Why MusicStation isn't an iPhone competitor

Stephen Withers
Monday, 12 February 2007 12:34

IT Industry - Market

The peculiar part of all this is that it forces people to buy their music over the air. The fact that carriers are content with a cut of the subscription fee and won't charge extra for transmission seems an admission that their usual charges for data services are excessive. If participating carriers can provide unlimited music downloads for two pounds a week, why does Vodafone UK (to give just one example) need to charge almost 30 pounds for 250M of 'ordinary' data?

Let's assume that the music labels take half (though it wouldn't surprise me if it was more), Omnifone takes 10 percent, and the rest (80p) goes to the carriers. Furthermore, let's say that tracks are 3M on average. At Vodafone's rates, 80p buys about 7M of data. If you signed up for an 'all you can eat' music service, wouldn't you download more than two tracks per week?

Oh, you want to play the music on your computer too? That's possible, but only if you pay 50 percent extra.

Admittedly, MusicStation does get round the need for backup - since you're only 'renting' the music you can re-download a track at any time, providing you maintain the payments.

But all of this is based on what I think is a faulty premise: that the iPhone is no more than a phone with a built-in audio-only iPod. What about the video capability? Is MusicStation going to offer videos? What about the iPhone's superior user interface, especially when it comes to email and web browsing? It's not that other phones completely lack these features, but can you point me to a model that does them as well as the iPhone?

MusicStation may do well in its own right, especially as it has already signed 23 network operators covering 40 countries and 690 million subscribers, with South Africa and Scandinavia first off the rank. But I can't see anyone that's been itching for an iPhone suddenly saying "oh, if MusicStation's coming I don't need an iPhone any more."