Report: Sony to launch latest iTunes challenger
Sony has plans to launch a music and video subscription service, according to a report in The Financial Times. The Japanese conglomerate is expected to announce the service Wednesday at a technology show in Berlin, just ahead of Apple's media event in San Francisco.According to the FT, "Sony would use its [Web-connected] PlayStation games consoles as the starting point for a new service that users will be able to use across a range of other Internet-connected devices. That could include Walkman music players, Vaio computers, Bravia TVs, Blu-ray players and Sony Ericsson mobile phones."The service won't actually be ready to launch until next year, according to the paper. (Could it be that Sony wanted to piggyback on Apple's media event or at least muddy the waters?)One can only hope that this effort is better conceived than Sony's last attempt to challenge iTunes, with the ill-fated Sony Connect.Launched in 2004, Sony Connect was racked with software malfunctions and hobbled by the lack of consumer interest in Sony's digital music players. At the time, the iPod was running away with the market. Analysts blamed Connect's problems in part on the different goals of different divisions, such as the desire of the content creators to protect their music and movies from piracy vs. the stake the electronics division had in technologies such as the MiniDisc and the Memory Stick.Sony shuttered Connect two years ago.
