With Nokia pushing ahead with its Comes With Music service, in which phones will be sold with a year’s worth of unlimited access to music from major and independent labels—that users can keep after their one year expires—reports have Walkman phone maker Sony Ericsson getting ready to launch a similar service. According to reports in the Financial Times (subscription only) and elsewhere, Sony Ericsson is in talks with music labels to offer a time-limited subscription service on selected mobile phones.
Sony Ericsson already operates a per-track download service in Scandinavia; however, a subscription-based plan would probably be aimed at a broader European market and perhaps at Asia as well. It’s always been a little unusual that the maker of phones with the iconic Sony Walkman brand on them hasn’t more tightly integrated its phones with music offerings, but Sony Ericsson apparently feels it needs to launch a music service to keep its head above water in countries where Nokia is likely to make inroads with Comes with Music. And while Nokia is not a huge seller of handsets in North America, it does huge business in Europe and Asia. Conversely, Sony Ericsson has been struggling in almost all its global markets, and has almost no presence in the United States.
No availability, technical, or pricing details are available for any possible Sony Ericsson music service, and a company representative declined to comment or offer any information. However, given business models the music industry seems to be following for subscription services, it’s very likely any Sony Ericsson service would carry DRM-protected music…and that likely means Windows Media DRM.
