“Sony’s online music service, Connect, will launch in the UK, France and Germany next week offering a choice of 500,000 songs, it has emerged,” Tony Smith reports for The Register.
“The service will go live on Monday, 5 July in those three territories, followed by stores for Switzerland, Austria, the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands by the end of the year. Spanish and Italian stores will open in the spring of 2005. The dates come from Robert Ashcroft, VP of Sony Network Services in Europe, cited by news agency AFP,” Smith reports.
“Ashcroft derided Apple’s claim to offer 700,000 songs – 200,000 more than Connect. ‘I don’t know where Apple gets its famous 700,000 titles from,’ he said. ‘We have signed up with everyone, and we don’t come out with that figure.’ Ashcroft neglected to mention Napster, which also touts a song catalogue of 700,000-odd tracks,” Smith reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Sony Connect? Sony Connect… hmmm… Oh yeah, that “Connect.” The one that The New York Times suggested “ought to be called ‘Sony Disconnect.'” And of which The Washington Post wrote, “This service is an embarrassment to the company that gave the world the Walkman… just compare [Apple’s iTunes Music Store] with Sony’s Connect: One of these stores has a future, and one of them does not.” Perhaps Bobby Ashcroft (song-counter extraordinaire) is still stinging from some of the worst reviews ever bestowed on a product, including even reviews of some of the gems that regularly issue forth from Redmond’s bowels?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple iTunes Music Store vs. Sony Connect is no contest, Apple wins with ease – May 09, 2004
NY Times pans Sony Connect debut: ‘maybe they ought to call it Sony Disconnect’ – May 05, 2004
Well, it has been reported that the European iTMS has a combined 700,000 song catalogue, but that each individual store has far fewer songs available for purchase.
Still, iTMS rocks. Sony has lots of brand recognition and loyalty, but I doubt the user experience will translate to success at anywhere near Apple’s level
i fart in their general direction
Over 730,000 songs sold since 14:45 BST yesterday.
Sales currently running at over 562,000/day – up 47% from the rate between 6th June and 14:45 yesterday.
And the guy from Sony wants to worry about the size of the catalog.
You gotta love somebody with those priorities.
the only thing that worys me is if apple would fuck up like they did before with mac back in to the early days.
keep coming with new stuff apple and be the leader!!!!!
show them what quality is!!!
probably sony doesn’t know that a lot of people are buying only those 200,000 songs that are not in Sony’s catalogue..
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How does it matter man?? Apple is hitting the 100 M mark pretty soon..
Sony just sucks.
hey artiom,
computers are not like music, and music is not like computers.
1. no comparison
2. Jobs was NOT at Apple when they lost the market dominance
3. again, music is not like computers
so, enough already! get with the program.
music is music – as long as its convenient and consistent, who cares where it comes from. if we have to go to apple for that, then as the itunes music store shows, we will. as long as it plays on the best, simplest platform, i.e. the iPod, then who cares about the rest. (besides, you can always convert to the rest.)
computers, of course, deal with much, much more, and unlike music, the same computer, OS, etc. is not suitable for every application. there will always be markets for cheap and expensive PCs, and quality and bad OSes. Apple simply chooses not to pursue the whole market, and that why they are still around. Remember the clones? Do you care about marketshare for your BMW or Saab? As long as the company will remain, it doesn’t matter.
I think that Ashcroft is…no, never mind. This isn’t worth a comment.
Thinking about it though, Sony has been floundering into irrelevance since the death of its visionary founder Akio Morita, in much the same way Apple stumbled about during the Interregnum (my term for the period when Jobs wasn’t there). Both companies were coasting on the strength of brands considered among the strongest ever, but a succession of vision-free CEO’s caused terrible damage.
Is the Sony/McDonalds promo still going on? I don’t think we have it anymore here in L.A.
who’s gonna be at the sony keynote?
er… LMFAO
they just don’t get it..
sony/miccy d’s promo went the same way the heinekin/crapster promo went
oh you didn’t hear about that promo?
neither did anyone else for that matter.
apple fnkng rules
…your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!
good one Webby!
Spin off the content business, Sony. And go back to listening to the creative young folks in your company, not the overpaid foreign exec’s with the grand vision of integration. They just don’t get it.
apple said every country has 700 thousand songs, its not from adding them up together. i know people said that but they were making it up or something
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jobs was not at apple when they lost market dominance…….until this time.
The UK catalogue is very, very thin on the ground. They do have a point. No indies.
>apple said every country has 700 thousand songs
Yeah, I’ve read that a number of times. Has anyone actually verified it?
LiM: Well, I know I haven’t verified it because – whilst I’m a geek – I do have a life.
Lucky you, MCCFR.
Sony is a joke. Most people I know have been burned by Sony at some point in recent years. The “oh-ah – it’s a Sony” factor is long gone.
Sony’s online store is a joke. And regarding Walkmans: My kids say it best: My dad had one of those growing up. Perhaps Sony should tout their new hard drive Walkmans as “It’s not your father’s Walkman!” (GM would probably sell that slogan inexpensively.)
Sony, your corner cutting has cut you out of this market. Go elsewhere. You bother us.
iPod is the King of Pop, Rock, Soul… music per se. MiniDisc has failed to capture consumer imagination, but I own a machine for professional use. Sony should partner with Apple a la HP.
—
http://homepage.mac.com/johnhood
I hope Sony does OK. This is a third platform and certainly having Sony on line gives some interference to Microsoft et al.
Remember, if you have many dogs fighting over scraps, they won’t bother you at the table.
Where is crap writer Turt-rot when we need him to criticize Sony’s using its own ATREC format instead M$ media player???? Such windows HO!!!!
One year ago the Mr. Big of Sony did an interview where he mentioned that working with Steve Jobs proved impossible. In retrospect we can conclude that SONY made a half-arsed attempt to sell their own iPods but the deal never happened because they could not agree to Apple’s terms.