“Omnifone, a British mobile music company, is unveiling a new music service Monday aimed at cell phone users who crave music while on the go, in the first of what is expected to be many challenges against Apple Inc.’s upcoming iPhone and its ubiquitous iTunes Store,” Matt Moore reports for The Associated Press.
Moore reports, “The London-based company, founded in 2003, said its new MusicStation will be an ‘all you can eat’ service that will let users – in Europe first, but with plans to expand elsewhere – download new songs from dozens of major music labels for a weekly cost starting at 1.99 pounds, or about $3.88, per week.”
“Set to debut in Europe and Asia this year, Omnifone said it signed partnerships with 23 mobile network operators with a customer base of 690 million subscribers in 40 countries,” Moore reports. “The first major operators include Norway’s Telenor ASA and South Africa’s Vodacom, which is a partner with Britain’s Vodafone Group PLC.”
“Omnifone Chief Executive Rob Lewis said the aim is to get the service to customers before the planned European introduction of the iPhone in November. ‘We will ensure the vast majority of Europeans have the freedom to choose MusicStation by the time iPhone arrives in Europe. We will give consumers the choice they deserve,’ he said… Unlike the iPhone, Lewis said the service downloads music over the air across a data network, meaning users can have instant access to new music despite their location. He said the service was designed for 2.5- and third-generation networks, which are prevalent across Europe and Asia and expanding in North America. ‘By leveraging the hundreds of millions of handsets sold every year by operators to deliver MusicStation into the global market, we believe we can give Apple a run for its money in digital music provision.'”
Full article here.
According to Omnifone, “MusicStation provides a complete music experience, enabling users to search for music, download and play music on their mobile, Mac/PC, create, manage and share playlists and tracks with the MusicStation community, and view the latest music news. Delivering tracks in Enhanced Advanced Audio Coding format (eAAC+), Omnifone’s new service also supports industry-strength DRM. Omnifone believes MusicStation can significantly enhance digital music revenues for partner MNOs, the music labels and the collection societies.”
“Subscribers will pay a small weekly fee to access a comprehensive global catalogue of music drawn from all the major labels and independents. Pricing in the UK is £1.99 per week for unlimited downloads including data with European pricing set at 2.99 Euros per week. A premium service will offer unlimited music downloads to a subscriber’s mobile and Mac/PC desktop for £2.99 per week in the UK and 3.99 Euros per week across the rest of Europe. All charges are inclusive of 2.5G or 3G data.”
Omnifone’s press release also states, “Robin Bloor, Partner at Hurwitz & Associates, Founder of Bloor Research, and also Co-Author ‘Service Oriented Architecture for Dummies’ stated, after reviewing the MusicStation product, ‘Omnifone has a great opportunity, partly because Apple is doing exclusive deals with carriers and leaving others out in the cold. Apple isn’t willing to share its iTunes revenue with the carriers and Apple has only one expensive device that is highly priced. Naturally Apple will take some share of the market, but even in its wildest dreams it won’t get close to 5 percent. Omnifone is providing a music playing capability that many carriers are going to find very useful, maybe even necessary, if they wish to compete with Apple and stay centre stage for content, rather than become purely dependent on price sensitive services such as traditional voice and text.'”
Omniphone’s press release: http://www.omnifone.com/news_detail_musicstation_launch.htm
You know this will be huge because music subscription outfits have proven to be so incredibly popular as people obviously prefer to rent their music rather than own it.
Related articles:
Beleaguered Napster hires UBS to evaluate possible company sale – September 18, 2006
Beleaguered Napster circles bowl, subscribers drop 7 percent, Gorog won’t rule out sale of company – August 03, 2006
Free, legal and ignored: Mac- and iPod-incompatible beleaguered Napster dying at colleges – July 06, 2006
Napster does the math: layoffs commence with 10-percent of workforce lopped off – January 25, 2006
EMI Music Chairman: Music subscription services like Napster and Rhapsody haven’t beeen huge – January 23, 2006
Report: Napster executives do the math, consider selling or shutting down, layoffs imminent – January 16, 2006
Do the math: Napster posts $13.6 million second-quarter loss – November 02, 2005
Napster: the only thing missing is the sock puppet – August 04, 2005
Napster, other Windows Media-based music services ‘chasing a niche opportunity’ – June 29, 2005
SmartMoney: Napster is a snooze, gushing money and renting music is un-American anyway – July 06, 2005
Napster To Go Soon? Reports $24.3 million net loss on $17.4 million net revenue – May 11, 2005
Napster is a joke – April 05, 2005
Users thwart Napster To Go’s copy protection; do the music labels realize the piracy potential? – February 15, 2005
Why ‘Napster To Go’ will flop – February 03, 2005
The de facto standard for legal digital online music files: Apple’s protected MPEG-4 Audio (.m4p) – December 15, 2004
Napster 2.0 posts US$15 million relaunch loss – February 08, 2004
Omni who?
