Sony BMG Rootkit --- to increase online sales?

SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT - cp.sonybmg.com/xcp

The announcements this week about the ROOTKIT have seemed endless - that it is trojanware, that it was safe, that there are ROOTKIT viruses, then Sony released a removal tool and then the news that you can swap the CD!

What this does for consumer confidence is boost doubt that the medium is 'safe' and potentially affect the CD sales in record stores and we will be needing to watch how 'quiet' the Christmas trading period is to gather if there is negative affect.

We can expect legal download services from Napster to iTunes and even the mobile fulltrack download (FTMD) services to see some growth- or if this stay steady, we have to assume those customers buying music from retailers have either stopped buying or moved to other P2P services.

Mobile FTMD and PC interoperability is set to be the biggest hot topic for 05/06 as consumers push for easier file management within their chosen music library. IF only the operators would see this and make it open source so that users could switch between winamp, Windows Media player or iTunes -- if they so choose.

It's all a matter of wait and see