Posted on 02/14/2005 9:50:57 AM PST by KwasiOwusu
CANNES/HELSINKI (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.
In a comprehensive agreement, which involves a separate deal with digital media company Loudeye, Nokia agreed to put Microsoft's music player software into its handsets.
In return, Microsoft, will introduce open standards for digital music compression and piracy protection in its Media Players for personal computers.
"Users can synchronize their music collection with their mobile device," Nokia said in a statement.
"This agreement makes it easier for consumers to download music they want to listen to, without having to worry about whether or not the file format is supported," said Nokia Multimedia unit head Anssi Vanjoki in a statement on Monday.
The deal brings together two long-time rivals, with Nokia previously using either in-house or RealNetworksmusic and video software.
The Finnish firm sold 10 million phones in 2004 with an integrated music player, and a spokesman told Reuters Nokia would launch a phone in 2005 that would support Windows Audio.
The move comes as the mobile technology that supports the faster downloading of music, 3G, takes off. Nokia launched a 3G phone on Monday along with two other new models. It forecast 70 million 3G subscribers by end-2005 versus 16 million in 2004.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
wow..how's Nokia stock doing today? I made and lost a ton with that one!
too bad MS and Nokia don't work on more business applications, after all listening to music is not why a small business person has a cell phone.
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