Hot on the heels of announcing its Apple publishing competitor One Pass, Google will also go head to head with iTunes with a new music content provider. According to Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha, Google’s new music service may be wrapped into the Honeycomb OS.
“If you look at Google Mobile services [via Android] today, there’s a video service, there’s a music service – that is, there will be a music service,” Jha reported to The Guardian at Mobile World Congress. It’s been awhile since any talk of a Google music streaming service was discussed, although it’s apparently been in development. Yesterday’s One Pass announcement lends further credibility to the idea that Google is clearly ready to challenge Apple’s hold over the content provider-publisher relationship, and iTunes is part of this.
Billboard also recently released the names of executives believed to be working on Google Music, which includes the likes of VP of engineering Andy Rubin. According to the report, Rubin has personally been in touch with music industry execs and spoken about the service, which would also offer an online store. A music streaming service has allegedly been in the works at Google for awhile, and would defer from the traditional syncing function in favor of cloud storage. The Motorola Xoom should debut at the end of this month, and anyone willing to pony up the hefty pricetag will find out first hand if Honeycomb includes a Google music application.
From the sounds of it, Google really is preparing to take on Apple’s publishing product on all fronts. But seeing as the proposed Google Music service will be packaged with Honeycomb, the rivalry will only play out in the tablet arena for the time being. Sony and Rhapsody have already expressed their, shall we call it displeasure, with Apple – and the company’s new subscription plan isn’t making it any friends. If there were ever a time to challenge iTunes, now is it.
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