By: Ben Robinson, IntoMobile Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 11:25 AM
Sony Ericsson is shortly going to launch the “PlayNow Arena” portal for mobile music and gaming in Europe. The service will include 1mn tracks from Sony BMG (not a surprise!), Warner, and EMI. The Nordics (again, not a surprise) will be getting first crack at this, followed by the rest of Europe later in the year – and then globally in 2009.
PlayNow has some stiff competition though in the form of iTunes, and also Nokia’s various interweb offerings. One big weapon in the armoury is that the tracks will be DRM-free (yay!). Bring it on I say, the sooner we can get good choons and games on our SE Mobys, the sooner we’ll be truly free (or something like that….)!
Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career
when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has
now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the
next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas!
He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently
became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years
when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to
'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make
your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device)
isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question
of why you continue to use it...
His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and
infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the
occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience
in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with
regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.