Sony's new subscription music service swings and misses

The Wall Street Journal's All Things D reports that Sony is launching a new cloud-based music service in the U.K. and Ireland today, and will expand it worldwide in 2011. The service works with Sony's Playstation 3, Vaio PCs and Bravia TVs. It requires a continuous Internet connection, so it doesn't work with any of Sony's digital music players--exactly the types of devices that you'd expect a digital music service to work with. It also doesn't work with any mobile phones, not even those from Sony Ericsson.

A cloud-based music service is a good idea, but one that doesn't have a download option or support "out of the chute" for mobile devices? What were they thinking? I keep asking if there's anyone in charge at Sony who knows what they're doing, and the answer always seems to be no. If you want a portable music solution from Sony, you might want to consider purchasing an old Walkman from eBay.

Google's Nexus One: Darwin at Work?

Google formally announced its Nexus One smartphone yesterday, and the trade press, many of whom had weeks to play with the phone prior to the announcement, was free to tell what it thought of the new phone. The verdict seems to be that it's the best Android phone to date, and a worthy competitor to Apple's 3GS. Now, we're going to see if Darwin was right.

Apple's iPhone is an excellent example of a closed ecosystem--everything is controlled by Apple, especially the pace of change. In the Android ecosystem, Google has limited control, in that it controls the pace of new Android operating system releases, but since Android is open source and anyone can build compatible devices, we're seeing a rate of change faster than anything in the Apple ecosystem. The Motorola Droid, which was the best Android smartphone, was supplanted by the Nexus One in just a few months. Motorola already has the next generation of the Droid design in testing, and other players, such as Samsung and Sony Ericsson, are hard at work on their own products.

The only real advantage that Apple has left is its lead in applications, which is still substantial. My suspicion is that Apple is going to try to change the topic of conversation later this month to its new tablet computer, which will likely use the iPhone's operating system. If that happens, Android will once again be playing catch-up. Nevertheless, the iPhone/Android battle is an excellent laboratory for testing evolutionary theory: Is a controlled or an open ecosystem better at producing valuable innovation? Apple's closed ecosystem has led the pack so far, but it's Android's turn to demonstrate the value of openness.

Goodbye, Moto?

IDC's numbers for the largest mobile phone global suppliers by volume for the third quarter of 2008 are out, and Motorola has slipped to fourth place, down almost 32% from the same quarter last year. Nokia remains #1, Samsung is #2, and Sony Ericsson, which was once all but given up for dead, has passed Motorola to be #3. LG Electronics is #5 and could pass Motorola soon, and Apple is #6 in shipments and #3 in revenues.

At the same time, Motorola announced that it lost $397 million on $7.5 billion in revenue in the third quarter, and has postponed its plans to spin off its mobile phone business until some time after 2009. They're undoubtedly facing the reality that they won't be able to get any reasonable price for their mobile phone division until the current recession lifts. The only question is whether or not they'll have a viable business to spin off by that time.

I'm now following cameraphones...

Mobile World Congress,GSM,Nokia,Samsung,Sony Ericsson,Microsoft,Danger,Android,Google,T-Mobile,Sharp,Motorola,Apple,iPhone

Given the content of my previous post, I've decided to start following developments in camera phones. (Yes, I know, it's about time.) This is a good time to start, as the Mobile World Congress, covering everything to do with GSM, started today in Barcelona. So far, the state-of-the-art seems to be 5 Megapixel phones, new versions of which were announced by Nokia (the N96 and 6220 Classic), Samsung (the G810) and Sony Ericsson (the G900 and C902.) (Note that I'm not including launches of phones with 3MP cameras; if I did, the list would include three new models from LG.)

You may have also heard that Microsoft purchased Danger, the company that created the Sidekick phone for T-Mobile and other operators. (Danger's co-founder now works for Google and manages the Android mobile phone operating system project.) Danger farms out manufacturing to companies such as Sharp and Motorola, but this acquisition firmly puts Microsoft in the handset, not just the operating system, business. However, Danger has a miniscule share of the overall smartphone market, so it remains to be seen if Microsoft will actually market its own phones (and go head-to-head with Apple's iPhone) or use Danger to create reference designs that it will then license to other companies.