Nokia nabs Warner for its future Internet music service

By Jacqueline Emigh | Published July 1, 2008, 11:18 AM

Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Zune stand to face newfound competition later this year from Nokia's Comes with Music, especially if Nokia manages to nail down EMI, too.

In a deal inked with Warner Music this week, Nokia has now signed three of the four major record companies to "Comes with Music," an offering that will package a mobile phone with one year of unlimited access to music, allowing users to keep the downloaded tunes once the subscription is up.

Nokia first launched Comes with Music in December, with Universal as its initial partner. Sony BMG then signed on in April. Now, EMI is the only major record company not yet on board.

Posing rivalry to both Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Zune, Comes with Music is emerging as one of several elements of a strategy Nokia has been articulating around converting the phone manufacturer into "more like an Internet company."

Nokia's new music service is slated to launch in the second half of this year on "a range of Nokia devices in selected territories," according to a statement from Nokia this morning. Users will be able to swap music between a phone and Nokia software running on a PC. The tunes, however, will reportedly be governed by Microsoft's PlayForSure DRM.

After a 12-month subscription to Comes with Music has run out, the user will need to either buy a new phone or pay to renew the subscription and keep downloading music from Nokia's online store. However, music already downloaded will stay playable even if the subscription isn't renewed.

Over the past year or so, Nokia has also rolled out Internet-oriented products and services such as the Ovi online photo-sharing service, a Flickr-like application called Share Online, Nokia Maps, and Nokia's Internet Radio.

Now, as some see it, Nokia's purchase of mobile OS producer Symbian last week -- and its formation of the Symbian Foundation -- constitute Nokia's answers to Google's "device agnostic" Android software platform and Open Handset Alliance (OHA).

"Our goal is to act less like a traditional manufacturer, and more like an Internet company. Companies such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft are not our traditional competitors, but they are major forces that must be reckoned with," said Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, speaking at his company's annual meeting in May.