Apple is getting ready to officially announce its iCloud streaming music service on Monday but the advent of iTunes users streaming their music instead of downloading music files could spell big trouble for other companies, particularly RIM, at least according to one analyst. AppleInsider reports that today Shaw Wu with Sterne Agee sent a note to clients saying that in his opinion Apple's iCloud service could "change the game" in the wireless phone space.
While other companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon (the latter two who already have their own streaming music services) will get hit by the iCloud service, Wu says that it will by RIM, makers of the Blackberry phone, that will be the most affected. RIM has its own "push" service for Blackberry phones and while Apple's service doesn't actually duplicate RIM's feature Wu does say, "... the ability for iCloud to offload data center processing and traffic from carriers is attractive." He adds, " ... And it looks like (Apple) will likely offer some base service for free." As a result, Sterne Agee has decided to downgrade its estimates on RIM's future revenues and stock price.
As we reported on Thursday, news sources are now claiming that Apple now has the support of all four major record labels in the US for the iCloud service but it is still working to make deals with other music publishers. Meanwhile banners are being put in place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco for Monday's start of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference and they seem to show the symbol for the iCloud service. Not surprisingly, its a image of a cloud.
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