nokia music store disappointment
When I first got news of the Nokia Music Store in South Africa I was really excited – finally an online music store which would allow me to buy local content without needing to have iTunes, because as a Linux user iTunes just isn’t an option. One day I was walking on campus and people were handing out pamphlets with information about the Nokia Music Store and how one can use it to buy music. I read the pamphlet and my excitement about the Nokia Music Store dropped to complete disappointment. There were two main reasons for this:
- The music is in WMA format and makes use of DRM – this effectively means that I can’t play it on any operating system other than Microsoft Windows and that I can’t put it on my iPod. This alone renders the service completely unuseable to me.
- The Nokia Music Store website only works with Internet Explorer. According to Net Applications, Internet Explorer accounts for about 66% of browser use on the Internet. By only supporting Internet Explorer, Nokia effectively prevents about 34% of their potential market from accesing their site.
The two issues mentioned above basically render the Nokia Music Store useless to computer users like me who don’t use Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer. I’m a big fan of Nokia and the work that they do, though I really believe they got it wrong with their online music store. Either way, I can only hope that they’re aware of this and are working towards improving the service so that all computer users can make use of it without the restrictions.
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I feel you … linux user myself.
They were dishing out these freebie Nokia Music Store starter packs at UCT. First thing my bf and I wondered while looking through the leaflet:
Hmm, wonder what operating system this is gonna work on… well ya, needless to say that we didn’t bother taking it.
Err, Nokia’s not limiting their customer base by only supporting IE – considering like 95% of the PC market is still running Windows, and IE is installed on every Windows PC by default, people can still use Nokia music. Sorry, its the price you pay for not using Windows.
The real dissapointing part about Nokia’s music store, is the fact that I am using Windows XP, and I cant get their absolutely rubbish little music store app to work. I just get a .NetFX runtime error, and the only advice on the Nokia forums is to “reinstall, it might work”.
Well, it doesnt work.
It works on some peoples PC’s, but not others. Hope Nokia gets some real developers, and fixes their app.
Why did they use the .net framework? They could have just used Java, and then Mac and Linux users could also use their store.
Orion7, thanks for the comments, but I still think that Nokia is shortsighted for the following reasons:
Firstly, I disagree with you that 95% of the PC market is running MS Windows. I suspect that it is closer to the 85-90% mark (I can’t check that figure for you right now, but I will soon). What that means is that Nokia is missing out on +-10% of their potential target market – a significant number in my opinion.
Furthermore, you talk about all Windows PCs being bundled with IE. That may be the case now, but in the future it’s unlikely that that will be the case due to antitrust regulations and a recent ruling by the European Commission (http://www.techdigest.tv/2009/06/no_bundled_inte.html). Removing IE from Windows and giving users real choice about which internet browser they use is definitely going to give rise to a decline in the use of IE, thereby once again preventing much of the market from making use of Nokia’s store.
For these reasons I believe that Nokia weren’t thinking very far ahead when they designed their music store, though I’m pretty confident that they are aware of this and are most likely implementing the necessary changes to make it accessible by all.
I do agree with you though that it was stupid for Nokia to choose .NET. As you said, Java would much likely have been a much better decision, or they could have written native applications for all operating systems.
Ok so Mac users can now download Nokia’s multimedia transfer app and get access to the store too. I doubt whether something will be done for us Linux users… for firefox or chrome. I’d consider buying music BUT there is NO way I’m doing so via anything on Microsoft. And if its locked up with DRM… well just another reason not to be bent outta shape by Nokia’s short sightedness with their business model.