Sony Unveils Its Answer to Apple's iTunes

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Sony Unveils Its Answer to Apple's iTunes

The tech giant will launch an online store selling music, movies, books, and other downloadable applications for mobile products

Sony (SNE) is taking a page from Apple's playbook (AAPL). On Nov. 19, Sony said it plans to launch an online store selling music, movies, and books as well as other downloadable applications for mobile products. Sony's top executives didn't specify when the Internet store, tentatively called Sony Online Service, would go live or what it would look like. But the online storefront, announced at a management strategy meeting in Tokyo, is likely to bear some similarities to Apple's iTunes store and would be Sony's most ambitious attempt to link its products to its own vast library of digital content.

Coming up with a software strategy for Sony has been Chairman and CEO Howard Stringer's mission since taking over in mid-2006. The adjustment hasn't been easy. Long known for the world-class designs of its flat-screen Bravia TVs, Walkman music players, and Cybershot cameras, Sony has struggled to use software to its advantage.

Analysts say that creating software to sell an array of online services and content is Sony's best hope of improving its fortunes. "Sony has been too focused on hardware," says Tokai Tokyo Research Center analyst Osamu Hirose. "It has to focus on networked products [and] delivering digital entertainment to consumers."

News source and full article: BusinessWeek

[epple]

Include access to this in their TVs, Playstations, Blu-ray (BD-Live, players), phones (SE), laptops and whatever else they have and they could probably nab a fairly big marketshare as they have a broad array of products capable of consuming digital content.

[Elliott]

Sony Online Store, Take 2 (without the ATRAC this time). Action!

[scratch42069]

After the rootkit fiasco, no thanks, I'll stick with iTunes.

[darth_mark]

can we opt out of the rootkit this time?

[Rudy]

Sony Unveils Its Answer to Apple's iTunes.....and the world ignores it

[MrChainsaw]

I don't think this will get very far...

[BGM]

After the rootkit fiasco, no thanks, I'll stick with iTunes.

can we opt out of the rootkit this time?

**** me guys, that was nearly 5 years ago!

[Sethos]

**** me guys, that was nearly 5 years ago!

You are root ... I mean, right.

Bring it on, It's going to be rootkitarrific!

[Solid Knight]

True but Sony has a track record of locking down just about everything you get from them.

[perochan]

Sony Unveils Its Answer to Apple's iTunes.....and the world ignores it

apparently you are not one of them.

[coresx]

SOS. Superb.