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Nokia To Use Microsoft Digital Music Software
BCMM writes "From an article on Reuters: 'The world's largest mobile phone maker, Nokia, and software giant Microsoft struck a deal on Monday to make it easier for consumers to buy digital music on-line and play it back on their handsets ... Nokia agreed to put Microsoft's music player software into its handsets.'" (The BBC covers the deal as well.)
"The articles don't mention what sort of DRM or licensing will be involved." jfanning writes "Two new Series 60 phones were also announced that ship soon and support WMA, the 6680 and 6681. I haven't seen it mentioned clearly yet, but also the Media Transfer Protocol has been licenced, so that could mean the phone will show up as a media device in Windows Media 10." jfanning mentions also that Nokia has licensed the Microsoft Exchange Server ActiveSync protocol for business phones.
I want my mobile to be able to stream music. And for that matter, I also want my car stereo to be able to receive streaming audio. Downloading is so yesterday, who wants to pay per song? As a Rhapsody subscriber, I'd love to access my playlists through my phone or my car - Get on it, guys!
Despite conventional wisdom, I've discovered you can blame a guy for trying. It's called "attempted murder".
It does make sense that the media companies (i.e. MS, Apple, Napster, etc.) are trying to lock up license agreements with cell phone makers but why wouldn't these companies go after the cell phone providers instead? I mean, if Apple came up with an agreement with Verizon to be their exclusive provider of music, wouldn't it force the cell phone makers to engineer apple's DRM and iTunes into their future phones? And put another way, if I were a cell phone carrier, wouldn't I want a piece of the action and the opportunity to control media standards?