal, promote AAC, and sell more iPods.
The down side with this, and with the iPod supporting any other DRM, is that Apple looses some control. Other portables could support Helix, and the Apple no longer has that nice iPod lock-in.
This agreement with HP could be Apple's solution. Don't support other formats - license the iPod and make it look like there's more players that work with iTMS, even though they're basically the same. Not a bad idea since the iPod is the best out there. It's gaining some interesting inroads, like the Alpine head-unit that has an iPod connector.
The next few months are going to be so damn interesting with the HPod, the Pepsi giveaway, the inevitable $50 price drop on the miniPod...