HP in early stage discussions with music industry, not likely to have cloud solution ready for TouchPad launch 36
Sun, 12 Jun 2011 8:51 pm EDT 
Several weeks back we reported on a marketing presentation for the TouchPad that indicated the tablet would include a Music Synergy-type service that would allow users to sync music from their computer, to the cloud, and back down to the tablet, as well as play music from other online services. We haven’t heard anything about that since (except for that presentation cropping up a few more times), but it’s looking like the service – possibly to be named “HP Play” – might not be ready in time for the TouchPad’s July 1st launch. According to Billboard, HP is still in the early stages of discussions with major record labels, with the aim of securing the licensing to set up their own cloud music service for webOS to rival Amazon’s Cloud Music Player, Google’s Music beta, and Apple’s new iCloud and iTunes Match.
Said a major-label executive of HP, “They’re debating doing something like Qriocity for a variety of media, which can be delivered on any HP device. We don’t know how serious they are.” Even with that uncertainty, the industry seems to be cautiously positive on HP’s potential in the space, “They have the [cloud] capabilities. The question is, can they build something that is compelling, cool, and dynamic that will appeal to music consumers.”
To us, that demonstrates much of what’s wrong with the music industry. HP’s plays at a cloud music solution aren’t going to be aimed at music consumers. They’re aimed at consumers looking for smartphone and tablet devices that offer a seamless experience for everything, music included. Obviously, with partnerships like Beats Audio, HP takes music seriously, but they know it’s just one part of a complete package of services.
Source: Billboard; Thanks to Tikkanen for the tip!
36 Comments
Derek,
I believe the major label executive is a music label executive, not HP.
You need to fix your story to reflect that, otherwise sentence doesn't make sense and also wrongly attributes a quote to an "HP executive."
All, more discussion of this story can be found in this thread below:
http://forums.precentral.net/hp-webos-news/284392-hp-early-stages-talks-...
Edit: Er, read the comments below that it was "implied" but noticed music industry rag Billboard did not think so but rather put the word "music" label executive into its sentence, I believe they wrote it that way as it does not leave room for misinterpretation nor require any prior knowledge by the reader, even the knowledgeable industry execs reading Billboard.
As implied by "label."
A label exec said those things of HP. So that's how the sentence works. Don't know if you already got it, just helping out.
Ok, nothing new. As usually the biggest hindrance for the customer and for the music industry is the music industry itself.
How does it come that it is easier to open and set up a real music store while it is nearly impossible to open one virtual who also offers cloud-services and playing?
If even such a huge company like HP has trouble in doing so, we can be sure that no "small" player can ever enter this field.
You guys don't understand, which is cool. It's easier to open up a real store because the licensing and royalty infrastructure for CDs has been set in stone for decades, and physical licenses are always easier to maintain.
This is like complaining that HP is standing in the way of WebOS because they won't let any manufacturer or even Chinese KIRFer use the OS however they want to on their devices.
"You guys don't understand, which is cool. It's easier to open up a real store because the licensing and royalty infrastructure for CDs has been set in stone for decades, and physical licenses are always easier to maintain."
And the music industry had some 16 years (in words: SIXTEEN freaking YEARS!) to find some solution to let customers get what they want (digital music) and make profit on it. A company like HP even wouldn't have survived if they would have constantly ignored the consumer demands for the past 16 years.
A few days ago they closed some illegal Video-portal here in Germany where you could easily stream almost every series and almost every Film that you want. They claim that those guys who did it also hosted most of the necessary files and that they made MILLIONS (of Euros) with this business.
Yet still we don't even have anything comparable to Netflix nor Hulu here because the companies claim that it's not profitable and (I guess the biggest problem) hard to obtain all those digital rights. If I want a certain Film I have to look at 3 different digital video stores just to find out that this film might not be there, while it's easier and more convenient to look for a pirated version.
It has to be the other way around. Give people easy access to all the Music and Video content that they want in an easy and convenient way for a fair monthly or pay-per-view/hear basis and you will see them using your service in droves.
"And the music industry had some 16 years (in words: SIXTEEN freaking YEARS!) to find some solution to let customers get what they want (digital music) and make profit on it. A company like HP even wouldn't have survived if they would have constantly ignored the consumer demands for the past 16 years."
That's odd. I thought the iTunes Music Store opened over eight years ago, and competitors from Amazon to Zune appeared shortly thereafter. Online music sales have been in effect for some time, but "cloud"/streaming music is yet another nebulous area in which EVERYTHING has to be re-negotiated. You try running a business where you have to redo all of your bargaining agreements with thousands of different parties twice in less than two decades.
