Omnifone was a UK-based company that was an independent provider of cloud-based unlimited music services to consumer electronics vendors, mobile carriers, Internet service providers and consumer brands including RIM,Paid Content: 25 August 2011: RIM Breaks Social Ground With Its New BBM Music Service, Sony, HP, and rara.com.BBC News, 13 December 2011.
Omnifone enabled legitimate cloud-based unlimited music consumption and a viable alternative to piracy across multiple in-home, in-car, mobile and PC platforms, having launched its MusicStation-powered unlimited music services across five continents on a wide range of devices.
On 4 May 2016 the company was placed into administration, laying off a substantial part of its staff and looking for a buyer, whereupon the company ceased its operations. Some of its assets have been acquired by Apple.
Licensing Omnifone operated licensed music services in 34 markets for its customers, which included Sony Music Unlimited, Guvera, SiriusXM and rara.com.
In June 2007 Omnifone secured the first international licensing agreements for unlimited music services with all four major music labels; Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Music.EMI: 14 June 2007: MusicStation Goes Live
In January 2011 Omnifone secured Germany's first global subscription licensing with GEMA. In July 2012 Omnifone licensed and launched Sony Entertainment Network's Music Unlimited service in Japan, the region's ever first global music subscription service.
Services MusicStationMusicStation was Omnifone's multi-award-winningOmnifone Awards unlimited music service platform. The cloud-based technology platform worked across a wide range of different digital device types and was tailored specifically for each market, platform and partner.Screen Digest: 17 February 2009: Omnifone unveils MusicStation Next Generation Omnifone provided a number of different variants of MusicStation:
Omnifone's Desktop applications enabled consumers to stream, download, play and share music, direct to their desktop computer. The service was provided in partnership with personal computer vendors, mobile carrier networks, and broadband providers.CMU: 3 April 2009: Omnifone launch combined mobile/PC unlimited tunes service in Hong Kong MusicStation Desktop Edition provided a personalised user experience, which featured play-based music recommendations, connected community services and features, and an automatic back-up of private and public playlists to the cloud, plus online search and discovery capabilities. The service was able to synchronise with all other MusicStation-powered services and mobile devices via the cloud. In April 2009 Hutchison Telecom became the first Omnifone partner to introduce MusicStation Desktop Edition to users in Hong Kong on its 3 network provided 'in concert' with MusicStation Mobile Edition providing unlimited access to music across mobile and PC. In January 2010 MusicStation launched across Europe on HP desktop and laptop PCs in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Omnifone provided a range of white label and co-branded mobile apps for all major mobile platforms including Android, iOS, Symbian, Windows Mobile and Java. Omnifone partnered with mobile carriers and handset manufacturers to deliver mobile app based services which give consumers the ability to stream, download, play and share unlimited amounts of music, direct-to-mobile. MusicStation was pre-installed by partner carriers or downloaded for free from carrier portals such as Vodafone Live!. Omnifone rolled out mobile apps with partners across five continents with Vodafone UK, Australia and New Zealand, Telenor Sweden,Telenor Sweden MusicStation 3 Hong Kong, Vodacom South Africa.Vodacom MusicStation South Africa
Funding Omnifone was privately funded by the company's founders Rob Lewis, Phil Sant and Mark Knight with additional funding from diversified alternative investment firm .
Partnership with Gracenote Omnifone announced a partnership with Gracenote in January 2009 to bring interoperable cloud based unlimited music services to multiple device platforms including in-car, in-home, PC and mobile devices. A demonstration of the Omnifone/Gracenote technology won a Best of CES award at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2009 followed a year later by an announcement at CES 2010 that Omnifone had introduced digital music services with Gracenote technology in 20 countries in 2009.
History UK entrepreneurs Rob Lewis, Phil Sant and Mark Knight established Omnifone in January 2003 after more than seven years working together in the internet space founding software development company Cromwell Media (sold to InterX for £850m in 2000) and IT industry news site Silicon.com (sold to NASDAQ-listed CNET Networks, part of CBS in 2001). The trio founded Omnifone to enable the next generation of digital content services to be delivered globally. The company spent four years developing its unlimited music service platform before announcing MusicStation in February 2007.
