Nokia to buy music distributor Loudeye

Deal worth $60 million part of plan to strengthen Nokia's multimedia and enterprise units.

The story "Nokia to buy music distributor Loudeye" published August 8, 2006 at 5:06 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[Swiss in Zurich]

Smart Move

Smart move by Nokia. <br />Huge userbase, larger then M$FT.<br />With every phone purchased one will get <br />$10 worth of songs for free to try out the service.<br />Will probably work only with Nokia phones<br />and the service will not need to make a profit as <br />revenues will come from handsets sales.<br /><br />Enables Nokia to differentiate themselves vs. SonyEricsson, <br />Samsug and Motorola and NOT necessery compete with iTunes.<br />They already have a large business in Europe selling ring-tones <br />which did so well that providers complained about it.<br />Perhaps also preparing for competition from iPhone.......<br /><br />Jack