Nokia acquires Loudeye

Loudeye, a provider of white-labeled digital and mobile music services, finally found a buyer in Nokia, almost a year after first putting itself on the sales block. The company previously sold its U.S. operations to Muze for $11 million. Nokia is ponying up $60 million cash for the company, saying it plans to offer a "comprehensive mobile music experience" using the new technology to launch by 2007.

Key to the Nokia deal is Loudeye's ownership of OD2, a mobile music service backend provider it bought for $38 million in 2004. Prior to the acquisition, Nokia and Loudeye had teamed to develop a Nokia-run mobile music service. This is a huge move by Nokia to take a direct role in the mobile music future, but one that likely will have a greater effect in Europe than in the U.S.

Read up on the sale details:
- from the Nokia press release
- or the article in Ars Technica