Still a long way from becoming a real iTunes competitor, but to me these two partners indicate that Sony at least has some common sense left.
Gracenote and Omnifone used MIDEM to announce that their tech is driving the back-end of “Music Unlimited”, Sony’s new cloud digital music service designed to take on both iTunes and music streamers. Consumers may not care, but competitors and the industry certainly do. All four major labels have signed on to this new Sony network designed to help sell connected devices – much as iTunes sells iPods.
Omnifone provided its platform to develop and deliver the Cloud-based service for “Music Unlimited by Qriocity” across a range of device platforms and also licensed the service with rights holders around the world, providing a global catalogue of over six million tracks.
Gracenote’s music identification and discovery technologies and Global Media Database enables users to enjoy their existing digital music collection and discover new artists within Sony’s service.