Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 19 April 2008 16:10
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
Nokia’s entry into the music business is one that further pushes Nokia
into direct competition with the very telecommunications companies it
does business with worldwide. But seeing how poorly telco music
services have fared against iTunes, traditional CD sales and piracy in
general, can Nokia take music and make it rock around the clock?
Nokia’s impending Music Store launch, on April 22 in
Australia, is big news, as it signals Nokia’s continuing moves not only towards converged handheld communications computers for consumers and businesses, but also towards digital content.
We explored the launch
announcement in an article called “Nokia’s Australian music store to hit all the right notes?”.
Here we discovered that Nokia intends charging AUD $1.70 per track, 1c higher than iTunes pricing of $1.69 per track, with both Nokia and iTunes charging much more in Australia than the US 99c per track iTunes charges in the US for both DRM encumbered and some DRM-free music.
There will also be album pricing starting from AUD $17, and a music streaming option to PCs (only at this stage), allowing consumers to “stream an unlimited number of tracks” and effectively create their own custom radio stations for AUD $10 per month.
We also know there’s a selection of over 2 million tracks from Sony BMG Australia, EMI and Universal Music, among a range of smaller labels, with the other major, Warner, yet to sign on the dotted line.
But a Nokia music store isn’t just a way to sell songs, it’s but a first step into a wider world of content. Already, Nokia has tried selling content before, namely games.
Unfortunately, Nokia’s first attempt wasn’t exactly successful, with the original NGage phones underpowered for gaming, and now looking quite antiquated compared with the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP.
But the NGage 2.0 concept and relaunch holds much more promise, with games to be downloaded over the air direct to phones, with many more phones – and “multimedia computers” set to be NGage 2.0 compatible.
Now that Nokia has moved into games and music, other forms of content beckon. Nokia already has a “Download” icon on N-Series “multimedia computers” which provides a catalog of free, free to try and paid software to choose from.
But what about movies and TV shows? Or are we putting the cart before the horse? Please read onto page 2.
