Posted by Jonny on October 8th, 2008 under Apple, News
EMI plans to enter the increasingly crowded online music and video sales market with its own download service, to be made available through its existing portal, EMI.com.
The company already has some experience in this - it has been offering its Share service to music journalists for some while in order to securely distribute pre-release music to them for review.
There’s a strong likelihood the site will offer music streaming, as it is being described as a “learning lab” for people to discover new music. The company is increasingly forging its own digital destiny in online music - it’s no suprise last year’s biggest digital story comes from former EMI act, Radiohead, for example.
The service effectively pits the world’s largest mobile phone maker in a direct challenge with Apple’s iPhone (family?) and its iTunes store. Within the purchase price of a handset, Nokia is offering customers all-you-can-eat access to music - though there are a few caveats to the deal.
On plans to extend the service to the UK, Tero Ojanpera, head of entertainment business at Nokia said in a statement: “In the United States we will launch next year”.
A move to introduce ‘Comes With Music’ into the US makes some sense in terms of Nokia’s attempt to broaden its grip on the mobile market there.
The move could face challenges: The US digital music market is far more advanced, partially because labels have been faster to reach deals with new technology services there. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Jonny on October 3rd, 2008 under Apple, News
We7 CEO and co-founder Steve Purdham is over the moon at achieving a BT Digital Music Award, but warns that the industry remains under threat - even at this stage in its evolution.
“The digital world is about to go through another upheaval with 1 billion streams on MySpace Music, We7 Launching in November and Apple threatening to pull the plug,” he said, speaking to Distorted Loop just in advance of the revelation of the royalty deal for publishing in the US announced last night.
Despite the hubbub of activity, Purdham thinks there’s still significant challenges to the development of the digital music industry.
“All of this activity shows two things, first the demand for digital music is outstanding and if allowed to flourish will build a very healthy business for artists, labels and fans alike,” he said, warning, “but at the same time the fundamental economics of the industry are still trying to kill off the opportunity rather that allowing it to grow.” Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Drury, CEO of UK online music service 7digital.com has slammed the newly-announced Nokia ‘Comes With Music’ service as “fatally flawed”.
“Nokia’s new service is an interesting new model for digital music but at first glance seems fatally flawed,” Drury said. “Songs downloaded through the Comes With Music service are not in MP3 format and are wrapped in DRM (Digital Rights Management) locks which means the downloads cannot be played across a multitude of music devices including iPods and all other MP3 players.”
Referring to the terms and conditions of ownership of the music, Drury pointed out that customers are limited in the amount of time they can hang onto the music. Read the rest of this entry »
Carphone Warehouse has today confirmed the pricing and launch details of Nokia’s much-anticipated ‘Comes With Music’ service - and the price structure seems set to give iPhone a run for its money.
Nokia Comes With Music offers a year of unlimited access to millions of tracks, to keep forever, for a one-off fee which is included within the handset price.
The service goes live on 16 October 2008. Customers will be able to get into it by paying a one-off cost of £129.95 which includes a Nokia 5310 XpressMusic handset (available in eight colours).
The Carphone Warehouse will be offering the Nokia Comes With Music exclusively on Pay As You Go, from 805 Carphone Warehouse stores and online at www.carphonewarehouse.com.
Posted by Jonny on September 27th, 2008 under Apple, News
Nokia will unveil its very own iPhone-killer next week, a touchscreen device until now called the ‘Tube’.
Following up last week’s introduction of the first Android-powered touchscreen device, HTC’s Dream, the Nokia gadget is the first device from the manufacturer to employ this technology.
Nokia will introduce its new handset in London next week on October 2. While the company has declined to comment on the launch, a Gartner analyst observed the company continues to lag behind Apple, “We have been wating for the market leader to respond to Apple’s iPhone for a year and a half now.”
The company does have a good track record, the same report explains, observing that while Nokia was late to introduce devices capable of accessing 3G network, the devices it did offer quickly achieved wide market acceptance. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Jonny on September 26th, 2008 under Apple, News
Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf thinks Research In Motion is deluded in its guidance, slamming the firm with an under-perform rating on strength of increased competition from the iPhone and other manufacturers.
Wolf despatched the following message to clients today: “RIM reported second quarter results in line with guidance. The major disappointment was guidance going forward - the prospect of lower gross margins extending through 2010. We believe the company is fooling itself in ignoring the increasingly hostile competitive environment. We’re maintaining our under perform rating and reducing 2009 and 2010 earnings estimates. ”
Posted by Jonny on September 24th, 2008 under News
Sony Ericsson has today confirmed plans to offer its very own unlimited music download service, launching the service - PlayNow plus - in Sweden this year, with an international roll-out penned for 2009.
Like Nokia’s ‘Comes With Music’ service (which Nokia chiefs take pains to say will cost more money than just the handset price), Somy Ericsson’s music attempt will let users download unlimited music at a fixed rate.
The company is reaching deals with operators, under which music downloaded through the service won’t count against a users’ data plan, carriers will instead get a slice of the $15/month subs fees. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Jonny on September 22nd, 2008 under Apple, News
Sony Ericsson is expected to introduce its answer to Nokia’s ‘Comes With Music’ with its own music service, expected to launch this week in partnership with Omnifone - and seems to be adopting a position to compete with the Nike+/Apple athletics partnership as it does,
Sony Ericsson has announced a new event in London - and the event’s focus on music and athleticism suggests the music service speculation may have legs (sorry). Read the rest of this entry »
EMI plans to enter the increasingly crowded online music and video sales market with its own download service, to be made available through its existing portal, EMI.com.![[Post to Twitter]](http://distorted-loop.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/tweet-this-small.png)
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