Despite this, there ARE companies that have done the hard work to negotiate streaming agreements, and now cloud ones. They didn't easily come by those privileges, nor should they. If HP wants to reinvent the wheel instead of simply licensing MOG, Rdio, Spotify, or whoever, then they should be prepared for a long wait. That's THEIR bad decision-making, not the music industry's. Especially bad when you consider that the "HP Movie Store" sidesteps this problem by licensing RoxioNow. They should do the same with HP Music Synergy blah blah blah.
Well in the USA maybe, but I live in one of the G7-countries and have NO streaming solution that works. Just some workaround to (illegally, but still paying) get Spotify to work. I know that you have some services in the USA, also in case of Video on demand etc...
But outside of the US it looks really dark, and it's still the same companies that do this business or don't.
I feel your pain. Just stressing that it isn't a monolithic entity known as "the music industry" that makes this happen or not. Lots of heads to this particular Hydra.
Not a monolithic industry, but this has been done before, and it isn't like it is a new idea.
Not suggesting they just walk in, but all parties do know what is required.
HP have probably hired a project manager who has engaged in these negotiations before and knows what HP needs to meet the 'music industry' requirements.
The 'music industry' has people negotiating on their side who have done it before too.
Therefore, it shouldn't be problematic as there is a precedent to these negotiations and deals.
That is unless HP doesnt have a clue about what they are doing. Which I can't believe.
IMO, the music industry has been a step behind from at least as far back as the early Napster days. Their inability to grasp/embrace the newer technologies so they can use them to their strengths & advantage later...they always seem to be backwards looking to me.
HP shouldn't be doing this at all. They should just partner with Spotify at the OS-level, help them build out cloud infrastructure in exchange for nearly free access, and let things go as they will. This makes so much more sense, HP has to be doing this.
Just get Amazon working on it and I don't have to care otherwise.
Spotify would be nice, but they are a less timely solution (since they aren't in the States yet) Amazon Cloud Player is all I need, it has my music up there already.
Maybe I missed something but what about Amazon is cool?
Not that the music industry hasn't made its share of blunders, but this isn't one of them. You guys don't realize that it's not as simple as HP walking into the head office of Sony or Warner Bros. music groups and saying "Hey, can we license all your tracks?!" and them saying "Ehhh, why not?"
Online music licensing is a tangle of publishers, labels, and pre-existing licensing agreements. Last but not least are the poor artists battling to get some slice of the pie when many of these agreements call for drastically reduced royalty rates. And that doesn't even count for the various global sub-agreements that come along with the rights to even a single song.
There's a reason why even Apple - who is the 800-pound gorilla of online music - took several years and had protracted negotiations with lots of associated parties to get iCloud up and running. This stuff ain't easy. If Apple - with their leverage and pre-existing relationships - had to put in the work to make this happen, HP is going to have put in overtime. And that's the way it should be.
Like I said with the original story why is HP trying to re-invent things that they don't do well. Use Zune, or Amazon or Google Music .... strike that can't use Zune as they are competing with MS, can't use Google as they are competing with Google ... Use Amazon. If you look at all the pad videos they produced their is a total lack of any music solution. If they can do it better than the other players fine, I just don't think they can given the effort to get these products to market so far.
I expect them to do both. Bring in their own service AND at the same time let companies like Spotify, Amazon etc. offer their service on their devices.
The problem with all those services is the following:
- They are all just regional (Spotify not even in whole Europe, nor in America, Amazon not in Europe, Google neither etc.)
- They would depend on them to provide the Apps and to support them
- Brings us to next point: They would also depend on them featurewise, they don't know if Spotify on webOS can do the same service as on iOS, also nobody knows what an Amazon Cloud Player would become once Amazon has it's own Tablet
- They wouldn't control the whole experience (as everybody is trying right now). Also people would have to register to multiple services
- It would make it easier for the customer (us) to switch the device easily and have the same service on somebody elses OS (no lock-in).
Of course, as letting those services on your device also has a lot of advantages (which I won't count down now) it makes perfectly sense for them to approach both ways.
I don't understand what HP is doing here. Why they don't offer a simple cloud bandwith for their webOS users to sync all pics and music from their phone or tablet to other devices that use same webOS profile?
Or HP wants to enter "buy music from me" industry?
Yeah, I do not see a reason why they couldn't offer the same functionality as Google Music but allow Amazon to be their front end to buy music, unless Amazon doesn't want to.
This has nothing to do with music, but this will give an example of how HP is going to sell its HPwebOS based mobile tools, like thousands of them, just like that (like as a matter-of-factly ).
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Avista-Renews-Longterm-bw-1817904773.html?...
I'm going to need to get a hands on with the touchpad before purchase. Lack of apps will make me want to check the power of the browser for me. If I can get Grooveshark/Twimbow/Youtube/Google Music to play just fine in the browser, than I'll be set. I would have added Netflix but they are always on the gun on denying services through mobile browsers XD
Isn't that actually Hulu?
Netflix doesn't have to deny since they use Silverlight which no mobile browsers I know of support, hence the need for dedicated apps.
