Omnifone's MusicStation is fighting it out with rivals such as Spotify, Sky's Sky Songs and other services being developed by Apple and Virgin Media. Photograph: Asger Carlsen/Getty Images
The latest salvo in the digital music war will be fired today when British group Omnifone announces it has clinched a crucial deal with Hewlett-Packard, the largest PC manufacturer in the world, to have its MusicStation unlimited track download service pre-loaded onto computers and laptops.
The deal, which covers 10 European countries including the UK, comes as online music service Spotify continues to gain ground in Europe, and Apple is understood to be planning to announce its own streaming music service for iTunes on Wednesday. Late last year, the Californian technology company snapped up small music start-up Lala. It has expertise in online storage and streaming and that deal was widely seen as preceding a move by Apple into the streaming music market.
Many current online music services only allow people to listen to tracks when connected to the internet. MusicStation, which is already available as a mobile phone service from operators including Vodafone in the UK, allows users to download an unlimited number of tracks – from a library of 6.5m - and play them offline. For £8.99 a month (€9.99 outside the UK), subscribers to MusicStation for the PC also get their 10 favourite tracks each month without any copyright protection, meaning they can load them onto any digital music device.
The digital music market has become a battleground not just for the music companies and retailers, but also for hardware manufacturers and even internet service providers. HP is just the latest in a long line of brands to jump on the bandwagon.
While iTunes and the iPod gave Apple a significant head start, its grip is being loosened by a plethora of new services. Satellite broadcaster Sky recently launched its Sky Songs streaming and download service and Virgin Media is trying to get a similar service up and running, reportedly under the title MusicFish.
Mobile phone manufacturer Nokia launched its Comes With Music service more than a year ago, bundling unlimited track downloads in with some of its smartphones. The service, however, has failed to attract significant takeup, not least because its advertising left many people baffled. Omnifone, meanwhile, powers rival mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson's own music service PlayNow.
Omnifone launched MusicStation in 2007 and teaming up with HP, which globally ships almost 50m computers a year, will give it access to a huge potential market. Anyone buying one of 16 HP computers and laptops across Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK will get MusicStation bundled with their new hardware and will be offered a free trial and the chance to subscribe to the full service.
For HP, the deal gives the company the chance to boast to consumers about the media credentials of its hardware, at a time when bitter rival Dell has poured millions into advertising its own consumer-friendly range of brightly coloured multimedia laptops.
"Omnifone is proud to partner with HP, the world's largest PC manufacturer, to deliver MusicStation to consumers on millions of PCs in 10 countries across Europe," said Rob Lewis, Omnifone chief executive. "The HP rollout sees MusicStation Desktop preinstalled on multiple HP PCs, available in seven languages with each territory featuring an individually tailored music catalogue."
"We look forward to extending our partnership onto even more PCs and territories, to ensure consumers have the ability to gain legitimate access to the world's music on every HP PC they purchase."
It looks like HP employees have been given an internal HP Slate presentation comparing it to the Apple iPad, according to a slide obtained by Engadget. The device will cost either $549 for the 32GB flash storage version or $599 version for the 64GB version.
