Apple Lands Major Content Delivery Deal With Sun & Ericsson

by , 8:00 AM EST, February 13th, 2002

Apple, Sun, and Ericsson announced a partnership to deliver wireless media. Apple made the announcement yesterday (Feb. 12, 2002) stating that the partnership was formed to provide wireless media solutions based on standards. Note the gratuitous (but very cool) slam at the proprietary streaming technologies used by some other companies made by Phil Schiller in the fluff quote that we left in the text below. From Apple:

Apple, Ericsson and Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced a relationship that will enable network operators to deliver standardized multimedia content to a variety of wireless devices including mobile phones and PDAs. Drawing on Apple's leadership in content creation, Sun's expertise in content delivery and Ericsson's experience in wireless infrastructure, the Ericsson Content Delivery Solution will expand the market for streaming media, opening new distribution channels for content providers.

This standards-based solution is an end-to-end platform that includes: Apple's QuickTime for content creation and encoding, Sun's reliable and scalable software and systems to enable content distribution, and Ericsson's ability to provide mobile operators with a full infrastructure and services solution.

"The Content Delivery Solution will open up new revenue streams for operators by providing users with high quality multimedia services, such as movie clips and instant news on demand," said Torbjörn Nilsson, senior vice president, Ericsson Marketing and Strategic Business Development. "The cooperation with Apple and Sun ensures availability of multimedia content, thus bridging the media industry with the mobile community."

Apple, Ericsson and Sun believe open standards are critical to bringing revolutionary technology to new markets and to delivering the future of mobile data services. All three companies are leaders in their industries in the development and use of open standards. Ericsson is a founding member of the 3GPP, and Apple and Sun are co-founders of the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA). Both the 3GPP and ISMA are organizations dedicated to ensuring interoperable, standards-based technologies and products in the market. Additionally, QuickTime was chosen by the International Organization for Standards (ISO) as the file format for MPEG-4.

"Working with Ericsson and Sun is the perfect example of how using open standards can bring powerful technology to consumers and open new markets for businesses," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "We're excited that Ericsson chose QuickTime for the Content Delivery Solution. QuickTime is widely used by content developers, and the Mac is the platform of choice for the creative community."

"The rapidly expanding content delivery market requires industrial-strength, readily scaling open systems which are the heart of Sun's business," said Ann Wettersten, vice president of Sun's Wireless and Content Delivery Networks Group. "We're pleased to join Apple and Ericsson in enabling the delivery of rich media services that enable the wireless lifestyle."

Apple has not added any additional information on this development to its Web site other than the press release.

The Mac Observer Spin:

Note that fiery little salvo against Microsoft's Windows Media, which uses a proprietary encoding system whose main purpose is to allow Microsoft to embed encryption and other technologies that the RIAA and MPAA (and various and sundry other copyright holders) want in order to limit your use of digital content. It's other purpose is to lock people in to the Windows Media Player, just as Apple's own QuickTime is designed to do for the QuickTime player. The difference is that Apple has opted for a more open approach that uses a standards-based approach instead of trying to impose a standard. This isn't your father's Apple in that regard. That the company was able to have MPEG-4 based around QuickTime (in part) is certainly germane to the discussion, but it does not change the fact that MPEG-4 is a standard.

In any event, this is quite the coup for Apple. The company has not been too adept in arranging partnerships of this sort in the past, and we hope this marks merely the first of many such developments. Ericsson is not the biggest cell-phone manufacturer, but they *are* a big player in that industry. It can be hoped that Apple can leverage this deal in order to work out something with Nokia, Motorola, or some other player.

Why should we care about whether or not Apple gets to play a part in delivering movies that most of us don't want to our cell phones? It's all about mind share and market presence. If Apple can provide a great solution to Ericsson, they will show that they aren't just a niche computer maker with that crazy dude in the turtleneck for a CEO. Also, every Ericsson phone that has QuickTime capabilities built into it means another person who will be seeing the QuickTime logo. Most of those Ericsson users will not be Mac users too. In the battle for mind share, that's a Big Deal™.

Speaking of big deals, it was about three years ago (don't hold us to the specific date as this is just idle commentary) when Sun's CEO Scott McNealy referred to Apple as a bit player when commenting on his opinion that Sun was the only company left to stand up to Microsoft.

Apple Computer