Why doesn't HP just go and buy Rhapsody? It's a great service that I susbscribed to for years before I got my Pre and let it go because they didn't have a webOS compatable app (they have one for iOS and Android).
Build an app, which shouldn't be that hard since I keep hearing that porting existing apps to webOS is supposed to be easy.
Bang, they have a fully formed, user friendly music app that they could have on the Pre, TouchPad, Veer, Pre2, and Pre3 within 30 days.
**edit** of course buying Rhapsody is not like running to the store for milk, so instead how about they just pay Realnetworks big money to develope a special app for webOS. This doesn't have to be that hard.
how long will the touchpad battery last?
"Obviously, with partnerships like Beats Audio, HP takes music seriously, but they know it’s just one part of a complete package of services." Lolwut?
Beats Audio isn't very good. If they took music seriously, their partner wouldn't be a company that makes overpriced, low quality, cans. It would be a real player in the industry. As it stands, they take gimmicky marketing hype seriously.
But I digress, do they need to do any negotiation to at least have the service to the point where I can upload the music that I already own for streaming use? I never plan to buy from them any way, I either buy a CD for a lossless rip, or get my music from 7digital. Just let me upload what I own!
But.. HP has Scale!!1
Hp had to wait to see what Apple did first so they could copy it, just like they did with touchpad. Unfortunately for touchpad they copied ipad 1 and not ipad2. HP will always be playing catchup because they lack apples creative vision.
GlennBeck,
HP touchPad is cloud connected and ready from the day it comes out of the box, updates over the air and integrates 3rd Party cloud Apps at core-OS level through webOS Synergy. iPads are tethered to a single PC, update through iTunes and do not integrate 3rd Party apps at core OS function level.
iOS 5 is trying to address things that are non-issues for HP's platform out of the box. Your comment doesn't make much sense when the facts are analyzed.
Isn't the exact same true for Touchpad, in that it's trying to address things that are non-issues for iPad out of the box? This article's subject matter being one of them?
iOS 5 does integrate Twitter at the core OS function level, isn't tethered to a PC, and doesn't need iTunes. When is HP going to take care of the laundry list of comparative shortcomings THEY have? In the coming months?
iPad has hundreds of thousands of apps. TouchPad has 10,000 (most of which are sport fan apps and books converted to webos app).
Ipad will have the most revolutionary cloudbased OS ever created. iPad has Itunes, touchpad has amazon music? What good is HP's cloud syncing, they can't even give OTA update to Pre2's. HP CAN'T (or wont) deliver updates.
Don't act like apple is playing catchup with touchpad. Apple looks at it and laughs. It's not even competition to them. It will not be for a long time no matter how much HP pays to be the "Top Trend" on twitter. Apple does nt need to manufacture hype about their products, apple is the Hype.
You Love HP, I know, you probably work for HP. But you have to at least be realistic. iPad2 is way ahead of Touchpad.
hmm...you mean hp copied the iPAD the same way iPAD copied the Dell tablet that was out in the 1990s? Come on man, iPAD wasn't and never will be the first tablet on the market. The one thing apple is good at however is stealing other ideas, tweaking them and then advertising their product like they invited it or something. I give major props to Apple's marketing team because they could sell salt to a slug!
It isnt like this is the first time the music industry is negotiating these arrangements.
I can see that the first few times it would take a number of years. Now it should be a formality as there is precedent.
I can't imagine HP is asking for something that has not been agreed before with Apple, Amazon, Pandora, Spotify, Rdio, etc etc.
So you think once they agree to it with, say, Apple, any company can come along, do a Find/Replace with their name in lieu of Apple's in the paperwork, and - presto - they have a legal cloud music store?
Why do you think GrooveShark's catalog of songs is not equivalent to Rdio's and Rdio's is not equivalent to MOG's? Just for the fun of it?
No, that is not what I said.
What I said was, there is precedent established, and therefore it should be easier and shouldnt be an issue given that I am sure HP is promising standard income stream and protection assurances to try and get as full a catalog as possible. Other providers probably provide lower income and protection assurances, hence the differences in catalogs.
However, the point remains those are precedents and therefore I am sure there is an amount of standardization in what people are paying or offering in terms of rights protection.
Precedent doesn't matter much. There are a kazillion labels under these groups, and many publishers beyond them. They license their music on an individual basis to whomever they think will provide the best monetization of their work.
But I assure you the rates and deals that, say, Apple was able to negotiate will provide little precedent with what they will expect HP or another unestablished player to play. They are starting from scratch, which makes no sense to me, but hey....
Everyone starts somewhere, and that is where all the other providers started from.
I never mentioned Apple solely as setting the precedent. There are other much smaller providers too that have been able to negotiate with the kazillion of labels and many publishers.
As multiple providers have previously been able to negotiate with the kazillion labels and many publishers about how best to monetize their work... there is precedent...