Sony vs Apple: The Digital War

Guns have been blazing over the past couple of days as tensions heat up between two major companies in the technology industry: Sony and Apple. Many are calling it a war between the two companies as they both strive to be the number one distributor of digital music, movies, games and subscriptions for personal electronic devices.

Sony is a huge company that is noted for its number of popular signed music artists and electronic devices. Apple, though a younger company than Sony, is one of the biggest and most popular in the world, most known for Mac computers, their online music store, iTunes, and the creation of its MP3 players, iPods.

The feud reached its peak in late January when Sony became less than pleased after Apple blocked an e-book application for the iPhone and iTouch. The statement released was that the application breached the Apple system for content purchasing.

After the incident, Sony reacted to this by hinting at pulling all their artists and games from the iTunes store. This would be a huge move for Sony as they sign popular artists such as Beyonce, Michael Jackson, Usher, Ke$ha, Train, Three Days Grace, John Mayer, Adam Lambert and Glee. They want to move these artists over to their own music store called Music Unlimited, which is currently available in the UK, Germany, France and Spain. This could potentially harm Apple’s popularity if it ever happens.

Michael Ephraim, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment said “If we do [get mass acceptance] then does SONY MUSIC need to provide content to iTUNES? ...Currently we do. We have to provide it to iTUNES as that's the format right now ...Publishers are being held to ransom by APPLE and they are looking for other delivery systems, and we are waiting to see what the next three to five years will hold.”

Sony would also make its applications and games unusable on Apple products in the event that their store takes off. Apple has yet to retaliate to this statement; instead they are focused on patenting a new media library software, trying to extend their range of product availability even more.

It looks like the two companies will continue to quarrel in upcoming months, and many are looking out to see who will make the next move. Sony is confident they have what it takes to be the next best music distributor, but will have to fire everything they have if they want to take down the super power of the business, Apple.

Sources:

• Digitial Retail Rumbles
• Could Sony Win?
• Sony Hints It Will Abandon iTunes