Leap's Cricket considers licensing Muve Music to other carriers

Earlier this week, Leap Wireless' (NASDAQ:LEAP) Cricket Communications announced it had surpassed 500,000 users of its Muve Music service, a large win for the company's year-old digital music service. But Muve Music's future may lie beyond just Cricket users.

"We have certainly thought about taking the Muve Music blueprint and success formula and technology platform, which we think is a very special technology asset, with licensing it for use with other operators," said Jeff Toig, senior vice president of Muve Music, in an interview with FierceMobileContent. "It is something that we have explored and are open to discussing."

Toig added that Leap's current goal is to expand Muve's reach internationally rather than to other carriers in the United States, but stated, "If Verizon wants to give me a ring we'll take the call."

Muve Music is currently available on Cricket's Android-enabled smartphones, but Toig hinted that it may expand to other smartphone platforms in the future.

"We want to focus on building the market-leading music experience. That is where our focus is now and will continue to be for the near term," explained Toig. He added that Muve will turn its attention to other platforms after the company is closer to accomplishing its primary goal.

"We certainly wouldn't close ourselves down to that--to closing Muve Music down to other platforms whether that would be Research In Motion's BlackBerry or Windows Phone. Right now our focus is Android and, down the road, [others] as some of those other products gain more commercial appeal," said Toig. Leap currently sells BlackBerrys and has said it might be open to selling Windows Phone devices in the future.

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