the more challenges the cheaper and better for us, so go for it
The only way I see subscriptions being popular is in conjunction with a decent sales based service. There is certain stuff that I want to own and other stuff which i’m willing to pay a reasonable price to be able to effectively try in full and then dispose of if I don’t like it. I don’t claim to be able to justify any economics but that’s not exactly the point since there have been so many price points so far that it seems music companies will try anything in that regard. What will never work for me is some sort of all in approach that seems to assume I will get all my music via subscription and then pay for it each month for eternity.
Netflix et al work because they allow you to pay reasonable prices to be able to view stuff you wouldn’t normally buy at a rate that suits you. If you feel you aren’t justifying the price you stop and are no worse off. Music needs to be more like this.
On the plus side, they have decided to support both Mac and PC!
interesting quote from our old buddie Rob Enderle :
“….”I’m expecting that in the next weeks Apple will really go after Vista,” said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group. “For people having problems with Vista, they’ll say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a better choice. As long as you’re upgrading, why not upgrade to a Mac?’ ”
Has Rob FINALLY seen the light ???
uhhhh … nah !!
oh… I found the quote HERE
MW= “problems” ,,, really ! .. Im not kidding !
Brace yourselves for the onslaught of iPhone killers coming to a theater near you! I saw on the news this morning that RIM is coming out with a new Crackberry that will feature…video. This iwas, according to the reporter, a direct challenge to the iPhone.
June better get here fast.
Nice snarky take, MDN. The music industry just doesn’t get it. How long are they going to bang their heads against the wall?
Use this, and one day you too can have YOUR music collection vanish
…poof just like that!
“Hold on a minute. I’ve paid for that over the last five years (£500 or $1,000). Don’t I have rights?”
“Nope. Bugger off.”
A really useful way to build up your music over the years hey?
It’s just another monthly tax.
At least they offer it to Mac users. We’ll see if that helps ’em much.
Renting tunes at four bucks a week adds up mighty fast. Twice as fast as .Mac
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Pardon me while I leave my glass house and grab some more throwin’ stones.
Secret formula:
Announce a new phone or service – nobody cares.
Mention iPhone or iTunes in announcement for a new phone or service – HEADLINES!
More $150/year just to have access to the store (or should I say “rental kiosk”)? I am happier to pay my buck a song to obtain what I want to keep. KEEP… not rent.
Folks !!
is that me or this music station look like an ipod into a sony phone
Pinch me i am dreaming, if this one goes through !!!!!!1
Scandalous !!
What is it about these stores that are
simply set on offering subscription music services?
The people have voted: selling individual songs works. Now run with it.
Does your music disappear after you stop subscribing? And it has become painfully clear that “industry strength” DRM means “dead in the water” business models. Smart consumers, of which there seem to be more and more, have decided that they actually want to own their music, even if it is in the ephermal digital realm.
Well, it’s not going to play out for a while. Let’s stick a pin in this and see where they are in exactly a year.
We will give consumers the choice they deserve
Man that line makes me sick. Translated it means that they are simply trying to get their greedy fingers in to the pie first before the superior system becomes available. They can snap up all the stupid, uniformed people and leave the ones higher up on the food chain for Apple.
Arrogant, double-speaking A-hole.
I’ve already got a service for music which I don’t own. It’s called a radio.
These idiots just don’t get it.
M.X.N.T.4.1, et al:
“The only way I see subscriptions being popular is in conjunction with a decent sales based service.”
Well, that just so happens to be how EVERY SINGLE subscription service works! I’ll never really get the MDN crowd’s diametric opposition to the subscription concept. The reason why it hasn’t caught on? You’ve got 50,000 different low-functioning subscription-featuring digital stores, all PC-based, fighting over a meager 20% of the digital music customer base, plain and simple. The “people” have not “voted,” because that 80% of us (iPod users, ahem) haven’t ever been given the choice.
