According a Japanese newspaper "Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun", Apple's CEO Steve Jobs had tried giving Sony the opportunity to run its own version of the iTunes music download store, both recently and back during the January Sony Open Golf event in Hawaii. However, as Sony is strong into its ATRAC audio codec and MagicGate DRM technology they refused the offer.
Sony is the world's largest personal audio equipment producer despite Apple being the largest digital audio device seller. While this may appear like a large service for Apple to compete with, Apple is actually more worried that Sony may end up partnering with Microsoft instead. So far, Sony has not announced any successful its Sony Connect service has been since its launch.
Currently, Apple is still the market's largest download service, but if Microsoft's new Janus rental based technology turns out successful, Apple will likely need much stronger support than from its iTunes partner HP alone. Sony would have been an ideal partner since Sony is a well respected brand for audio equipment. GristyMcFisty used our news submit to submit the following news:
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According to the report, Jobs suggested such a deal during the Sony Open golf event, held in Hawaii last January. Idei is - surprise, surprise - said to have rejected Jobs' overtures. We have no trouble imagining Jobs making such an offer, quite possibly claiming that if Sony doesn't partner with Apple, Microsoft will end up with everything. By the time of the tournament, Jobs would also be able to point to HP's decision to back the iPod and iTunes. All wishful thinking, of course, but worth a punt. Sony is far too wedded to its MiniDisc medium, its ATRAC music format family and MagicGate DRM technology to switch to Apple's equivalent, AAC and FairPlay. At that point Sony was gearing up to announce its first hard drive-based Walkman, the NW-HD1, with the hopes of beating Apple at the portable personal music game the Mac maker had already wrested from Sony. |
When portable digital audio devices (solid state & HDD based) started taking off, one thing Sony did wrong was to stay clear of MP3. Even lately, Sony has tried releasing the odd player featuring only Atract3(plus) audio support, but lacking support for other audio codec's such as MP3, WMA and others. This is one likely reason why their players did not compete as well with the iPod as they predicted.
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Source: The Register
