“Ericsson, the Swedish telecommunications group, will on Wednesday announce a far-reaching alliance with Napster to offer the US group’s music downloads and subscription services to mobile network operators around the world,” Tim Burt reports for The Financial Times. “Financial terms of the alliance have not been disclosed, but executives at both companies claim that it offers the ‘first fully integrated digital music service for mobile operators.’ Of the estimated 700m handsets expected to be sold this year, some 10 per cent are expected to be music ‘enabled’ allowing for the downloading and storage of music tracks.”
“Carl-Henric Svanberg, Ericsson chief executive, said: ‘We gain access to the strongest digital music brand in the world and exposure to the largest music catalogue available.’ …Napster, the main rival to the Apple iTunes service, has rebuilt its subscription service since being acquired out of bankruptcy by Roxio, the US e-commerce business, more than two years ago,” Burt reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Napster claims “over 1,000,000” songs on their website. Apple’s iTunes Music Store currently offers more than 1.5 million tracks. We guess “over 1,000,000” songs could mean greater than 1.5 million, but wouldn’t Napster be screaming that figure out (alternating with “Mayday!”) if they could? And, if Napster is the “the strongest digital music brand in the world,” why does Apple’s iTunes Music Store hold 82% of the market for legal online music services? Did anybody do the math at Ericsson? Napster is some “main rival,” huh?
Lastly, Burt reports that “the [Ericsson Napster] service would be launched initially in Europe within 12 months.” With Motorola’s Apple iTunes phones due this summer, how exactly can Ericsson and Napster claim to be “first fully integrated digital music service for mobile operators” with straight faces?
It’s too bad that The Financial Times didn’t see fit to question the ridiculous statements from Ericsson and Napster in their report.
[UPDATE: 6/15. 9:12am EDT]
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