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Vodafone Follows 02 in Endorsing SDC Java DRM
Secure Digital Container AG (SDC) has today announced that Vodafone D2, an affiliate of the world's largest mobile telecommunications network company, has chosen SDC's Java Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology to power its new Music over Mobile service in Germany. The service, announced today at CeBIT and due to be launched in July 2004, marks Vodafone's first entrance into the full length music track download arena, and follows the successful launch of the SDC-powered Music over Mobile service from O2 in November 2003. A first prototype of the service will be shown on the Vodafone D2 booth at CeBIT (close to hall 25). The German music offer will service Vodafone's estimated 25 million German customers.
The carrier's full length, over the air, music track download service will enable customers to select, retrieve and store the latest chart hits to their mobile phone. Complementing the Vodafone live! Service, an easy-to-use consumer service, bringing customers a world of colour, sound and pictures, launched in October 2002, Vodafone's Music over Mobile download service marks the company's next step on the road to providing its customers with the most complete mobile experience currently available. Vodafone D2 will base its music delivery service on French company Musiwave's retail system. Musiwave will provide both the retail infrastructure and the player, with SDC providing its Java DRM technology to give a complete solution. The Siemens SX1 mobile phone, a Symbian Series 60 device, will be one of the first devices Vodafone will enable to use the Music service.
The Vodafone D2 decision marks a further delivery on SDC's stated development roadmap, outlined at the 2004 3GSM world congress in Cannes. The SDC roadmap outlines a clear pathway of mobile and fixed network device implementation supporting SDC Java DRM, to enable the mobile mass market for secure content distribution throughout 2004 and beyond. Through its unique DRM architecture, SDC makes full DRM-protected mobile rich media content distribution a reality today, including legal copying to multiple devices, and super-distribution of full-length music tracks over mobile and broadband networks. Vodafone D2, Musiwave and SDC also uses the AAC+ codec for the new service which enables full length mobile music tracks to be delivered in very small file sizes (as small as 700KB). This enables consumers to maximise the potential of their devices storage, with the maximum number of music tracks able to be downloaded with no degradation in quality.
Michael Bornhäusser, CEO of SDC, commented "SDC is committed to driving easy, transparent and secure rich media content distribution over fixed and mobile networks. We believe that, only by working with content providers to address key concerns such as superdistribution and multi-device and operating system portability across various codecs, will rich media content distribution become a viable revenue stream for the mobile value chain. This announcement with Vodafone marks a further step to supporting our vision of real musical download today, making rich media content distribution a reality for consumers across the world. We are delighted that Vodafone has chosen SDC as the DRM technology to deliver its service now, and we are sure, that the service will be a great success in the German market for Vodafone D2."
Key to SDC's success in the DRM world is the unique, 1996 patented, technology- architecture behind its SDC Java DRM solution. This is Java-based, meaning that no client installation is required for the DRM part, facilitating fully-fledged DRM security and easy upgradeability to any mobile or fixed device. The full product suite offers multi-device functionality, including legal copying to multiple devices and super-distribution, download, streaming and progressive download DRM and secure burning in cooperation with NERO 6.0. All formats are supported, including AAC+, OGG Vorbis, MP3, MPEG1&2, MPEG4, Wave, Midi and MPEG21. Importantly, Digicont delivers DRM functionality AND content within the container, facilitating a user-related system based on multi-PKI handling. Digicont accords with the projected OMA Phase 2 standard, due to be available for mass implementation in late 2005.
Because of the massive deployment of Java on mobile phones, set top boxes and PCs, SDC Java DRM has the broadest native user base in the whole DRM industry. SDC Java DRM is also the only mobile DRM solution currently on the market to receive the endorsement of major content players including BMG, Warner Music, EMI, Sony Music and Universal. 18.03.2004, Contentmanager-Redaktion
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