AfterDawn: News

Samsung wants its own iTunes?

Samsung Electronics, a Korean digital products giant, is seeking to have its own version of iTunes to help push its MP3 player hardware forward. The market for MP3 players is so far dominated by Apple Computer Inc. in many countries, and a large part of that success has been based on the fact that the iPod music players and iTunes music store and tied together. Samsung has noticed the effect this had on iPod sales and now hopes to do the same itself.

"We are now in talks with our partners to debut a service program like iTunes of Apple. Our No. 1 priority is to help customers use our products with ease," Samsung president Choi Gee-sung said. "Our items show healthy performances in China and Southeast Asian countries where iTunes services are not provided". Samsung entered the MP3 Player market late but the company has a reputation of taking on big rivals and ultimately beating them.



So far Samsung has stuck mainly to flash based players, which have proved unsuccessful. The demand for HDD-based players is rising all over the world is driven mainly by iPod music players. You can get iPods that store up to 60GB of music and video files. Last year Samsung sold about 1.7 million MP3 players, which was a disappointing figure for the electronics giant.

However the company is quick to point out that the iPod dominance hasn't really affected it that much. "The dominance of iPod has affected us relatively little because the MP3 player business has carved out just a small portion in our portfolio." Choi said.

Source:
The Korea Times

Written by: James Delahunty @ 30 Oct 2005 13:30

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• 9 comments

• videoboi

  All these companies wanting their own downloading service is just extra crap.
  

  30.10.2005 14:34 #1

• Jasper44

  All these companies that want their own music download services should just come together and stick it to Apple's stingy asses. Since Apple wont let the ipod work with any music download services other than itunes, these other companies should do the same. They should continue to make their own mp3 players but have one collective service that all the mp3 players work with, just not the ipod.

  30.10.2005 15:04 #2

• rihgt682

  Korea tech is better then japan now.

  30.10.2005 16:22 #3

• neo1000

  The new 16 GB flash memory could make a big difference in the future.

  30.10.2005 16:42 #4

• wunko

  Um Jasper I live in Australia and the itunes music store only opened a week ago here. Everywhere I got my music from before that (Either bought, ripped or P2P) work on my ipod. Oh and if you think that maybe the Aussie ipod may be different I bought it from the uk and itunes music store uk has been open there since june last year.

  30.10.2005 18:22 #5

• Jasper44

  I mean like how you can't use the ipod with napsters music to go service and stuff like that.

  30.10.2005 18:49 #6

• GrayArea

  The Samsung players will support uninfected mp3 files. That's good. But what format and crappy DRM system does Samsung plan to use for the planned music download service? I guess the only (sort of...) commercially viable alternative to iTunes is MS WMA format and MS DRM. Icky icky icky ICKY!! Microsoft MUST NOT BE ALLOWED to become the defacto standard for digital media formats and DRM. Apple either for that matter. No one company can be allowed that much control. Sun's proposal for an open DRM standard is the only somewhat reasonable thing I've heard about that has a chance of making DRM even slightly palatable, unless MS gets it's fangs far enough into the market to take over, then it's game over. Don't say I didn't warn you.

  31.10.2005 08:23 #7

• need_for2

  there just money hungry!

  1.11.2005 17:56 #8

• duckNrun

  Jasper.... in regards to the subscription based music services (all of them) they all require special mp3 players to be able to use them with the service. I csnt use my mp3 player with any of them? Why? Because my mp3 player doesnt support DRM schemes that require me to periodically connect it to the internet to insure I am still paying my monthly subscription, and thus remaining 'entitled' to continue to use the music.
  
  I'm no apple fan (nor am I an apple hater) but your complaint about apple can be said about yahoo, rhapsody and your beloved napster (sorry no sarcasm intended!)
  
  As for me? I refuse to buy crippled music! And if I was going to buy or subscribe to any (which I am not) I would feel inclined to REMOVE the DRM infestation from my files thereby making my paid for music work with any player, anywhere, at anytime.
  
  But thats just me... apparently millions of people feel perfectly happy with being told how and where they can use their legally purchased products.
  
  go figure!

  3.11.2005 12:50 #9