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Microsoft at war with Apple over music in mobile phones and mobile devices September 10, 2004 [General] | By Edward J. R. Mobile phones are future. Online music downloads are future. Apple is the market leader in online music downloads (iTunes + iPod). Microsoft is NOT a market leader in cell phones and has just something about 5% of smartphone market, which in itself is only 3% of global cell phone market. Apple decided to enter cell phone industry through the back door - it has already first agreements with handset vendors (including Motorola!) to make it possible to listen to music downloaded through iTunes in cell phones! 
While Apple is entering cell phone industry through the backdoor, Microsoft is sponsoring enthusiasts of Apple iPod devices like Microsoft MVPs such as Arne Hess and Jenneth Orantia, who promote Apple iPod and Apple iTunes on their websites! And only now, after such a long time, Microsoft is awakening from the mobile music lethargy: With Microsoft's media technology built into cell phones, consumers could buy music at Internet stores which use Microsoft's Windows Media format to encrypt and protect tracks. "The sales numbers (of mobile phones) are staggering. It's obvious that it's our goal to sign up all major handset makers," Huggers said. Analysts have said that handsets will eventually put the dedicated portable music players out of business, because bigger memory means consumers can store their music on their phone. U.S.-based Motorola and Japan's NEC have Microsoft's media decoders integrated into their handsets for third-generation mobile networks, which is still a very small market. Microsoft is now looking at the entire market, and specifically at market leader Nokia from Finland, Germany's Siemens and Japanese-Swedish Sony Ericsson. Microsoft will battle with Apple, which last month signed up Motorola to build in new cell phones a slimmed down version of the music player and piracy protection used in the iPod. To read more about Microsoft again attempting to catch up with competition, after sleeping for a long time, click here. If Microsoft will not do something fast, it may happen that Apple Corporation will not stop short of just providing iTunes players to mobile phones of other vendors, but Apple Corporation will roll out Apple smartphone and then Microsoft's tiny percentage in smartphone market share can decrease even more...  Post your comment (free registration is required to post, but if you register you can edit your posts later)
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