Nokia Puts Music Phone on Hold

Nokia is delaying the introduction of the N91, its cell phone that can store as many as 3000 songs, missing the end-of-year shopping season.

"We've decided to move the introduction to the first quarter, as we have been able to accelerate the deployment of Windows [digital rights management] into the device," says Kari Tuutti, a spokesperson for Nokia. Windows Media digital rights management is a platform that allows music vendors to control how users of PCs, music players, or cell phones listen to music and other protected digital content they download.

Nokia had originally planned to launch the N91 for the Christmas season with DRM software from the Open Mobile Alliance, upgrading to the Windows DRM next year. However, instead the company began accelerating the inclusion of Windows DRM into the device, but it won't be able to complete that process until the first quarter, Tuutti says.

The Windows DRM software is important to Nokia because it allows users to download music from more stores than the OMA software allows, he says. Over 50 percent of online music stores are compatible with the Windows DRM, he says.

Worth the Wait?

Nokia loses the chance to use the N91 to compete during the Christmas season against other handset makers that are featuring music players in their new products. Most notably, Motorola recently introduced a cell phone that includes a player for music purchased from the popular iTunes Music Store.

Nokia thinks it's worth the wait to make the N91 better. "The Christmas season is important, but if you look at what is the status of music entering mobile phones, it's still in its very early days," Tuutti says. "We wanted to make sure the first experience is positive so we don't bring a disappointment to first buyers. In that sense, the long-term trend is more important than a month or two of sales."

Pushing back the timeline in a quest to deliver a better product isn't a bad decision, says Rob Bamforth, a principal analyst with Quocirca. "Getting the DRM stuff right is vital for usability," he says. "So delaying it to get it right is a good thing."

Nokia has several other phones that include the capability to play music, and in fact has sold 40 million such phones this year, says Tuutti. "But the N91 is the first where we have really fine-tuned this end-to-end experience, and have optimized the device with a huge mass-storage capability," he says.