Sony Ericsson Preps Music Store for 2008

Following in the footsteps of Nokia, which launched a music store in the UK earlier this fall, Sony Ericsson has decided to stage-dive into music downloads starting next spring.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Sony Ericsson is planning to upgrade its old PlayNow service to include full-track, over-the-air music downloads. The move makes a lot of sense; Sony Ericsson has some of the coolest music phones in the industry (more of which were announced yesterday), and one of its parent companies just happens to be Sony, which has its own music label. Universal Music, EMI, and Warner Music have also signed up, plus some indie labels. About five million tracks will be available at launch.

Sony Ericsson has yet to announce how much it'll charge for music downloads, and details on file formats is still sketchy: the Journal reports that songs will be available in "MP3 and Windows Media" DRM formats. Whether DRM-free tunes are part of the equation is still an open question.

Of course, Sony Ericsson faces some major hurdles—the biggest, of course, being that music downloading behemoth known as iTunes, which has a virtual lock on the U.S. music download market. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless and Sprint have their own over-the-air music stores, so I can't see them signing on with a competitor. That leaves...T-Mobile and AT&T. T-Mobile looks set to roll out its belated 3G network next year, and partnering with Sony Ericsson would be an easy way to jump right into the music downloading business. AT&T just partnered with Napster on over-the-air music downloads, but who knows...maybe it would sign on with Sony Ericsson as well, seeing as it features handsets such as the 3G-capable (and red-hot) Sony Ericsson W580 music slider. Also, Moconews reports that Sony Ericsson is interested in revenue sharing with carriers, as opposed to Nokia, which had yet to bring its music store to the States.

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Sony Ericsson Plans Music Store [Wall Street Journal]