Cingular Expands Music Offerings With Microsoft Deal
Cingular Wireless, the only mobile phone service that offers iTunes music on mobile phones, yesterday said it teamed with Microsoft to make four more popular music services available to its customers.
Cingular is using Windows Media Digital Rights Management technology on newly introduced cell phones to give customers access to Napster, Yahoo! Music, eMusic and XM Satellite Radio subscription services. Cingular’s philosophy appears to give its users as any music delivery options as possible, and is allowing customers to access whichever music service they like on their mobile phone.
“Unlike other wireless carriers, we are not expecting our customers to change their music habits by getting used to a proprietary music store of our own design,” said Cingular spokeswoman Kate MacKinnon. “We’re making it easier for them to access their music, their way.”
Cingular users who already subscribe to Napster will pay an additional $14.95 a month to extend the service to their mobile phone. Users can download songs to their phone and transfer them to a computer, or vice-versa. Customers can pay $11.99 a month for Yahoo! Music and use the service the same way. Users of eMusic can transfer 50 songs to their phone. For $8.99 a month, Cingular users will get access to 25 XM Satellite Radio channels on their mobile phone.
