Nokia's 'Comes with Music' to launch first in UK

Nokia's today announced that "Comes with Music" -- another step in its strategy to become "more like an Internet company" -- will launch in the UK first, and pre-orders for special edition 5310 are phones now being taken.

First unveiled last December, the latest potential competitor to Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Zune Marketplace will offer downloads of tunes that Nokia claims will belong to the user "for keeps."

After the one-month subscription to Comes with Music runs out, users will need to either buy a new phone or pay to renew the subscription in order to keep downloading music. However, music already downloaded will reportedly remain playable. Users will be able to swap the music between Nokia phones that support the service and Nokia software running on a PC. Users will be able to download tunes on to either device.

So far, though, the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic Comes With Music edition now listed on Carphone Warehouse is the only phone to be announced with support for the service.

The Comes With Music edition will be sold "in an exclusive range of new color combinations differentiating it from the regular Nokia 5310, which is already on sale," according to information posted on the Carphone Warehouse site.

The question of availability remains a little up in the air today. Although Nokia today said it plans an official event for the service in London on October 2, in a statement today, Andrew Harrison, UK CEO of the Carphone Warehouse, indicated that the new phone will only be available before Christmas. "We expect the Nokia Comes with Music to be the gift for Christmas and at the top of all shopping lists," Harrison said.

The Carphone Warehouse has also promised to sell tunes in the Nokia Music Catalog to subscribers at half price. However, pricing for the new phone has not been announced.

Nokia has been articulating plans to tackle Apple and Microsoft competitively since at least last spring. "Our goal is to act less like a traditional manufacturer, and more like an Internet company. Companies such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft are not our traditional competitors, but they are major forces that must be reckoned with," said Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, speaking at his company's annual meeting in May.

Over the past year or so, Nokia has launched several Internet-oriented products and services, including the Ovi online photo-sharing service, Nokia Maps, and Nokia's Internet Radio.

As announced last week, though, Nokia's upcoming N85 and N79 smartphones - which are slated for release in October -- will come with subscriptions to Ovi and Nokia Maps, but not to Comes with Music.

In July, Nokia inked a deal that adds Warmer Music to the previously signed Universal and Sony BMG on the list of major record labels supporting Comes with Music. Yet the company has not yet announced a similar deal with EMI, making EMI the only remaining holdout of the "big four."