Beats Audio is hoping to partner with AT&T when it launches Daisy, a streaming music initiative slated to go live this fall. Executives from both parties have allegedly met on numerous occasions; Beats Audio would benefit from AT&T’s mighty wireless presence by giving Daisy a platform to jump from, while AT&T customers could get a free trial period as part of the deal.
Beats co-founder and CEO Jimmy Lovine has carefully shopped his project around as final details are hammered out before launching. We previously heard Apple was at one point a suitor, but the Cupertino company obviously saw fit to go at it alone—it already has iTunes in its corner, after all. A company like AT&T, though, might make more sense for a newbie streaming service like Daisy.
Whereas All Access has Google’s enormous resources behind it, and iTunes Radio has, um, iTunes, Daisy is competing against each service—Spotify, Rdio, Pandora, etc.—with only its reputation for audio technology as its backbone. The company has created a niche marketshare with its accessories—it also has a running partnership with HTC—but that alone might not be enough to convince longtime users of an already established service to switch.
Compared to other services, it’s unclear how Daisy will differentiate itself. According to reports, it’ll focus on better music discovery. But seemingly every new streaming service says that very same thing. Even if it did create better algorithms for recommendations, Daisy would need that immediate market presence in order to gain a substantial following. AT&T could be Daisy’s first step.
If things don’t work out, Beats CEO will allegedly shop around to other carriers in search of support. We’re still months away from Daisy’s supposed fall launch, so there’s still plenty of time for a deal to be struck.
Source: CNET