Folks, a subscription model and a a la carte purchasing model are NOT mutually exclusive. The name of the game isn’t “renting” music, in which (to quote Macaday) POOF! one day your music collection vanishes. If you want to own – or KEEP – a song, you can buy it. If you ALSO want to try out an unlimited number of songs, hey, you can do that to if you choose to subscribe. You can do one or other or even both! How would this hurt anybody if the iTunes store ADDED – not replacing the current model with – this feature tomorrow? Who wouldn’t give it a go?
So to really drive the point home, I’ll quote Spark, above: “I am happier to pay my buck a song to obtain what I want to keep. KEEP… not rent.”
To which I say, okay, you can do that too. Whatever floats your boat.
“Apple isn’t willing to share its iTunes revenue with the carriers “
– Did they mean aren’t willing to share iPod revenue? Hasn’t *that* been beaten to death already? They’re already sharing part of the iTunes revenue, that comes out of the $.99 Apple charges, somewhere around $.60 iirc…
“and Apple has only one expensive device that is highly priced.”
At last count aren’t there *3* basic iPods with a 4th coming in the iPhone? Aren’t there color choices? *Lots* more than 1 at any rate. Apparently not “expensive” since they sell like hotcakes and are competively priced.
And isn’t an “expensive” device “highly priced?”
/are these are professional journalists?
“Well, that just so happens to be how EVERY SINGLE subscription service works! I’ll never really get the MDN crowd’s diametric opposition to the subscription concept.”
A big reason because the subscription services do not carry about half the music in which I am interested. That is not saying those are good or bad, just that too much music
I would want to sample in that fashion is not available. Though I am probably in the minority on that, I suspect there is a majority that would/do run into the “I can’t find that
track!” problem. That is not necessarily a deal breaker, but it could grow annoying.
A big reason because the subscription services do not carry about half the music in which I am interested.You are not wrong. I am subscribed to eMusic and aside from relatively popular acts like Neko Case and the Weakerthans, I have to look long and hard to find anything worth downloading. But eMusic stuff doesn’t explode, and the files are very high quality and include cover art, and some of the gems I have found have so far been worth it.
actually, he is wrong. eMusic is not a “subscription” service in the context of this argument. I too subscribe to eMusic, and they don’t have content from the big 4 major labels, as they won’t let their stuff go without DRM (and for roughly 25 cents/song). You may pay a monthly fee to eMusic, but that purchases you X number of downloads – TO OWN – per month. eMusic is an anomaly.
Every classic “subscription” service out there has, roughly, the same catalog as iTunes – most imporantly, content of the big 4. Check Napster, Rhapsody, et al. You might not find a few things there, but there are also things there you won’t find on iTunes. So it’s comparable. Labels usually license for both a la carte purchases and subscription, although some only license purchases.
I agree with Skeeter. Why do the two have to be mutually exclusive? No one is saying that you can’t own the music you like. So, you already have a subscription model, it’s called radio? How about satillite radio. There you pay a monthly fee as well. But under this model you get to sample anything you want–not just what the DJ is playing that day.
Why all the rancor against subscriptions? Is it just bitterness by Apple fans at anything that isn’t Apple or iTunes?
You small minded sycophants…wake up and smell the coffee!!
Your bitterness for products not invented in your own back yard is pathetic!!!
As is your ignorance to what’s happening in the rest of the world… it would appear that omnifones MNO partners… 23 and counting by the sound of it… should give you some sort of indication that this is more than an just a reasonably interesting proposition!
BTW… how many MNO’s do Apple currently have signed?…
…sorry?
…that will be 1 then… and not even Americas largest!
It would appear that this british company has done it’s research… and has developed its product over 4 years… according to the news articles I’ve chosen to read properly!… I’d hardly call that a ‘knee jerk reaction to Apple’s recent iPhone announcement!
I suggest you ‘good old boys’ have a look at the number of handsets sold globally… It might be a bit of a shock to realise you are ‘small game’…. I wonder if that’s why omnifone appears to have chosen to concentrate on the bigger picture…. that is the rest of the world!!!!
Competition benefits all… especially the consumer (that’s us)… I’m sure Steve Jobs appreciates that… even if you dipsticks don’t!
MacSmith…you have clearly done your research. The partnership issue is obviously deeply embedded in this whole iPod/iPhone domination theme, which seems, in the main, to be emanating from…guess where?
With a single MNO in the orchard, and, as you say not the biggest cox on the tree, Apple is clearly adopting a very protectionist strategy.
MusicStation, however, is clearly about world participation as opposed to world domination, which I believe will be a winning strategy.
You only have to look at a certain national administration, set on domination at all costs to see where hearts and minds are disengaging.
Stateside businesses would do well to heed this lesson.