Money Matters, Simplified.
HP to launch MusicStation on its PCs
Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), world’s biggest personal-computer maker, will be launching ‘MusicStation service’ on all its new devices starting Monday in collaboration with British digital music firm Omnifone Ltd.
by Priyanka - January 25, 2010 - comments
Through this service users will be able to access millions of tracks from all four key music labels and top independent labels in the music industry.
Omnifone, the foremost autonomous provider of the unlimited music related services has already made the announcement regarding its partnership with HP on Sunday.
Rob Lewis, Chief Executive Officer of Omnifone said, "Omnifone is proud to partner with HP, the world's largest PC manufacturer, to deliver MusicStation to consumers on millions of PCs in 10 countries across Europe."
"The HP rollout sees MusicStation Desktop preinstalled on multiple HP PCs, available in 7 languages with each territory featuring an individually tailored music catalogue from Omnifone's roster of over 6.5 million tracks."
Benefits new MusicStation service will provide to HP customers
All the users who will buy the new range of HP Pavilion, HP Envy and Compaq Presario models will get the MusicStation service preloaded on their devices.
The HP will give up to 14 days of free trail and afterwards users will have to subscribe for the service. In UK it will cost 8.99 pounds ($14.47) and for other countries the price is 9.99 euros ($14.10).
The users will be able to legitimately play, download and share millions of tracks on their PC’s across countries like France, UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, and Switzerland.
Tracks can be downloaded directly to the user’s computer from the Internet for an online and offline playback, an advantage not available on many current online music services that allows its users to listen to tracks only when they are connected on the Internet.
The subscribers can also keep their 10 favorite downloaded tracks permanently in DRM free MP3 file format every month.
This new service by Omnifone is fully licensed by EMI Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music International.
Competition getting tougher in online music business
By launching this new service HP will be jumping into a field that is already crowded with other companies and retailers engaged in providing almost the same services.
Apple did manage to get significant lead with its iTunes and iPod but it seems like that with the emergence of new services its grip is loosening on the market.
Nokia had launched its ‘Comes With Music’ service more than a year ago. Satellite Broadcaster Sky launched ‘Sky Songs’ streaming and download service just recently.
Virgin Media is too planning the same and if reports are to be believed then Apple is planning to announce its streaming music service on Wednesday for iTunes.