Nokia launches unlimited mobile music downloads

During his keynote address at the annual Nokia World conference, Nokia president and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo announced Nokia Comes With Music, a new program enabling consumers to purchase a year of unlimited music downloads via mobile handsets bundled with its Ovi web services platform. No less significant, at the end of the 12-month cycle users may keep all the music they download even if they choose against continuing their premium subscription. Comes With Music will launch with Universal Music Group International--Nokia said it is in discussion with the remaining major international labels as well.

"We set out to create the music experience that people are telling us they are looking for--all the music they want in the form of unlimited downloads to their mobile device and PC," said Nokia executive vice president and general manager of multimedia Anssi Vanjoki in a prepared statement. "Even if you listened to music 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you would still only scratch the surface of the music that we're making available. Comes with Music fulfills our dream to give consumers all the music they want, wherever they want it, while rewarding the artists who create it."

Nokia also announced its acquisition of web services provider Avvenu. Financial terms were not disclosed. Avvenu enables consumers to securely access, use and share personal computer files via mobile devices--according to Nokia, anytime access to PC content is a missing ingredient to mobile productivity.

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