According to reports from Research In Motion, the company could soon release its own music streaming service for the BlackBerry range of mobile devices in a move which can potentially help the battered outfit be better positioned in its battle with rivals Google and Apple in the mobile market.
RIM is currently said to be in negotiations with major record labels like Sony, Universal, EMI and Warner and is expected to unveil its services for streaming music to the BlackBerry Messenger as early as the beginning of this September. A spokeswoman for RIM declined to comment on the news or even provide any more details about it, beyond stating that BBM, or BlackBerry Messenger, is now one of the world’s largest social networks.
It seems that there is already a lot of competition for RIM’s new service as many of its rivals already provide their customers with similar features. This March, Amazon became the first such company to launch its own mobile streaming service with the advent of the Cloud Drive. Google, too, started testing its own music service called Google Music, this May. The service allows users to store their entire collections of music on Google’s online servers and then stream these downloaded files to any device connected to the internet.
Even Apple is said to be in the process of adding the finishing touches to its iCloud service which will provide similar cloud storage and streaming options to its users. In order to make the service more convenient, Apple has struck deals with all of the major recording labels in the US so that users can be allowed to stream copies of the music which they own directly from Apple’s servers rather than having to upload their entire library first.
An analyst named Matthew Thorton said that even as music streaming services are gaining popularity, mostly with the younger users which RIM hopes to attract, it is doubtful that the service will ever appeal to most users, even though it could aid the company maintain interest among its existing customers.
He said that it was unlikely that an attempt at following Apple’s lead will change the situation of the company in the short term. Most analysts have a consensus that RIM should rather shift its entire focus towards the upcoming QNX OS and making the transition to the newer devices based on the platform smoother.
