Omnifone Debuts MusicStation Service for Android on Google Nexus One

BARCELONA, Spain--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Omnifone, digital music service provider to the likes of HP, BSkyB, Sony Ericsson and Vodafone, announces the debut of its award winning digital music service MusicStation for the Android platform. The company will debut this new service by running live unlimited music demonstrations on Google Nexus One and HTC handsets at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona: Hall 7 Stand C69.

“With fully localised catalogues in more than 20 countries, and the widest and most sophisticated device type support, Omnifone can provide fully licensed* digital music services in more countries and on more device platforms, including Android, than any other digital music service provider”

MusicStation for Android offers Android consumers immediate over the air unlimited access to a catalogue of over 6.5 million tracks, with features including intelligent progressive download support, music search & discovery features, social network community features, advanced music recommendations, artist biographies, real time music news and charts, and full integration with the native media player and third party applications.

By utilising Omnifone’s MusicStation Android API suite, Android device vendors, independent application developers and mobile network operators can rapidly develop their own unlimited and a-la-carte music services on Android. The open MusicStation Android API suite provides Omnifone’s partners with complete flexibility to utilise the full range of features offered by MusicStation within their own content or entertainment service. A MusicStation Android application can be co-branded or fully partner branded.

"With fully localised catalogues in more than 20 countries, and the widest and most sophisticated device type support, Omnifone can provide fully licensed* digital music services in more countries and on more device platforms, including Android, than any other digital music service provider," said Rob Lewis, CEO of Omnifone, ”The popularity and growth of the Android platform will be substantial. Omnifone is delighted to be able to deliver the richest and most sophisticated music capability on mobile, and one that will work effortlessly on any manufacturer’s Android device”.

With the ability to easily integrate unlimited music playback into 3^rd party Android applications, the MusicStation Android API unlocks the potential for novel features as yet unseen in legitimate portable music services.

The fully-featured MusicStation Android API provides all of the award-winning MusicStation digital music functionality and is shipped with detailed documentation and a fully customisable touch screen unlimited music application (source code supplied).

Notes to editors

About The MusicStation Platform
The award-winning MusicStation Platform is the set of music services provided by Omnifone to enable the company’s partners to rapidly develop cloud-based unlimited music offerings on a diverse range of devices. Each device is automatically synchronized with the cloud and the users’ music experience follows them wherever they go.

MusicStation Application Resident Services (MARS)
Omnifone provides partners wishing to deliver global state-of-the-art digital music services a sophisticated suite of APIs (application programming interfaces) enabling the rapid creation of unlimited digital music offerings based on Omnifone's MusicStation Platform, on almost any device type. These API’s form the MusicStation Application Resident Services (MARS).

MusicStation MARS is now available for Android, Java Mobile, Windows and the Web. Omnifone will soon release MusicStation MARS for the iPhone, Windows Mobile and Linux.

The MARS suite of API’s implement MusicStation WARP, Omnifone’s accelerated RESTful protocol, to enable global CDN edge-cached communication and cloud-based digital music solutions across multiple device platforms.

The MusicStation MARS suite of APIs increase development flexibility and reduce time to market for partners, enabling the delivery of revolutionary unlimited music services to consumers globally.

Features include unlimited music access, a-la-carte purchasing, cloud-synchronization, as well as providing music search and discovery, advanced user & Gracenote music recommendations, social network community features, tailored news, playlists, multiple file formats and encryption standards with in-built support for multiple DRMs including OMA, WMDRM and OmniPlay (Omnifone's own label approved DRM) as well as state-of-the-art real time reporting. The MARS suite of API’s enable full interoperability with all other MusicStation powered cloud-based digital music services, whether provided to mobile phones & devices, PC, in-home or in-car.

About Omnifone
Omnifone is the world’s leading independent provider of cloud based unlimited music services for consumer electronics vendors, ISPs, automotive and mobile companies including HP, BSkyB, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone, Hutchison Telecom and Telenor.

MusicStation®, Omnifone’s multi-award winning cloud based unlimited music service is utilised by partners in 20 countries worldwide, enabling legitimate unlimited music access direct-to-device across a wide range of in-home, in-car, mobile and PC device platforms, tailored specifically to partner requirements.

At CES 2009 Omnifone announced a partnership with Gracenote Inc., winning a ‘Best of CES’ award for an in-car entertainment system with MusicStation unlimited music service. In 2008 Omnifone won Best Mobile Music Service at the GSMA Global Mobile Awards, Best Mobile Internet Service at the Mobile Industry Awards, the Juniper Research Future Mobile Award’s Gold Award for Mobile Music, the Red Herring Global 100 Award and in 2007 the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) Music Service Meffy. The company is based at Island Studios, London with regional HQs in Asia Pacific. www.omnifone.com

*Omnifone has international license agreements in place with all four major music labels and leading independents and has agreements with rights holders, publishers and collections societies in each international territory.