This is something I said when it was announced, and I’ll stick by it, especially because I’ve recently figured out the real issue (at least in my mind). I’m sure you’ve read recently where Apple is now prodding the record labels for the ability to sell all-you-can-eat subscriptions to the iTunes store in the form of a premium on the price of certain iPod devices. Basically, the same thing that Nokia announced it would be doing late last year at the Nokia World 2007 event in Amsterdam.
Nokia’s offer is planned to be rolled out this summer, according to the announcement, and will basically offer a one-year full license to everything in the Nokia Music Store. After questioning them directly, I found out the details – basically, it’s tied to your Nokia Music Store account, and each song is allowed to transfer between a set number of handsets and computers. It’s not a subscription service, so to speak, it merely doesn’t charge you for anything in the Nokia Music Store for a year. At the end of the year, you’re still able to listen to any of the music you chose, though it is bound by the DRM, of course. You’re still able to get new music, you’ll just pay the per-track price that everyone else does.
It’s pretty simple, really, and completely brilliant, as a year is plenty of time to build the habit of ordering songs directly from your handset. So why was it foolish of Nokia to announce it back in December? Because that’s a 9-month lead time for the competition to copycat.
Comes With Music, when announced, was supposed to be this big radical new approach to mobile music downloads and mobile phones with MP3 playing capabilities. It was supposed to rattle the industry, and it obviously has. Which is bad for Nokia, who has yet to announce a Comes With Music device, and also has yet to even launch the Nokia Music Store in any country other than the U.K, Germany, and Finland. Not really impressive, in my opinion.
I think that Nokia’s PR is going to have a learning curve when it comes to the company’s recent focus on web services as opposed to mainly hardware devices. It’s ok, somewhat, to announce a device with a 9-month lead time. That’s hardly enough time for a competitor to copy the device and get it on the market before you.
However, with web services, things move alot more quickly, and it’s really easy to get left in your own dust by announcing things too far in advance. Given that Nokia, to date, has announced several of these new web services and has yet to *actually* launch any, aside from the Nokia Music Store, and even that is only in 3 countries, they’ve got some quick moving to do, in my opinion.
What do you think?