14 January 2003: British Entrepreneurs Rob Lewis, Phil Sant and Mark Knight form Omnifone 12 February 2007: Omnifone announces MusicStation 14 June 2007: MusicStation goes live with its first rollout in Sweden with Telenor 22 October 2007: MusicStation launches in Hong Kong with 3 1 November 2007: MusicStation launches in South Africa with Vodacom 1 November 2007: MusicStation launches in the UK with Vodafone 12 February 2008: Omnifone launches MusicStation Max, a pre-licensed unlimited music phone development programme with LG signed up as a handset manufacturer 15 September 2008: MusicStation launches in New Zealand with Vodafone 22 September 2008: MusicStation launches in Australia with Vodafone 24 September 2008: Omnifone announces partnership with Sony Ericsson to power PlayNow plus, its pre-licensed unlimited downloads service across Walkman mobiles 14 November 2008: Sony Ericsson launches PlayNow plus in Sweden with Telenor 8 January 2009: Omnifone announces partnership with Gracenote to bring unlimited music to multiple device platforms 12 January 2009: Omnifone powered in-car entertainment system CarStars wins CNET 'Best of CES' Car Tech award at the 2009 International Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas; the largest consumer electronics event in the world 16 February 2009: Omnifone announces MusicStation Next Generation unlimited music service for ISPs to fight piracy online, confirming reports that it is in discussions with BSkyB as its first ISP customer 13 March 2009: Sony Ericsson launches PlayNow plus in Switzerland with Swisscom 2 April 2009: MusicStation Desktop Edition launches in Hong Kong 23 April 2009: Sony Ericsson launches PlayNow plus in Singapore with SingtelCrave.com: 23 April 2009: Sony Ericsson announces PlayNow plus in Singapore 9 June 2009: Sony Ericsson launches PlayNow plus in Austria with Orange 8 September 2009: Sony Ericsson launches PlayNow plus in The Netherlands with T-Mobile 14 October 2009: Sony Ericsson launches PlayNow plus in Hungary with T-Mobile 19 October 2009: BSkyB launches Sky Songs streaming and downloads service in the UKForrester: 12 October 2009: Sky Songs: First Take 23 October 2009: Sony Ericsson launches PlayNow plus in Brazil with Vivo 9 November 2009: Sony Ericsson launches PlayNow plus in Mexico with Telcel20 March 2010: Seusers.com: Pasos para poner PlayNow plus 20 November 2009: Sony Ericsson launches PlayNow plus in Croatia with T-Mobile20 November 2009: Trading Markets: T-Mobile introduces Sony Ericsson PlayNow Plus in Croatia 21 November 2009: Sony Ericsson launches PlayNow plus in Singapore with M1 8 January 2010: Omnifone extends relationship with Gracenote, allows for cloud-based music solutions in more than 30 countries in 2010 25 January 2010: Omnifone announces partnership with HP for MusicStation on PCs in 10 countries across Europe 15 February 2010: Omnifone announces MusicStation for Android 16 February 2010: Omnifone first to encode its global music catalogue into Dolby Pulse file format for cloud based digital music services in 2010 16 April 2010: Omnifone appoints Jeff Hughes as CEO 22 December 2010: Sony launches Q Music Unlimited cloud music service powered by Omnifone in the UK and Ireland 22 January 2011: Sony launches Q Music Unlimited cloud music service powered by Omnifone in France, Germany, Italy and Spain 17 February 2011: Sony launches Q Music Unlimited cloud music service powered by Omnifone in the US, Australia and New Zealand 25 August 2011: RIM launches BBM Music social music service in beta – powered by Omnifone in the US, Canada and the UK 13 December 2011: rara.com launches across Europe and the USA – powered by Omnifone 14 December 2011: rara.com launches across New Zealand – powered by Omnifone[PC World (New Zealand): 14 December 2011: http://pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/pcw.nsf/news/streaming-music-service-launches-in-nz ] 4 May 2016: Omnifone Group Ltd and Omifone Ltd placed in Administration (bankruptcy) 7 November 2016: Apple hired 16 employees and purchased select technology from Omnifone, player in streaming music services.
Locations Omnifone was headquartered in Brook Green, London, with offices in Asia Pacific and the US.
References
External links Official website