In a move that will surely make lots of O2 UK subscribers happy, Ericsson and Napster today unveiled the availability of Napster Mobile for the largest UK mobile carrier. From now on, the British subscribers of O2 can access Napster's huge catalog that contains more than 5 million tracks, and search, preview and buy full-length songs to listen both on their mobile phones and on their PCs.

"This is another great example of our strategy of creating deep level partnerships with the best companies in the world to deliver compelling services to our customers," said Sally Cowdry, Marketing Director at O2 UK. "Working with the right partners at O2 UK is crucial to our success and we have joined forces with a leader in this space to bring our customers a high quality, great value service with the widest choice of songs available on mobile."

Napster Mobile comes with various complex features. For example, users can benefit from dual delivery, meaning they can get a copy of the purchased song on their handset and another copy on their PC. Moreover, the service includes a recommendation engine which can suggest users what songs to get, based on their music tastes.

Ericsson will be responsible for O2 UK Napster Mobile's system integration, maintenance, operations and content management.

Talking about the new agreement, Jacqueline Hey, Managing Director at Ericsson UK, said: "We're happy to see this second launch of Napster Mobile in the O2 group, following that of O2 Ireland in 2006. Music is an important area for telecom operators and we believe that O2 UK's subscribers will find this a very attractive service. Napster Mobile combines the strength of Ericsson's multimedia offering and hosted services capabilities. Combining the two enables us to provide a very attractive offering for operators to launch to their end-users."

Brad Duea, president of Napster, declared that Napster is looking forward to offering a high-quality music experience to O2 UK's subscribers, adding that this agreement is an excellent extension of the company's on-line service in the UK.

Ericsson and Napster are at their second successful collaboration this year, the first one being the launch of Napster Mobile in Chile, via Entel PCS.