Sony Ericsson takes on Nokia in the content wars

Posted: 18 June 2009

As mobile manufacturers and networks battle for the attention of consumers, the field can get pretty heated - and since the launch of Nokia's Comes With Music service, Sony Ericsson has been just one of the firms that has upped its game.

More and more facilities are being made available to make the user experience more interesting and various offerings attempt to take advantage of this, whether they do so with audio and video content or photographic technology.

In December 2007, Nokia outlined its plans to bring a web-based music service to its customers that would bring about the next generation of downloadable facilities. As part of a wider vision for the mobile industry as a whole, company chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasuvo delivered a keynote speech to the 2,700-strong crowd.

He suggested the sector was at something of a crossroads as web technology and portable telecommunications were converging quickly. This, he said would mean consumer demand for new services would be high - and Nokia should position itself to lead the charge.

It was at this very same event that the Finnish handset manufacturer announced Comes With Music, a service where users can buy a phone that is pre-packaged to offer unlimited access to a catalogue of music for a whole year - an offering that has since been applied to devices such as the 5800 XpressMusic.

Anssi Vanjoki, executive vice-president and general manager of multimedia services at Nokia, took the opportunity to comment on the planned audio downloading facility - suggesting it was the type of product that its customers had been searching for.

"Even if you listened to music 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you would still only scratch the surface of the music that we're making available. Comes With Music fulfils our dream to give consumers all the music they want, wherever they want it," he added.

At this point, Nokia had already secured the backing of Universal Music Group International, stating that the first of the devices would offer access to its back catalogue of artists.

The firm's chairman and chief executive Lucian Grainge said Comes With Music was a great idea that would be as good for artists as it was for music lovers.

"We feel it's an innovative way for people to discover and enjoy new artists, while at the same time having access to the amazing depth of the Universal catalogue," he explained.

Of course, now that Comes With Music is readily available, other manufacturers have been keen to up their own game and provide services that take a similar model and apply it to video.

In March this year, Samsung Mobile announced the launch of Samsung Movies, which would allow users of its mobile phones access to an online store where they could download films directly to their device. Powered by Acetrax, the offering claimed to provide access to more than 500 movies including The Dark Knight, RocknRolla and Iron Man, as well as hosting TV shows such as Gossip Girl, ER and Friends.

Launched alongside the Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition - which boasts a 2.8-inch Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode screen and the ability to playback four hours and 20 minutes of video on a full charge - Samsung's head of content Nick Turner-Samuels said the pair together would represent a great package for cinema fans.

"We're very excited to be able to provide existing and future customers access to their favourite movies and TV shows across a number of different Samsung platforms. On top of this, it's all in superior picture and sound quality to the standard currently available in the market." But with a service that charged £2.49 for a single 24-hour rental or £4.99 for a permanent download, the Samsung Movies offering could be seen as less of a game-changer than what Nokia had done for the music download market.

However, Sony Ericsson stepped up to the plate this week (May 28th) with an announcement that it would take a similar model to the Nokia music platform and apply it to movie downloads.

As part of its PlayNow arena, the firm said it had built on the ideas originally announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and would now provide packaged handsets that offered a certain amount of films per year in a bundle with specific handsets - the first of which being the W995 Walkman.

The service allows up to 60 movies to be watched over a 12-month period starting when the device is purchased and registered. Films can be downloaded to the owner's home computer and transferred to their mobile phone through a process the manufacturer calls 'side loading'. Adding them to a handset means that up to 15 can be queued at any one time to be watched at their own convenience.

Martin Blomkvist, head of content acquisition and management at Sony Ericsson, commented: "Consumers are increasingly looking for exciting content and premium entertainment experiences wherever they are. By adding a bundled movie proposition to PlayNow arena we continue to remove barriers for consumers to easily access entertainment through their mobile phone."

Yet this is not where it ends for the company, as it also took the opportunity to announce three new handsets at the same time - one of which was formerly known as the Idou and has been renamed the Satio. Also announced was the Aino and Yari.

The Satio offers a 3.5-inch screen in the 16:9 format as well as a 12.1-megapixel camera with intuitive touch focus, Xenon flash, face and smile detection and the latest version of the Symbian Foundation operating system. It has support for 3G and is expected to come in a range of colours including black, silver and Bordeaux.

Fredrik Mansson, market business manager at Sony Ericsson, concluded: "With Satio you can enjoy any form of entertainment anytime, anywhere. Whether its music or movies you will never be more than a tap away from your favourite tracks or shows."


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