…said the sales guy/gal in the Carphone Warehouse near you. It is one of the big pieces in the industry now. Nokia try to push iTunes off the throne. Nokia is pissing off the mobile operators and as a response Nokia comes with music is not let into the retail distribution of the big operators in the UK.

Facts are that Nokia will now try to launch Comes With Music on very few handsets. Two that I know of, I might be wrong so please correct me. In addition the only distribution channels known to date is Carphone Warehouse. Admittedly a very big and strong channel. But is it enough? More to the point what do they pay the staff in bonus for each sold Comes With Music phone?

My most positive take on this is that Comes With Music will get users enough to not make it a complete embarrassment, but it will cost a lot in the distribution part of the value chain. If there are no extra bonuses for the sales staff, the phone with Comes With Music will not fly off the shelves. Then add the costs for the music itself and the risk for a loss making proposition is quite high.

The negative take then? Well, despite that Nokia is better than I will ever be in handset distribution and the economics of it (though I have been the e-commerce manager EMEA at Brightpoint, a global mobile phone distributor), they might decide that they will not give incentives to the sales staff and there will be very low sales and a total embarrassment and the record labels might cancel the contracts with Nokia if they do not believe in the concept.

What I hope is that I am wrong and Nokia Comes With Music becomes a success. It will gain the entire industry but most of all the consumer who will have a better choice. I just can see the setup for a success at the moment. But I would be pleased to be wrong.