“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]
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Report: Apple iTunes Music Store more popular than most peer-to-peer file sharing services – June 07, 2005
Apple’s iTunes Music Store passes 430 million downloads, market share increases to 82-percent in May – June 07, 2005
Motorola CEO: Apple iTunes mobile phone on track for July debut, carriers not balking – May 18, 2005
Napster To Go Soon? Reports $24.3 million net loss on $17.4 million net revenue – May 12, 2005
Napster users admit sharing passwords to save on subscription costs – April 08, 2005
Napster is a joke – April 05, 2005
Mossberg: Apple’s iTunes Music Store vs. Napster To Go – March 18, 2005
Napster CEO Gorog: Steve Jobs ‘must be pretty frightened’ of Napster To Go – March 14, 2005
Napster’s math does not add up – February 28, 2005
Napster’s dirty little secret: changing subscription services into downloads is easy – February 18, 2005
Napster feels the heat over flawed copy-protection scheme – February 17, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs warns record industry of Napster To Go’s security gap – February 16, 2005
Users thwart Napster To Go’s copy protection; do the music labels realize the piracy potential? – February 15, 2005
Napster-To-Go’s ‘rental music’ DRM circumvented – February 14, 2005
Napster CEO Gorog: ‘it’s stupid to buy an iPod’ – February 10, 2005
Report: Napster faces uphill fight to gain share, Apple prepared to run iTunes at a loss – February 10, 2005
Napster’s ‘iPodlessness’ doesn’t bode well for its future – February 10, 2005
$10,000 to fill an iPod? Napster’s going to end up with egg on their face – February 04, 2005
Why ‘Napster To Go’ will flop – February 03, 2005
Napster CEO: We’re ‘the biggest brand in digital music, much more exciting than Apple’s iTunes’ – February 03, 2005
Braggarts! yeah, and I am black with a 2″ Schlong! How do you like that for some random truth?
MW “while” – while I laugh my ass off!
Boy, Ericsson really hitched its wagon to a star, hmmm? Napster is “the strongest digital music brand”? Apparently, smoking hashish is legal in Sweden.
“the [Ericsson Napster] service would be launched initially in Europe within 12 months.”
My guess is that Napster is bankrupt before this deal reaches fruition.
Losers
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
wait a second.. did napster run out of ‘cell phone partners’?
Apples with Moto, and currently getting into bed with Nokia (browser stuff)
MS is with Samsung I believe..
Ericcson and Napster?? Okay.. great..
By the way.. congrats on the whole online music store + cell phone maker idea.. that’s ingenious.. what’s next.. integrating digital music into car decks?
Talk about a Reality Distortion Field. That Napster CEO is probably able to create mass hallucinations when he enters the room with a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
No, that’s Real’s CEO who’s the donut-eating blob. Napster’s CEO is just a tard.
eaxit, Imperial feet are denoted by a single quote. I think you did yourself short by 1’10” aka 22″
Interesting, given that Ericsson haven’t made their own handsets independently for some years now. They are now, of course, marketing and manufacturing phones with Sony.
It seems like a bit of a confused move – after all, SE also have the ‘Walkman’ phone on the market, which presumably won’t be compatible with the Napster downloads.
I’m sure there’s some semblance of a plan somewhere, I’m just not seeing it.
Since I’m from Sweden, I tend to prefer SonyEricsson over Motorola and Nokia. But regretfully, I also have to admit that when it comes to strategical decisions, Ericsson are morons.
Ergo: If Ericsson are teaming up with Napster, it’s a sure sign that Napster is going away…
i like how MDN posts article about erricson/napster….
ok ok..so itunes was mentioned like once in the article…i guess it is mac news.
mw “mind”….i dont think these guys have theirs.
Thanks for the clarification LordRobin. To me, the Real and Napster CEOs are one in the same.
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It’s entirely possible that RealNetworks’ CEO Glaser ate Napster’s CEO Gorog at some point.
Maybe there is a misprint, maybe they meant to say “we gain access to the strangest digital music brand in the world”.
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The press release was actually meant to say: “We COULDN’T gain access to the strongest digital music brand in the world and exposure to the largest music catalogue available SO WE HAD TO SETTLE FOR THIS.” they also added later: “we’re screwed”
Typical of many articles on the web these days. They scream out a lot of things except the facts. I think Napster is losing more and more customers because of there all out lies that they tell. With iTunes holding 82% of the market along with the iPod players I just can’t see how this story was let out in the form it was.
Napster is leading the market in no sales is what should have been written. Not to mention they’re announcing something that isn’t going to happen for another year while Apple will be releasing their deal with Motorola this summer. They must think they’re Microsoft.
Does Sony as a corporation have a mobile strategy?! Or are they letting each internal division do their own thing to see if any achieve anything. Sounds like the fuss that happened when Sony Ericsson didn’t think about asking the digital camera divsion to make the lenses for the camera phones, plus the whole Walkman branded phone farce. It’s a shame as I like their phones.
Off dah, I meant to say the music brand with the hottest air flowing out of it. Vapor, I meant vapor!
And I mean the most recognized brand amongst music pirates.
Oh wait, no, I mean the second biggest overall, just the biggest with WMA format. That counts for something, no?
Ignore those millions of iPod owners. They don’t count!
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Napster?? You mean they’re still in business???
Ver strange decision surely they should have gone with Yahoo at least they have the capital to survive and will eat Napster for breakfast or whats left of them. But then why would Yahoo ally with a lagging mobile phone produder. Interesting though that the Sony tag to Ericcson has been left out, it is first I have seen that in over a year which says a lot I think. Embarrassing for Sony, disagreement within perhaps? Its all a mess thats for sure and sounds like nothing has changed despoite the new management there and unlikely to get better for these companies with this particular choice.
> Apple’s iTunes Music Store currently offers more than 1.5 million tracks.
Maybe you should read the fine print of Apple’s press releases. They have been proclaiming over 2.0 million tracks since 7 Sep 2005. At historical rates they should be hitting 2.5 million tracks any day now.