Around the Net
Is Google A Decade Too Late To Music Party?
- Bloomberg, Wednesday, November 16, 2011 11:44 AM
About Google’s music service, which is expected to debut, today. Bloomberg’s Brian Womack and Andy Fixmer are certain the search giant is nearly a decade too late to pose a credible threat to Apple’s iTunes music service. Well, not absolutely certain. “The company’s reach on the Web may help it succeed,” they admit in a co-authored report.
Working in its favor, Google reportedly just reached an agreement with Sony Corp. (6758)’s music unit, and already has deals with Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group and EMI Group. Still, “they’re coming into this market rather late in the game, where there are large, established players,” Gartner analyst Ray Valdes says. “You can say it’s a saturated market.”
Indeed, along with Apple, Google faces competition from Amazon, which has been building its own music-download and storage service, as well as Spotify, which recently made it U.S. debut. Either way, “I doubt they’ll meet with immediate success,” Valdes warns, adding: “If they fail, it will take a while for that to become evident because they have enough presence to make at least slow progress for some time.”
