Sony to support MP3 tunes to silence iPod fans
Reuters
Thursday, September 23, 2004 at 1745 hours IST
London, September 23: In a major strategic shift, consumer electronics giant Sony Corp said on Thursday its digital music devices will soon play MP3 song files.
The Walkman creator has long insisted its digital music players support only its proprietary ATRAC format, a move that has annoyed some Sony aficionados and allowed more accommodating music players like Apple Computer's iPod to dent Sony's long established dominance in the portable music business.
The MP3 format is far and away the most commonly used digital music format, one that is supported by most major device manufacturers.
"It will be done within a short while," Robert Ashcroft, Sony Europe's senior vice president of network services, told Reuters.
