News
Microsoft zunes in on Musiwave
Tim Green Nov 13 2007, 10:13am
As if mobile music weren’t eventful enough, Microsoft now says it wants to buy Musiwave.
The Seattle giant confirmed yesterday that it has signed an ‘exclusivity agreement’ with the French mobile music delivery specialist. If it goes ahead, Musiwave will break from its current owner Openwave, which bought it in 2005 for more than $121 million.
The purchase would add another important component to Microsoft’s growing mobile arsenal. In the last two years its purchases have included search specialist MotionBridge and ad provider ScreenTonic – like Musiwave, both French.
The move will trigger more speculation around Microsoft plans for its Zune mobile music device, and specifically Zune Marketplace, a music store designed to rival Apple’s iTunes.
In a statement, Pieter Knook, senior VP of mobile communications at Microsoft, said the acquisition would let the company explore “untapped” areas and bring it “key assets,”.
Musiwave certainly has the relationships in place – with operators, music labels and handset makers. It worked with Vodafone on the launch of its music download store and currently powers services for Orange UK, T-Mobile, and Leap Wireless.
Microsoft will be launching new 80GB, 8GB and 4GB versions of the Zune as well as an updated version of the Zune Marketplace and Zune Social online music community. Owners of the new Zunes will be able to set them to sync to the music on their PCs with a Wi-Fi connection. The new Zunes will continue to let users share songs with other users, who can listen to them up to three times on their Zunes.
The new Zune Marketplace will have more than three million songs, including MP3s free of digital rights management restrictions. In September, retailer Amazon opened an online music store offering tracks free of DRM restriction. Within weeks, Apple responded by cutting the price of its DRM-free iTunes downloads.
It all adds up to a fascinating period for mobile music, with iPhone launching across Europe, Nokia launching its own music stores, Sony Ericsson announcing plans to ramp up its PlayNow service and Omnifone rolling out the flat fee MusicStation offering with numerous operators.
