So far, Nokia has been the most aggressive pursuer of digital music. Last year the company shipped 10 million phones with built-in MP3 players. At the 3GSM conference in Cannes this week, Nokia announced agreements with Microsoft (MSFT) and Loudeye to create a mobile music platform and make it easier for consumers to transfer music between their PCs and phones. Nokia also unveiled several new handsets with built-in music players.
Archrival Sony Ericsson, the world's sixth-largest handset maker, recently said that music is its focus in 2005 and that, in the next few weeks, it will unveil several new handsets designed to mimic MP3 players. Late last year Motorola (MOT) announced a partnership with Apple (AAPL) to bring iTunes to mobile phones.
I have to agree with Matthew Maier when he says that cell phones probably won’t become the music player of choice this year. But as technology advances what is stopping the complete convergence of all devices? Doesn’t seem like anything. What makes the ipod so great (aside from marketing and content) is it holds 40GB, is easy to use and looks cool. But if it could be connected that would be great and then why not be a phone too?
I wonder if Slingmedia could be streamed to your handset? Probably not video yet – but streaming audio would be great.
Although, carriers would rather you purchase the content (music or video) through their networks, but if they could provide a copy of that libray, people would certainly pay for the access. This would allow carrriers to not have to get involved in the content side of the business (which they know very little about) and focus purely on the network.
To bring this post full circle, I wonder if any of the mobile virtual networks are planning this? Offering consumers this type of service would be a very compelling offer.
hmm anybody want to start a cellphone company?
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