- January 17, 2011 12:10 pm
Nokia’s bundled “Comes With Music” music download service is another example of DRM killing a product. Ever since the service’s launch back in 2008, adoption has been pathetic at best. With that said, a total of 27 countries will see the included and free Comes With Music service discontinued. Current users will still be able to make use of said service until their subscription runs its course. Meanwhile, Comes With Music will continue to live on in China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey, and South Africa in 12-month and 6-month subscriptions.
Adding insult to injury, a Nokia spokesperson told Reuters in that “The markets clearly want a DRM-free music service”. *facepalm* The market has only been telling major labels and music providers this for close to a decade now. Where has Nokia been getting their information from? (Probably the same place that tells them Symbian is awesome…)
Fancy Nokia’s ‘ol X6 32GB multimedia powerhouse but just couldn’t come to stomach the 450 euro ($637 USD) the device commanded? You’re in luck. Nokia today launched a cheaper albeit stripped down version of the X6. Two of the biggest changes to this little sister/brother phone is lower amount of onboard storage (16GB), down from 32GB, and the removal of Nokia’s “Comes With Music” service and support.
Getting features removed on newer models is always slightly disappointing, though the reduced price should help ease the sting. Still, in a heavily contested mobile market where competitors are besting or exceeding Nokia in regards to specs and features, is this such a wise move? Perhaps you should give the rest of the specs a gander before making any more decisions eh?
- Symbian^1 (S60 5th Edition)
- 3.2 inch (640 x 360 –16:9 — nHD) capacitive screen
- 5 MP camera w/ Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash.
- Tri-band WCDMA: HSDPA (900, 1900, 2100 Mhz) | Quad-band GSM
- WiFi (b/g), Bluetooth 2.0
- Music playback: 25 hours; 3.5 mm Nokia AV connector for audio (headphones) and TV-Out
- Ovi Store and Ovi Maps (with free navigation)
- Available in several colors: black, white, white with pink highlights and white with yellow highlights
So what do you think? Is the reduced feature set worth the reduced cost? Speaking of cost, this “X6 light” of sorts will come in at roughly 350 euros ($490 USD). Still a bit high?
Biskero >
AllAboutSymbian
After Nokia’s less than steller Q3 results, the last thing the company needs on their hands and blood filled record books is another failure in the wings. Because that is what their “Comes With Music” service is — an epic failure. Don’t just take my rantings for it. The numbers which were leaked to Music Ally show that as of July, they have a paltry 107,00 active Comes With Music users in 9 markets worldwide. If you’re looking for some more “down to earth” analogy, 107,000 users is (provided by Wikipedia):
Yes, these are real countries. Why pick fun at someone else’s misfortune? Well, I’m kinda sick that way. Also, any company that thinks shackling music with any form of DRM and then charging outlandish prices like…let’s say 100 EUR per year is either stupid, completely blind to the market, or self sabotaging themselves. The actual breakdown of CWM is as follows:
- UK (launched Oct 08): 32,728
- Singapore (Feb 09): 19,318
- Australia (Mar 09): 23,003
- Switzerland (Jun 09): 560
Pretty disappointing eh? Though Nokia has already gone on to claim “poor marketing” and not enough “support” behind the initiative is to blame. Because, you know, it couldn’t have anything to do with the totalitarian DRM BS, over priced dollar amount, or overall incompetent decisions made from within. Na. It was definitely because they didn’t plaster enough billboards up everywhere. And they wonder why their market share is tanking…
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