According to The Guardian, Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha blurted out Google’s secret while talking about his company’s upcoming Xoom tablet: “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.”
Motorola’s upcoming $800 Xoom tablet, might go on “pre-sale” as early as February 20. It will be one of the first machines to use the new Android Honeycomb operating system. According to The Guardian, Jha says the Google Music service “will rely on Honeycomb.”
The clues have been accumulating: Google already demonstrated an online music service last May at its I/O Co nference, and Honeycomb includes a “Google Music” app. We even saw alleged screen shots of the service last month.
Billboard, calling Google Music “the worst-kept secret in the music industry,” says while Google’s been negotiating with record labels since last September, the service isn’t showing signs of launching soon. Billboard named a list of Google brass working to get record companies on board. In addition, a source told Billboard that Google’s looking to hire additional staff to handle major label licensing.
There’s a hurdle that must be crossed before Google’s vision of a cloud-based music service becomes reality: According to CNet, record companies must get on board with streaming and downloaded songs. If users want to buy a song and then be able to access it from any Internet-connected device via a “digital locker,” downloading (or streaming) must be allowed. Un til that thorny issue is...
