This is a proprietary format developed by Microsoft. Users have noticed low error resilience: sometimes insignificant damage to the file can cause the file not to play. Besides this, the closed format hampers its proliferation outside of Windows platforms.

This format was originally intended for voice compression and is able to change the bit rates of encoded audio data. AMR is actively used for encoding and decoding voice while its being transmitted over network channels. The format allows one to consider network capacity and adapt it to channel loads. Due to this, the voice quality is practically undiminished.