Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Another iPod Killer? Nokia Buys Loudeye in $60 million Deal

Loudeye operates 60 music services around the world, handling rights management and content for 1.6million songs from major labels. Nokia benefits from the acquisition by being able to offer “a comprehensive mobile music experience, including devices, applications and the ability to purchase digital music.” They are banking on mobile smartphones as being the all-in-one device of choice for consumers. Nokia also plans to offer music for sale over the airwaves through direct download or by using a PC to download songs and then load them onto the phone. It seems to me that if Nokia is trying to position itself as a major competitor or even completely eliminating iPods hold on the music download industry by creating a phone, that once Apple creates an iPod phone, which I’m sure is in the pipeline, Nokia will realize they’re out of their league. Nokia’s competitive edge is that they are already a phone and service provider, so if they can deliver the perfect phone with the capabilities to download and store music, maybe they won’t regret their purchase, but the focus should be the device and its capabilities not the services.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/PPPExUfkB3IvUr/Another-iPod-Killer-Nokia-Buys-Loudkey-in-$60-Million-Deal

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