Speculation is growing that Microsoft's PlayReady DRM will underpin Nokia’s new music download store.
Nokia will hold an event in London on August 29th, which is expected to give details of its long-awaited new music service using technology it acquired in the purchase of digital music specialist Loudeye in 2006.Yesterday, Nokia confirmed it would build Microsoft's PlayReady copy protection software into its series 40 and series 60 devices. The technology, which was unveiled at 3GSM earlier this year, lets end-users share content between mobiles, PCs and other devices. PlayReady-enabled devices should hit the market in 2008.
The industry consensus now seems to be that this partnership will form an critical role in powering the Nokia music store. Microsoft’s press release said: “As part of the agreement, Nokia and Microsoft will also collaborate on expanding and simplifying consumer scenarios for accessing, experiencing and moving digital content using mobile devices.”
Previously, the two companies could be seen as competitors as each offers rival smartphone operating systems (Nokia with the Symbian-based S60 and Microsoft with Windows Mobile).
However, with Apple entering the industry via its iPhone handset, there is clearly pressure on Microsoft and Nokia to respond. And, indeed, they have a chance to forge a lead because iPhone does not support over-the-air mobile downloads from iTunes. Any song purchases made by iPhone users at present has to be sideloaded from a Mac or PC.
Ilkka Raiskinen, senior vice president of Multimedia Experiences at Nokia. "By adding support for Microsoft PlayReady technology, we are enabling service providers to offer a wide range of content and create truly compelling experiences across mobile devices, personal computers and online services. We plan to support PlayReady across a range of S60 and Series 40 devices starting in 2008."
Microsoft released the PlayReady Porting Kit for mobile devices just days ago, and expects the first services using it to appear in 2008. PlayReady will be backward-compatible with Windows Media DRM 10, which means that devices supporting PlayReady can access existing Windows Media DRM-based content as well as new PlayReady content services.
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