The entire catalogue of Napster will be soon available for download over the AT&T network. The two companies have expanded their existing partnership, which would see more than 5 million full-tracks currently in Napster’s library being made available for over the air downloads, sometimes in mid-November.
The direct downloads on mobile phones is an improvement over the existing arrangement between the two companies. As of now, AT&T users can subscribe to Napster, download music online and then transfer the same to their phones. The mobile operator already offers downloads via eMusic.
Mark Collins, vice president of Consumer Data for AT&T’s wireless unit, commented this on the expansion of the partnership:
We are pleased to expand our relationship with Napster, an innovator in the digital music revolution, to connect our customers to more of the music they want in the moment that they want it. This relationship reinforces AT&T’s leadership in providing the industry’s largest mobile music platform.
The service will directly compete with the likes of Apple Inc. and Sprint Nextel. The pricing of AT&T’s service has raised some eyebrows. AT&T will offer its subscribers track-downloads for $1.99 per track or $7.49 for a bundle of five tracks. Compare this with the price of $0.99 that Sprint and Apple charge per track downloaded, and one would term this service as a bit expensive.
Another glitch is that the service will not be available on the Apple iPhone. Maybe AT&T is planning to available cellular access to iTunes somewhere in the future. Only this could explain the decision to not cover iPhone users with this service. The management at AT&T seems confident of the pricing strategy. But I believe, and correct me if I’m wrong, that this fails tests on two parameters. Neither is it competitive enough (compared with the market leader) nor does it make good partnership sense vis-a-vis Sprint.
