Nokia encountered difficulties with DRM implementation

Feb 24, 2006 14:48 GMT  ·  By

Nokia postpones the launch of N91, the so called iPod killer, a music phone with a built-in 4 GB hard disk. The handset was supposed to be released last Christmas but it has been pushed back until the third quarter of 2006.

The reason had to do with the implementation of Microsoft's Windows Media DRM which proved to be more difficult than Nokia had anticipated. The N91 was intended to allow users to get music through the same interface whether from PC, over the air via 3G or GPRS, or from other phones via WiFi or Bluetooth.

Now it seems that Symtella, a Symbian port of the Gnutella peer-to-peer client, might not be included after all, with Nokia's spokesman speaking warily about sharing N91 playlists by Bluetooth or MMS. The shortage of features doesn't sound good for a phone already almost one year late.